Van is an artist who refuses to look back. And everyone keeps telling him to. It's pretty obvious how he ended up the lovable curmudgeon we know today.
RICK SPRINGFIELD "Beautiful Feelings" From memory Rick disowned this - a version did eventually surface under a different name with the proper musical bed on all tracks... Beautiful Feelings is the eighth studio album recorded by Australian musician Rick Springfield in 1978.[2] At the height of Springfield's popularity, Mercury Records released the album in 1984 with the musical portions rerecorded and without Springfield's involvement.
Does anyone know if Blue Oyster Cult were peeved by the eventual release of the Stalk Forrest Group recordings?
Doubt this counts since supposedly he let it be known what should and shouldn't be released for the next few years, before his death. Still, I wonder if 'Spying Through A Keyhole' was part of that plan.
Curb Records has done it repeatedly - they never seem to care about annoying their artists and souring the relationships, usually when contracts are almost up or there are already problems. The main one I'm thinking of is when they released LeAnn Rimes' I Need You, a collection of random studio tracks, soundtrack songs, alt versions, etc., during litigation between Rimes and the label. Rimes publicly disowned the album right away - issuing a statement saying: "This album was made without my creative input, it consists largely of unfinished material and songs that didn't make other albums ... I want to make abundantly clear to you that this album is not a reflection of myself as an artist but is solely the conception of Curb Records, and for that I am truly and deeply sorry." Once litigation was complete, she ultimately revised the tracklist and approved its re-release. Curb also sued Tim McGraw over his album Emotional Traffic. It was his last contracted album for the label and they sat on it after he delivered it in 2010, suing him in 2011 for recording the material too early before delivering to the label. He countersued, and a judge granted him permission to record for another label. He'd been with Curb for more than 20 years. They've since gone to the McGraw well many times; they've released six different compilations of his Curb material since everything went south.
"Quiet Nights" by Miles Davis and Gil Evans. They never finished it or approved its release, but Columbia put it out anyway. Miles was so angry he did not talk to or employ producer Teo Macero forbm several years. Still, I really enjoy it for what it is, Once Upon A Summertime is a marvel, as is the unrelated quartet version of Summer Night, and outtake from Seven Steps To Heaven tagged on to fill out the running time - the album would otherwise have been a 20 minute EP.
Madonna's had a couple of unauthorized releases as well - not so much from her own label as from early-days collaborators trying to make a buck off her name. Otto Von Wernherr has released the same few backing vocals sung by Madonna in various "songs" on a variety of releases. She tried to stop them but lost so he's continued to rehash them. Here - suffer through this one!
I think the OP simply meant an album released against the artists wishes, given that he asks give reasons why the artist didn't want the album out in the first post. Well, in this case, one of the guitarists who played on the album sessions recalled that "Wolf was outraged by all of those electronics. He was angry, he was furious. During the sessions he would scowl and he was mad. Phil Chess came in and tried to console him" and the guitarist also mentions "One day, while we were in the sessions, the Wolf looked at me and he said, 'Why don't you take them wah wahs and all that other Schiit and go throw it off in a lake."
Yes Wolf wasn't totally happy with it, but there's no documentation or hints that he actually tried to stop its release or didn't want it released. He was a quite shrewd businessman and probably saw the value in "getting over" to the young white hippies, whatever reservations he might have had. Wolf later recorded albums in the same acid-rock style, like Message To The People. There was a similar situation with Muddy Waters and Electric Mud. He had reservations but probably not about the increased exposure and earnings it brought him. And - yes - he followed up the album with a sequel in the same style - After The Rain. In other words, there's a lot of legends surrounding those albums, but no proof of them being released against the "explicit will" of the artists.
Festival Records of Australia was pretty shameless about reissuing the Australian Bee Gees catalog. Though all of it was legal, none of it was done with the Gibbs' knowledge or cooperation. Perhaps the most bizarre was the album Inception/Nostalgia, released in West Germany, France, and Japan (but not in the US, the UK, or Australia) in the early 1970s. A two-record set consisting entirely of previously unreleased 1966 recordings, Maurice Gibb didn't know of its existence until he saw it in a record shop in Switzerland.
This one is now part of an authorized release from the "Holdsworth Estate", however the sound quality IMHO is horrid (dynamically compromised) compared to the nice sounding first CD issue from the 90's
The Revillos' Attack! album in 1982. Apparently these were demo versions/mixes which the band didn't want released. The first two CD issues in the 90s and early 2000s had 'band approved' mixes (both different to each other). The vinyl mixes were only reissued this year on the Cherry Red Revillos box set. I've never understood how this could get issued without their consent. As far as I know Superville was their own label. There certainly weren't any other acts signed to it. I was told if they saw it on sale in shops the band would buy it and destroy the copies. No idea how true that was.
I never understood the hate this album gets from some folks. I like it better than Headquarters and it includes I’m a Believer.
Fields Of The Nephilim, Fallen (2002) and Genesis + Revelation (2006). Fallen is at least passable as a new, but unapproved, release, consisting of unreleased demos and rough mixes of previously unreleased songs recorded by at least three different lineups in 1996, 1997, and 1998-2001. The band have a notorious perfectionist streak, and have only released two official albums in the past 30 years (Zoon as "The Nefilim" in 1996, and Mourning Sun in 2005). Fallen is ok, but not of releasable standard as it is a hodge podge of unreleased/unused songs and demos/rough mixes. Presumably it was released to recoup an investment on an advance as the album was taking its sweet time. They'd make good b-sides but not album tracks. The band vocally said that this was an unapproved release 'pilfered' by the label. The most offensive one is Genesis + Revelation which is 2CD's and a DVD - a 1986 demo tape, some 'remixes' which are just heavily overdubbed old recordings, a leaked rehearsal, an audience tape of a 2000 era live show, and audience shot video from 1986 and 2000 when the band was out of contract and thus could be used to recoup the advance for the same album as Fallen. It's all bootleg quality stuff, and not worth the money.
