This article about a deluxe reissue of a Smashing Pumpkins album got me wondering about the whole deluxe album phenomenon. I only buy deluxe editions of albums with totally new songs–this whole “let’s throw demos and barely different live versions” really annoys me. And even when I do get the expanded editions, they’re almost always marginal songs. So do you buy deluxe editions of albums? How often do you listen to the extra material? And what are the best extra tracks you’ve heard?
I apologize, I’m the reason record companies put out these things. I want every version of every song, and every bonus track, and every demo, and all the live versions.
The best deluxe album I’ve bought in years was by Keane. It had tons of old stuff that wasn’t readily available, and a couple of songs by a related side project. Many of these songs were excellent, and I’ve listened to them over and over.
On the flip side, I recently bought two large collections of Depeche Mode remixes, because I must give them money at every opportunity and cannot stop. Many of the remixes were mediocre and the whole thing was an obvious money grab. I listened to most of the mixes one or two times.
However, it was worth it to me for the remixes and live tracks I did like. Also, the albums are now available as downloads, so I could have picked and chosen only the good stuff. I chose to download it all, because I’m one of those fans who must have everything.
Edited to add - One of my favorite tracks on a deluxe album is “On the Road Again” by Nitzer Ebb. It’s a wonderful, fun, energetic song that would have fit perfectly on the original album.
I hardly buy CDs anymore, and a lot of those “Deluxe editions” are complete horseshit. I think there are two that I bought that merited buying, and a lot of them include demos (who cares), live versions (boring), or extended/remixed tracks (see demos).
I bought the Frampton Comes Alive deluxe set and James Brown’s Live At The Apollo II because they featured many more songs than the original releases. James Brown releases since '91 have been outstanding with the presentation, the liner notes, the sound quality, with everything.
The last several “Deluxe” editions I bought were all disappointing: Michael Jackson’s Thriller 25th anniversary edition, Nine Inch Nails’ The Downward Spiral, Sonic Youth’s Daydream Nation and Dirty, Nirvana’s Bleach. Bleach was the most tolerable, I guess, as it the original album had the least cohesive feel of any of the above. The rest tend to have a pretty cohesive feel in the production for the original album, and The Downward Spiral is a full, polished concept album that really has to be listened to as a whole. Suddenly getting a live song, crummy remix, demo version, etc. doesn’t fit with the rest of the package. Fun for a b-sides/rarities, remix, live, or bootleg album, but not good alongside the studio originals. Luckily, the price for each of these was the same as a normal album, and I’m enough of a completist that I do still want the extras… I just don’t want to hear them when I’m trying to listen to the original album.
The one song from the above that’s the worst IMO is the demo version of Eric’s Trip included on the deluxe Daydream Nation. I can listen to most of the other “deluxe” songs in isolation if they come up on random when listening to my iPhone, but I cannot stand the slow, whiny, poetry-reading-esque demo of Eric’s Trip.
I actually avoided buying the last one outside of a couple of tracks because I already owned most of them. On the other hand, I’ve loved the re-releases of the previous albums with the surround sound mixes and making-of documentaries.
If it’s a bad I really love, I generally enjoy the hell out of deluxe editions. If it’s a band I only kind of like, I tend not to bother with them.
I don’t care too much about rock/indie deluxe albums but, a lot of the time, the deluxe version of hiphop albums have the best songs on it. What immediately comes to mind is the complete banger Witit on the deluxe version of Danny Brown’s XXX. Also, I really liked Buger and Steaksauce on Tyler, the Creator’s delux version of Goblin.
This. There are only a couple of artists that fall into the “love” category, and I’ll buy anything they put out, including recordings of random butt-scratching and stomache-rumblings.
I’ve ordered the deluxe edition of Ke$ha’s new album. The deluxe version includes an EP of five so-far-unspecified songs (some new, some old) that might include demos or acoustic versions. For anybody else, there’s no way I’d ever buy a deluxe album. Hell, I can’t even remember the last time I bought an album of any kind by anyone other than Kesha. I just download single songs I like from other singers.
I was thinking about picking up that deluxe Downward Spiral recently, but decided the money would be better spent on an album I didn’t already own in several formats. You’re lucky if you found it for the same price as the normal album, because it usually goes for much more. My annoyance was noticing that most of the “bonus” content was previously released on other CDs: “Burn” is on the Natural Born Killers OST, “Dead Souls” is on The Crow OST, “Closer (Precursor)”, “Closer To God” and “Memorabilia” are on the Closer to God EP, “Piggy (Nothing Can Stop Me Now)”, “Hurt (Quiet)” and “The Downward Spiral (The Bottom)” are on the Further Down the Spiral remix album, “A Violet Fluid” and “All The Pigs, All Lined Up” are on the March of the Pigs EP. I have all of those, so I’m not thrilled about being offered an extras disc with just three exclusive versions (all demos, not even unique songs)! If demos for those three songs survived, why not the other 11?
I don’t see how any of this interferes with you listening to the concept album as originally released, though. All of the bonus tracks are on a second disc.
As a [del]victim[/del] fan of The Who, I would say it’s a mixed bag. Obviously the long standing lack of new material has driven their record company to re-re-re issue many of their albums as “deluxe” editions.
Sometimes the result is a fairly dismal affair–just a “remixed/remastered” version with a couple of live tracks thrown in. OTOH, something like The Who Sell Out had some real gems from the vaults along with mono mixes that really give a different take on some of the tracks. The mega-deluxe versions of Live At Leeds and Quadrophenia were way too expensive, but the packaging was top notch and included some fantastic photos, revelatory essays, and some really nice sounding discs.
- Demos! I love the stripped down, raw versions of songs. After you have listened to the original version for years, the laid back, down and dirty version is welcomed.
- Singles! Used to be that the hit single wasn’t on the album of the era. I love it when it is included on the disc.
- Other tracks written but unreleased from the era. This can be dodgy. Some are good, some arent. It really depends on how much you like the band whether these matter.
I bought it used; my original Downward Spiral CD was pretty much unreadable, and I found the deluxe edition for the same price ($6 or so?) as used copies of the normal edition.
My distaste for the bonus tracks is mainly from iTunes being really weird with multi-disc sets I’ve ripped myself, swapping tracks between the discs when trying to sync a single disc to my phone. Listening to them on CD would be problem-free, but eh. Info for both discs is correct in iTunes, but when I sync it to my phone, usually Mr. Self Destruct gets swapped for Burn from the bonus disc, and the Further Down the Spiral version of Piggy gets synced instead of the original version. (It has other weird quirks; it won’t retain track order for Ministry’s In Case You Didn’t Feel Like Showing Up, and doubles every track for NIN’s Year Zero…) My temporary solution is to create playlists for each album until I can figure out why thing screw up that way.
And Thriller 25 and the rereleases of Nirvana albums with bonuses are single discs, so the album cohesiveness, even when listening directly from CD, is shot if I don’t stop playback after the last original track.
Billy Corgan never scrimps on volume. Unlike Reznor’s reissue that has only a handful of absolutely new songs, the Pumpkins’ reissues (Gish, Siamese Dream, and Pisces Iscariot have already been re-released) have had lots of “never heard before” stuff, mostly thanks to Billy’s tendency to record and archive everything from the earliest beginnings of the band. What’s really amazing is that while the Mellon Collie reissue includes 3 CDs of bonus stuff sometime next year, the Mellon Collie era singles box set The Aeroplane Flies High will get reissued, which will probably include at least another 2 CDs of bonus stuff, if not more. Like him or hate him, Corgan’s productivity is pretty close to unmatched in his peer group.
I don’t particularly enjoy remixes/alternate versions of songs I already own, but I still make a point of it to pick up the Extended Versions of new Pet Shop Boys albums, as well as re-releases with extra songs and all their singles. Why? Because even their B-sides are freaking amazing, and their “singles” are more like 5-song EPs, with 3 of those songs being ones that aren’t on the main album, and some of those being really, really good.
Seriously - I don’t have access to YouTube at work, so I can’t link to it, but look up the PSB’s “Gin and Jag.” This was a B-side, it wasn’t even on the album, and it kicks ass. Not what you think of at all when you think Pet Shop Boys, dark and crash-y and ominous sounding, as well as being narrated by an altogether unpleasant character.
Edit: Ha! Link! - YouTube
However, I’ve also gotten burned by this. The extended double-disc version of Beyonce’s I Am…Sasha Fierce? The extra songs are total crap, don’t bother with it.
It depends on what the extra tracks are. I don’t have much use for soundalike live performances or demos that are basically identical to the finished product, but I’d spring for actual unreleased songs. I usually split them off into a separate album on iTunes so the last track isn’t followed by demos or something weird.
Each Deluxe Edition is different and people love and hate them to different degrees…you just have to take them case by case. Ones I have heard:
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Marvin Gaye - What’s Going On. I usually only listen to the regular version of this album but the deluxe has an alternate mix of the whole thing and an interesting live performance from around the time of release. It’s nice hearing Marvin’s single voice tackling this material live but I probably don’t listen to the extra content here much.
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Who’s Next. Really, I’m sick of this album. I played it to death as a youth and it has been played to death and the music is all over the tv etc. The deluxe edition though has a great live performance of many of the songs from the Young Vic prior to the recording of the album and it’s neat hearing the material in a sort of embryonic form.
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Nirvana - Nevermind. I’m actually talking about the Super Deluxe edition…I’ve only heard this once from a friend. This has the early Butch Vig mix of the album which is an interesting alternate version. Some even swear by the Vig mix as being the superior one. Unfortunately the mix is highly compressed (see loudness war) so it’s far from an ideal presentation. There are probably other extra songs that maybe make this worth getting. In the end I prefer the Andy Wallace mix that the band eventually chose to release, so I probably won’t ever buy this myself.
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Allman Brothers Band - At Fillmore. I learned this material from a set called ‘The Fillmore Concerts’ which expanded on the original vinyl album release with a bunch of extra live tracks from the same set of concerts. However diehard fans were unhappy with the fact that the mixes were different on this release. So the deluxe edition returns with the original vinyl mixes along with the extras introduced on Fillmore Concerts. The Deluxe edition is probably the definitive one to have.
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The Kinks 1960s albums. If you like 60s Kinks, run, do not walk and get yourself the deluxe editions of those albums. The band were extremely proilific back in the day and there’s a ton of bonus tracks (singles, b-sides)…you also get mono versions of the albums. Absolutely essential to fans of this band/time period.