Looking forward to this release. My favourite period of Chris' runs from Water Sign to New Light (saw him on that tour) so this sweeps up some important B's, Urban Samurai, Smile and True Love are really great songs. I think Bombollini is just the album version (and the 7" was the same!) although there was an edits on the 12" which I think I remember being a pointless fade in and outs. Smile just has one version I think so same as what appeared on the Dancing 2 cd (or one of the others!) I do hope the Smile album gets a release somewhere down the track.
I'm a casual fan and like his 80s stuff the most. I recall the first time I heard one of his albums at a friend's house. I only knew him from his hit ballad Fool (if you think it's over) and was surprised that he was a such a good guitarist, especially slide, which is my forte. I didn't know about his recent bouts of illness but was well aware that he had pancreatic cancer for quite awhile.
Picks the new set up today. No liner note essay etc although there is a reference to his debut 1974 single not being included at Chris Rea’s request...The booklet lists the tracks with a pic of the single adjacent..the discs themselves, not the picture covers .
Well hopefully tomorrow for my birthday I will be giving this set a good blasting, especially the vinyl LP.
Awful extra-thick digipak, ruined by amazon squeezing it into a thin floppy card envelope. Should have released it in a fat jewelcase! EG.
Fool if You Think It's Over is just a fantastic song. Really, really very good song that never fails to move me, though I've heard it hundreds of times. So smooth and deep and just gripping. Never tried or heard much of his other stuff, will have to do that.
Well, I've made a start on ERA 1, and the sound is as impressive as on the Deluxe reissues from last year. Halfway through the first disc and not a vinyl rip in sight. This isn't my favourite Chris phase, but a necessary one for him while he found his style and his voice. Some glimpses of the future can already be found. EG.
I suppose it's symptomatic of the low cost for this set, but the rear sleeve design leaves a lot to be desired. A right old mess of ugly text all over the shop, with different versions of the same songs not clearly marked (it's all in the booklet, of course) and Diamonds randomly has its running time included. Still, for £12 we shouldn't grumble too much. EG.
Agreed. Even the notes inside have a random element..some tracks noted as coming from particular albums, others without similar note. All told, better to have this with flaws than not at all. No sign of any involvement from Chris himself other than the nod toward his desire to exclude his debut single. Not even pre -recorded interviews this time around. Hopefully he is in reasonable health.
Just played the vinyl, sound wise no complaints flat & quiet, however would have loved this to have been a double LP as 12 tracks out of 52 is impossible to please everyone as i'm sure we all would pick 12 different tracks. Gonna go & skip through the CD's now ( ie tracks I love or don't have on CD...mainly B-Sides ). And yes bring on Era 2....however will that jump straight to 1991 God's Great Banana Skin as he has done 1985 - 1989 already with the individual CD's last year ?
Having heard the same excellent sound quality for these earlier tracks as the 1985-1991 sets, I'd definitely be up for the whole albums getting reissued, even if they're bundled together in pairs. EG.
Yes, hope he's doing okay and further sets will follow. I might house these discs in better packaging, with proper annotation so I know what versions/mixes are where for future reference. With so much material, I won't automatically remember which "Ace Of Hearts (Remix)" is necessarily which. EG.
I pre-ordered from DeepDiscount. Their site said its release date was 11/27, which of course is today, but I didn't receive any shipping notice. Just checked DeepDiscount's site, and this CD set is already in BACKORDER status. Yikes. I hope that I get the set I ordered.
!!! What the heck. Fortunately the design, despite being a soft card fat digipak, seems to survive the Amazon (lack of) packaging test. EG.
I'm getting nervous about the fact that Deep Discount hasn't shipped the Era 1 CD set that I ordered. Its website has shown it as being on back order status for some time now, and it's now a week past the stated release date of 11/27, so I hope that they didn't oversell and will have to cancel orders, such as mine.
