Artists that don't put out any deluxe editions of their albums

For an artist who received so much critical press in the mid-80s through the early 90s, he seems to have been somewhat forgotten which is a shame, he's excellent live and has a handful of classic albums in my opinion.

 

Cat Stevens, apart from Tillerman and Teaser. Customers who pre-ordered Back To Earth are still trying to get a refund AFAIK.

 

For some artists, the 2008 Universal Archive fire destroyed their masters, of course including unreleased tracks that might have formed part of deluxe editions. How many of the artists listed in this thread cannot issue unreleased tracks now, even if they want to?

AFAIK, the extent of the losses has not yet been officially confirmed. Cheryl Crowe said recently, for example, that much of what she wanted to release has gone ...

I've always been surprised when artists cannot locate masters. This partially explains it. Sickening.

 

Sickening is right! Each time I see any sort of reference to that incident, my stomach turns and turns... and turns again. Insane loss as far as I'm concerned.

 

Why were backups not made or am I missing something?

 

Aside from a remix/remastering of their debut, Pearl Jam haven't gone the super deluxe reissue route.

 

They also did Vs. and Vitalogy together in a combo box. But nothing since.

 

Probably an idea for a separate thread, but when thinking about this question, I kept reminding myself of artists whose deluxe's are super disappointing compared to what they could be. R.E.M. tends to put out brickwalled remasters with a focus on live material for bonuses, ignoring b-sides and other studio work.. Weezer did 2 deluxe's.. the first one being kinda blah, and the second having live versions of the same 3-4 songs 3-4 times each! The Beach Boys have put out a lot of wonderful archival material, but their albums are mainly available as 2fers with a few bonus tracks. Ringo Starr probably missed his chance by waiting too long.

Tom Petty's people haven't done the deluxe thing yet.
Bob Dylan & Neil Young rely on bootleg series ways to get their rarities out instead of tacking them onto existing albums.

 

The Police - mega successful with 0 unreleased tracks, never mind a deluxe version of an album. I'm torn by this, on one hand it maintains a purity of the original album release and doesn't dilute it. On the other hand, the deluxe releases are fun and in some cases (Beach Boys), reinvigorate an artist's reputation.

 

Is it just me thinking that it's not the artists themselves that put out deluxe sets?
I think it's a record label's assertion and decision that a deluxe edition will or won't have commercial potential.
IMO it doesn't make any sense to sum up artist's names here.
Naming the record companies and their labels (and discussing their policies) would be much more interesting for this discussion IMHO.
Or... is it just me?

 

They also did a ridiculously overpriced super deluxe Sticky Fingers, and a disappointingly skimpy deluxe version of Beggars Banquet.

 

Was there anything "deluxe" about that box, or was it just the regular albums thrown together, no bonuses?

 

In many cases it appears not. It appears there was so much stroed there - TV and movies too - that keeping an entire backed up archive elesewhere wouldn't have been practical, but I have no idea what normal practice would be. Anyone?

It's worth reading the long NY Times piece about this. An extract:

The archive in Building 6197 was UMG’s main West Coast storehouse of masters, the original recordings from which all subsequent copies are derived. A master is a one-of-a-kind artifact, the irreplaceable primary source of a piece of recorded music. According to UMG documents, the vault held analog tape masters dating back as far as the late 1940s, as well as digital masters of more recent vintage. It held multitrack recordings, the raw recorded materials — each part still isolated, the drums and keyboards and strings on separate but adjacent areas of tape — from which mixed or “flat” analog masters are usually assembled. And it held session masters, recordings that were never commercially released.

And:

There were recordings from dozens of record companies that had been absorbed by Universal over the years, including several of the most important labels of all time. The vault housed tape masters for Decca, the pop, jazz and classical powerhouse; it housed master tapes for the storied blues label Chess; it housed masters for Impulse, the groundbreaking jazz label. The vault held masters for the MCA, ABC, A&M, Geffen and Interscope labels. And it held masters for a host of smaller subsidiary labels. Nearly all of these masters — in some cases, the complete discographies of entire record labels — were wiped out in the fire.​

 

It depends on each artist's individual contract.

 

All that art gone to waste

 

Little River Band. There's some bizarre clause in their contract with Capitol that if even an unreleased mix is included the band gets a sackload of money.

 

Contents include:

Both albums on LP and CD. Vs. CD contains 3 bonus songs. Vitalogy CD contains 3 bonus songs.

Live at Orpheum Theatre on LP and CD.

Self Pollution Radio mix tape on cassette.

80 page composition book.

Lithographs, posters, pass reproductions, etc.

 

Just saw him in concert on Thursday. He still can bring it.

 

Not a deluxe but on the cds, cassettes, and remasters for synchronicity, they added 'murder by numbers': (it was never on the LP, which is why i never saw it originally)

The Police - Synchronicity



The Police ‎– Synchronicity
Label:
A&M Records Ltd. ‎– 069 493 599-2
Format:
CD, Album, Reissue, Remastered, Digipack
Country:
US
Released:
2003
Genre:
Rock, Pop
Style:
New Wave, Pop Rock

Tracklist
1 Syncronicity I 3:23
2 Walking In Your Footsteps 3:36
3 O My God 4:02
4 Mother 3:05
5 Miss Gradenko 1:59
6 Synchronicity II 5:02
7 Every Breath You Take 4:13
8 King Of Pain 4:59
9 Wrapped Around Your Finger 5:13
10 Tea In The Sahara 4:19
11 Murder By Numbers 4:36
Total Time: 44:27

later
-1

 

Jimmy Buffett

 

"Bonus track that was always part of the album" doesn't equal "deluxe edition"...

 

Why? Not that much interest.

 

I thought DM did 5.1 versions of all their albums with added content.

 

I'm just pointing out something I thought was unusual.

To me, it was never a part of the original album.

To me the LP version is the standard.

'murder by numbers' was tacked on.

later
-1

 

PJ Harvey. Loads of extras scattered on various other releases to compliment the basic studio albums.