Re-doing Bowie's Never Let Me Down - any precedents?

Re-recording the instrumentation and essentially re-imagining an album strikes me as an extraordinary thing to do - especially so after the death of the artist. Are there precedents that anyone knows of? Were they successful in improving the original?

 

Hopefully, someone will do Empire Burlesque after Bob’s gone.

 

No way, Empire Burlesque rocks. And Bob is immortal.

As to the OP, I can think of one such case, and a variation.

This album:



To quote:

"Groundbreaking New Elvis Album features 14 Original Performances of Gospel Songs with Newly-Recorded Instrumentation and Backing Vocals featuring Legendary Presley Alumnae including Darlene Love, Cissy Houston, The Imperials and The Stamps. Lisa Marie Presley Sings Duet with Her Father on Album’s Title Track"

Singing a duet with a deceased father is perhaps at another level (I find it a bit creepy, to be honest).

Then we have a variation with this:



Which is Lucinda totally redoing one of her past albums. It's a variation because she redid the vocals too.

 

Cheap Trick rerecorded their 1977 album In Color in 1998 with producer Steve Albini. Unfortunately it has never been granted an official release.

 

All those cash-in Hendrix albums after his death which added new drums bass and other stuff to his guitar and singing. I dunno if they improved them but I’m fairly sure the originals are now available to compare and contrast.

That wasn’t the question.

 

Oh Gawd!

 

Other examples: every remix ever made and released as a CD single B-side for a mediocre 90s Britpop band with a record label trying to appeal to the dance floor.

For instance (the caveat being that Pulp are far from mediocre):

 

There were some 1960s Zappa/Mothers of Invention albums that had new overdubs in the 1980s, which didn't go down too well with fans.

Did The Last Days of Pompeii (Nova Mob) or Kill City (Iggy Pop/James Williamson) get new overdubs for their reissues? Or were they just vastly different mixes using stuff that was recorded at the time, but mixed-out in the original release?

 

John Cale M:FANS, new version of Music For a New Society. However, Cale is still alive and did it himself, so not really comparable to the Bowie and Elvis things.

 

Off-topic, but just on this point, they concocted a duet between Natalie Cole and her deceased father Nat 'King' Cole on her 1991 album, Unforgettable.

 

Singing a duet with a living father can be a bit creepy too, i.e Somethin' Stupid by Frank & Nancy Sinatra, and Lemon Incest by Serge & Charlotte Gainsburg.

 

Aye, I’d love to hear Dark Eyes with synth stabs and Mark King on fretless bass.

 

No, but an interesting thing to do. Did he do it with the intention of improving it? I know Jeff Lynne and Squeeze have re-recorded their songs for different reasons.

 

Kate Bush did two albums over on "Directors Cut"

 

Another 'first' from Bowie.

 

In the case of Never Let Me Down it’s a case of making a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.

What they really need is Bowie to return from the Great Beyond and write some better songs. That’s the only way to improve NLMD.

 

Forgive me but - is this Bowie thing happening?

 

Yes - a redone version is in the new box set of his 80s work.

 

Have you heard the new take on Zeroes? There's a good song in there somewhere.

 

I haven’t, no.

 

Unless I'm much mistaken and I could be, this is the first time a re-recorded album has been offered exclusively alongside the original versions in a box set

 

Eric Andersen did something along these lines in 1966/1967:

 

Yes.
John & Yoko's "Double fantasy" album was re-released in 2010 in a new and "stripped down" version. Not unlike, technically, what they did with "Never let me down".

 

There are also songs. For the Queen album "Made in heaven", three songs that were already published saw their instrumentation redone, around the voice of Freddie which was kept.
Made in heaven
Heaven for everyone
and My life has been saved.

 

Isn’t the opposite true for King Crimson’s song Cadence and Cascade, where Fripp had Adrian Belew sing the song over the original backing.