Paul Weller Vinyl Reissues of S/T and Wild Wood-November 2016

V2 was sold to UMG in 2007- as such they have rights to As Is Now (Yep Roc was a US license) and Studio 150.

 

The 1992 original sounds very good!

 

And UMG sold V2 to PIAS in 2013 according to wikipedia ! Very confusing situation

 

What if PW owns all these albums?

 

I hope so, more chance of a re-issue

 

Wiki is wrong. V2 co-operative was sold to PIAS, which was a subsidiary. The main V2 catalogue is still with UMG.
Both of Paul’s albums were licenses so he will end up with them at some point.
It just occurred to me that Independiente was sold to Concord last year and that they license through UMG IN Europe.

 

The sound is fine. They used the CD master/mix for the reissue, though. It includes the "fake" record needle drop that was on the CD and, obviously, not needed, and not on the original pressing. It also a terrible reproduction of the original art work as well.



The original is on the left. Reissue on the right. Only got it because my original copy has a pressing error/skip that quite a few of my Weller friends have noted is in the same spot as their copy. Had I known the new one was was gonna be such a shoddy reproduction, I might have passed.

They also screwed up Stanley Road, as the initial reissue pressings of that had a misspelling on the spine of "Stanely Road." They quietly acknowledged the mistake and you had to go through a process to get them to send you a corrected cover, which I never bothered to do. Sadly, for such a big point in his career and, probably, his most important run of solo albums, there was definitely NOT top notch quality control at Universal on these. *Note/Edit - Hadn't read through the entire thread. Just saw the SR issue was already discussed a bit.

 

It would be one thing if these were cheaper re-issues, but charging a premium price with such oversights is just poor business.

 

Agreed - the artwork reproduction of the first album is garbage (the front anyway). This album is only from the early nineties - a good hi res scan is achievable if the original art isn't available. A cheek to charge the prices they did for these reissues.

 

Doesn’t Steve Windwood get royalties for these?

 

So is the sound of the Stanley Rd reissue poor compared to original.

 

Don't have the original to compare it to, but it sounds pretty good to me. Not amazing or anything, but good enough for a digital master, which is what I assume it is.

 

I agree that these reissues were overpriced on release but managed to pick up the self titled new for about £13 and thought it was fine at that price - don’t have any other version of it for comparison.

 

I'm happy with both of them, sure they are not perfect but found them at 25$ so it's ok.

 

I've finally gotten Stanley (or Stanely? ha) Road and Heavy Soul, and ordered self titled reissue from a store in Germany.
Wild Wood however is almost impossible to find. Was it just the demand or it was more limited?

 

That’s what I wondered....ridiculous they didn’t press more!

 

$80 is the lowest priced one on discogs. Amazon has a release date of 12/31/2020 but i'm sure that's not actually accurate.

 

If Discogs statistics are any indicator more people own the reissued "Stanley Road" than the new "Wild Wood". Which would indicate a lower run. Why on earth would they do that?

 

We are about 9 days away from the 20th anniversary of Heliocentric. I was really hoping that a vinyl release of that album would be released. I would love to a deluxe edition of of it as well. One of my favourite Weller albums.

 

Unfortunately don’t think we even get a vinyl release as Paul is busy with new album out in June

 

It would make sense to move on to the next couple of albums to be reissued though. I wonder if anything changed since last time people here were discussing what record company owns what.

I'd love to have heliocentric, as is now and illumination on vinyl. And wild wood ofcourse, but not for $80+

 

I had no problem finding Stanley and Heavy Soul, but I've literally never seen the first two albums in the flesh, and believe me, I've been looking ever since they came out. Granted, I'm in the States, but I still never have a hard time finding new Weller albums on their initial release here...he's fairly popular with the crowd that still goes to vinyl shops, I suppose, even here.

 

I know he doesn’t like looking back, but just a straight reissue of his albums on vinyl is easy way to make money for him,

 

Looks like Wildwood is being reissued at the end of this year.

 

Over here the first two never were especially hard to find but you had to shell out. Especially "Wild Wood" has been in the 80-100€ region for quite a while. Easily since "As Is Now" came out. So I'm not surprised that flippers are taking chances with the reissue now it's oop.