It seems that the reissue market is alive and well, generating revenue for geriatric musicians or their estates. Some of these releases sound dreadful in comparison with the original releases. For example, the best sounding version of Frank Zappa’s ‘Hot Rats’ in my collection is my original UK ‘Steamboat’ first pressing. Some artists roll out these releases like there was no tomorrow, at prices that may be considered exorbitant. It appears to me that among the worst offenders are Robert Fripp, Bob Weir and Ahmet Zappa/Joe Travers.
I also note that the soon to be reissue Beatles’ mono box set is now sold out. This is not a problem for me as I purchased one when it was first released. I am sure that many of these reissue box sets will end up on eBay, still in their shrink wrapping. I wouldn’t be surprised if the asking price was around £1K.
I think a lot of reissues with their ‘bonus tracks’, ‘remixes’ and ‘previously unreleased’ material are of suspect artistic value but as they say ‘you pays your money, you takes your choice’.
Think reissues fall into at least 2 categories (3 if you buy the superior sound PR), the first being the cash cow - hello Pink Floyd - & the second, which I love, long since deleted music which I missed or more likely knew nothing about or didn’t even like first time around. £12.99 for Dorothy Ashby’s Afro Harp on CD being my latest purchase. I’m thankful I have it.
I’m never tempted by the endless cash cow stuff. Don’t feel the need to buy various issues to compare. No one’s forced to buy anything although I acknowledge that ‘completists’ find themselves in a difficult position. 1 copy of an album is enough for me, 2 on the rare occasions I have both vinyl and CD.
I have been seduced by re-issues but I find I only listen to the extra material very rarely or not at all (still have live discs from the Larks Tongues box set I have never played) so now I am very selective with such purchases.
Don’t know about Fripp and Zappa but I have to leap to Bob Weir’s defence - only example I can find is the 25th anniversary edition of Ace.
If you are referring to the Grateful Dead then the vast majority of their recent output are previously unreleased concerts. The reissues they put out are almost invariably much better sounding than the originals with a lot of extra material. They take extreme care over the remastering and it pays off.
Having said that there are a lot of Deadheads like me who would probably buy a recording of Jerry Garcia tuning up.
I think all these re-releases and box sets are done to appeal more to those who have a collector mentality than those fundamentally interested in the music. In my relatively limited experience few remasterings have sounded better than the original to my ears, while rather more I found disappointing, so I gave up bothering and would only be interested where an original is poor. As for. Box sets, scraps from the cutting room floor etc, ok if you like spending on that sort of thing, but otherwise unnecessary.
Stand outs have been the AP Atlantic 75th anniversary releases…reasonably priced and beautifully re mastered. The Steely Dan UHQR’s have also been superb but I’ve been very selective as they ain’t cheap
I buy originals if possible… often disappointed by reissues even by the half speed ones from Abbey Road, for example the first Sade, the originals sound much better than those from Abbey Road in my opinion, the same for Dire Straits.
I’ve enjoyed the New Order box sets. Stephen Morris took real care to assemble material worth listening to including demos and live sets. Puts each album release into context with the before, during and after phases. Reveals exactly what the band did in the studio to add layers of detail to each track and explains why the albums took increasingly long periods of time in gestation.
I thought that most Grateful Dead releases predominantly feature Jerry tuning up, augmented by the band’s vocal harmonies, or lack of. (LOL)
Seriously … I had a friend whose partner was involved with Weir and Lesh when ‘Dave’s Picks’ were being released as CD sets in the UK by Demon Records. I won’t go into details, suffice to say that she was seriously unimpressed by both of them.
