Question about re-recording a classic album to avoid a bad contract ...

Roy Orbison re-recorded the "In Dreams" collection for Virgin, and Sandie Shaw did "Nothing Less Than Brilliant-The Best of Sandier Shaw" for EMI (this was a hybrid compilation mixing the re-records of older Pye material with later original recordings), both collections were VERY good and it's nice to listen to those versions sometimes. And Jackie DeShannon did a bunch of re-records for what I think is her own label, a couple of years ago, all nice acoustic versions of her hits...

Although, I do see the OP was considering complete albums versus hits compilations. In that case, Jethro Tull did do "Aqualung Live", and the New York Dolls camp weighed in with Syl Sylvain doing a remix of his first RCA album (as if it were a way to get around the availability of the actual masters from RCA) on a small label (The Dead Boys did this with Young, Loud and Snotty as well), and Johnny Thunders with LAMF (revisited).

 

One interesting case: John Kay & Steppenwolf made an '80s album called "Rock & Roll Rebels" for a short-lived label, and then re-recorded it as "Feed the Fire" in the '90s. One of the rare cases where the re-rec0rding was done for an audience rather than for licensing purposes. (John Kay claimed the original was rushed through with fake drums, etc).

 

John Prine owns the masters for the majority of his albums, except for the first four (plus a 5th, a greatest hits package) that came out on (and are still owned by) Atlantic. I assume this was his motivation for "Souvenirs", which contains re-recordings of many of his signature songs from the Atlantic days. All legal I'm sure, but in the end just a footnote in his discography.

 

Cracker also re-recorded songs for the Cracker "Greatest Hits Redux" album.
They were dropped by Virgin Records on bad terms (see the song "It Ain't Gonna Suck Itself"), and Virgin was going to release a greatest hits album, so they released their re-recorded version on the same day.
http://www.allmusic.com/album/greatest-hits-redux-mw0000345606

 

Gordon Lightfoot re-recorded a bunch of tunes for his two 'Gold' best-of comps. The first GH disc sounds OK, but on Gord's Gold 2 his versions were sung in a rather slurred way - not an improvement IMO.

 

Still Hungry rendered the original obsolete, imo.

 

If you're referring to any recordings by Journey with my friend Steve Augeri on lead vocals, he was the real deal.

"In 1998, Augeri was officially named the group’s fourth lead vocalist and the first "official" lead vocalist since the departure of Steve Perry. For the next eight years Augeri and the band toured almost constantly to reclaim their standing as one of America’s premier rock bands. The song "Remember Me," from the seven-times-platinum soundtrack album from the movie Armageddon, represents Augeri’s recording debut with the band, followed by the album Arrival in 2001, and the EP "Red 13", in 2002. The album Generations, released in 2005, would be his last studio album with the group, after his departure due to recurring vocal problems (from which he had been suffering since 2003) mid-tour in 2006. A final testament to his and the band’s success is attained when the live DVD of their Las Vegas concert, recorded in December 2000, titled Journey 2001, acquired platinum status."

Steve had already achieved some fame and fortune along with my other friend and fellow Norwalk, CT resident: Kevin Totoian. Together they formed Tall Stories and you may recall their big hit: "Wild On The Run" from their self-titled album in 1991 on Epic Records."

Tall Stories was nominated for “Best Debut Album,” and Augeri for “Best Debut Male Vocalist” at the 1992 New York Music Awards."

 

On the flip side, there have been a few bands that re-recorded albums just for the hell of it, too:

* Arlo Guthrie re-recorded "Alice's Restaurant" for its 30th anniversary. While his newfound cartoon-esque voice is slightly grating, the new rendition of the title track is just as worthwhile as the original, thanks to a new section where he discusses his Alice's Restaurant/Watergate conspiracy theory!

* Chumbawamba re-recorded "English Rebel Songs" 15 years after the original. I never quite understood this one, though I guess they felt the old version sounded a bit dated. (The new one had a couple more recent folk songs on it as well, where the original stopped in the 1900's.) I suppose I do understand them wanting to revisit this though - they were still considered punk when the original came out and sounded completely at odds with their other releases; but by the time of the remake, they were moving slowly into their strictly-folk output.

* Spinal Tap re-recorded the movie soundtrack for the "Back From The Dead" album..... and left a lot of people unimpressed, because the remakes were fairly weak ("Big Bottom" starts with digital drums, for God's sakes), and the absence of other worthwhile material such as the three unreleased "Break Like The Wind"-era tracks made it feel like a waste of time and money.

 

Dave Gilmour re-recorded the tune Money for the Pink Floyd compilation album A Collection of Great Dance Songs. I don't know for sure but I recall reading somewhere that it was due to a royalties issue. If you are very familiar with the original then it's a weird listen.

 

The Righteous Brothers rerecorded their hits after "Ghost" came out and even had the new (sales) and old (airplay) version of "Unchained Melody" in the Top 40 at the same time.

 

Oh yeah, that crappy remake of Unchained Melody on Curb Records which was heavily marketed at point of purchase without any disclaimer. They moved a ton of junk product that way...

 

If the band the OP is talking about is Orleans... please don't re-take this photo for the cover of the re-records (or actually... do it!):

 

Tangerine Dream. Edgar Feoese has gone back and re-recorded much of "The Virgin Years".

 

No this was clearly done for licensing purposes too. Most of the re-records ended up as downloadable content for Rock Band. The two songs that were re-interpreted on the proper album (the reggae Listen to the Flower People and Funky Sex Farm) were also released as straight re-records on iTunes and Amazon so now they can compete with the original record label with their alternate version of every album track.

I remember buying that album and realizing it was pretty much a waste since I own the original album but as soon as the songs popped up on Rock Band it made sense. It's basically a re-record augmented with an EP's worth of new material, and much of that "new" material was previously released in one form or another. The title track was a free MP3 on Tapster and the three-part Jazz Odyssey comes from the film itself.

 

From what I understand it was because Columbia (in the US) wanted to put "Money" on "A Collection of Great Dance Songs", but they didn't own that, EMI did. So they asked the band to redo it. I don't believe Wright was in the band at the time and Waters & Mason either weren't available or wouldn't do it, so Gilmour just did it... It's actually surprisingly close to the original, although it's obviously different...

 

Oh, I didn't know that about the Spinal Tap album. (In addition to the new material on the CD, "Saucy Jack" was released prior to the album as a SpinalTap.com exclusive.)

Shame, though - there are still unreleased Tap songs ("Just Spell My Name", "Back In The Harness", "Goat Boy") that we don't yet have. They should've included those, especially if it's the last full length LP we get from them, which seems likely.

 

Modern English re-recorded "I Melt With You" in 1990, presumably for their new label at the time (TVT). The re-record actually charted higher in the US than the well-known 1982 version (at #76, vs 78 for the original).

 

agreed - didn't like Gord's Gold 2 because his voice was already thinning out.

on Gord's Gold 1 - was "minstrel of the dawn" the only song not re-recorded? don't remember.
part of that deal was to add pedal steel - though the strings added (ribbon of darkness and for lovin' me) were badly out of tune - not matching the basic track.

did he really re-record for contractual reasons - or musical reasons?

 

"toad the wet sprocket" re-recorded about a dozen songs a few years ago for contractual reasons - and they sounded great.
called "all you want."
same band members.
fuller, more resonant sound with a fat bass guitar sound improvement.
only thing i didn't like was the guitar solo at the end of "i will not take these things for granted" - which was under-mixed and screwed the song's climax.

 

Good point, this thread is about contractual reasons and I don't think that's the case here.

From what I remember he wanted to have his older United Artists songs sound more contemporary, in line with his later Reprise songs. He didn't re-record ALL of the songs on this comp, but I forgot which one he did and did not.

This is what Wiki has to say (I know, I know... but this sounds pretty likely):

Gord's Gold is a compilation album released by Canadian singer Gordon Lightfoot in 1975.

It was the first Lightfoot compilation to feature music from his Warner Bros. Records. The album was originally released as a two-record album featuring re-recordings of his United Artists hits (tracks 1-10). This served to update his earlier recordings to the same style as his early 70s work and gives the album a level of consistency often lacking in similar compilations. Lightfoot's reasons for re-recording the United Artists tracks were explained in the liner notes as because "he doesn't like listening to his early work".

 

Chris Rea re-recorded a bunch of songs for A New Light Through Old Windows. My sister had this so these were the versions that I got to used to. Don't know if this was done because he didn't like the originals or because of a record label change.

 

Must have been the first, because he never changed labels, at least not in the UK and Europe. Although the Magnet label wound up as part of EastWest records.

Rea has gone on record that he didn't like the originals. Well, he said they could be bettered. For me, I grew up with the originals, so I kind of disliked the re-recordings for a long time. I have grown familiar with them by now, but I still don't like the fact that Rea tries hard to wipe these from collective memory. Several of these songs (Josephine, On the beach, Fool, I can hear your heart beat) were significant hits in various EU countries, but the originals are very hard to find by now. Heck, he even replaced the original hit version of Josephine from the CD counterpart of the original Shamrock diaries LP for a version that is hugely inferior. All IMO of course.

 

Def Leppard have or are doing this with Hysteria, at least, and have released a couple of the songs digitally. I can't remember which songs now, but one was nearly spot-on perfect and the other, well, not so. I saw their concert video last week (which will be out in a week) and over the credits they used "Love And Affection," another Hysteria track, which must be a re-recording, and it too was nearly identical. I don't know what the plans are here, though. If they've completed this, why not release the album? Perhaps they are going about it piece-meal. After all, it did take them nearly 3 years to record it the first time!