It bugs me that, in the digital age, some of my favorite “odds & sods” collections, those albums that collected non-LP singles and their B-sides, have been wiped away. This applies to some greatest hits albums, as well. I suspect I’ve complained about the new mix of “Young Americans” and added tracks to the CD (and beyond) versions of David Bowie‘s ChangesOne.
I would rank the The Beatles Again album of this odds & sods category, more commonly known as the “Hey Jude album,” among my Top 5 Beatles albums, maybe even as high as Top 3. I still have my cherished vinyl copy from boyhood, complete with its somewhat miserable, Band-inspired photos. I can still get the charge of the snap, crackle, and pop of an album I’ve carried through the ages, from my original green record player onward, from hands covered in sticky sweet stuff to pot residue to a mixture of excrement and baby wipes. But I can’t play The Beatles Again album in its original format and sequence on a streaming service like Spotify. This bugs the shit out of me, the way things regularly used to bug the shit out of me. At least Elvis Costello & The Attractions‘ Taking Liberties has been carried over from its original form.
Do you miss any of your beloved odds & sods or greatest hits albums…as they were meant to be sequenced and presented?
I didn’t realize Taking Liberties had been reconstituted for streaming. I was going to say the Stones album Flowers, but there it is on Amazon Music. Unfortunately Big Hits (High Tide and Green Grass) exists only in its UK version, which adds a couple of later tracks (Have You Seen Your Mother and Paint It, Black) and messes up the sequencing.
It looks like Kink Kronikles has been disappeared.
Oh man, those are two great lost collections, BigSteve!
I don’t think Buddy Holly Lives even made it to cd.
I guess that’s more of a greatest hits actually
The Beatles Again is available on CD. I like “odds & sods” collections. My favorite is The Great Lost Kinks Album, one of the first Kinks albums I bought @ the Record Exchange for $2.99. All the songs are now available on various Kinks re-releases, but I don’t think the album itself will ever be released in its original form in large part due to John Mendelson’s rather scathing liner notes critizing Ray’s early 70s style.
I have a soft spot for the Beatles Yesterday and Today, which takes full advantage of stealing And Your Bird Can Sing from Revolver by starting the second side with it. That’s a punch in the face riff.
The Kinks have a ton of compilations, don’t they? I had an orange double album collection “The Kinks File” that didn’t even give you a gatefold, just a fat cardboard sleeve.
Possibly the first purchase I made resulting from that June 1, 1974 album I detailed in a recent thread was a Kevin Ayers odds & sods collection called Odd Ditties (an album title which I love even as a recognize that it is a little too cute). It’s a b-sides and unreleased compilation. I didn’t know that when I was buying it; I was just entranced with Ayers, this was the only album in the bins, and it had Stranger In Blues Suede Shoes on it. Plenty of reason to buy it. And it’s still my favorite Ayers album,
I’ve resisted Spotify and streaming services, largely because Mrs H objects to having music playing in the house. My listening is mainly ripped CDs in the car, so I don’t have the problem described. Part of my chronicled dislike of CDs as a format was adding a ton of b sides and outtakes to a practically perfect album and doubling its length with stuff the artist never intended to be there.
There’s a lot to be said for trying to keep stuff in perspective, sometimes it works, others not.
I really love Spotify, but there’s some things I’d love to see there. I’d love to see Ducks Deluxe Don’t Mind Rocking Tonight and I’m used to The Yardbirds on two Sony comps, Smokestack Lightning and Blues, Backtracks and the Shapes of Things. I’d like to see some of The Stones’ oddities, like Rarities or some kind of collection of all their B sides from the 80’s and 90’s. There’s some great stuff there that’s just not available to stream, but you can hear Honk, the latest Greatest Hits record.
Not directly on topic but here’s a peeve of mine. I had hardly any Led Zeppelin back in the day. During the early days of box sets and the glorious days of dirt cheap CDs from the BMG and Columbia House record clubs I got both of the Zep boxes. The first was four discs and the second another two and these covered the entire LZ catalogue at that point. Giving the benefit of the doubt, I will assume that Atlantic at the time the first set was issued didn’t expect sales to warrant a second set. Still, the result is that I have all the albums they released during their lifetime but not in any particular order as the CDs in the sets weren’t in any particular order. I know I can recreate them thanks to iTunes – and I have – but it still irks me.
I pretty much abandoned the US versions of Beatles albums when the CDs came out, and moreso when the mono box came out. Having said that, those “Past Masters” albums don’t feel, to me, as conceptually connected as some of those US albums. In particular, that US Rubber Soul was a favorite – hearing the UK version the first time really threw me, starting with “Drive My Car” as the first song. It seemed so weird!
In America, Rubber Soul seemed like a foray into Folk Rock, kicking off with the fairly acoustic “I’ve Just Seen a Face.” The English version, jumping off with “Drive My Car” seems more in line with the exploration of soul music that has occasionally been described as its touchstone concept. While I don’t know about that, but that record may be my favorite sounding Beatles album. The instruments, especially Ringo’s pre-deadened drums, have a great snap and presence captured at a moment where there were significant recording advances dedicated to making them sound good, but most of the techniques to make them sound otherworldly were in the future. For me that makes it a rocking good listen.
Beatles ’65 is a thrown together affair as well, and that’s always been one of my all time favorites. It really packs a punch.
The wife and I are watching the Sopranos once again. It is absolutely superb, crammed with scenes that hit you like hearing “Paperback Writer.” It never loses its impact.
Moderator, I know you’ve seen a few Sopranos episodes and didn’t like them. I know you’ve got a lot going on, but I’m going to politely ask that you watch the first two seasons. The Sopranos is absolutely and positively not a poor man’s Goodfellas. I’m not a Zappa fan, but it’s sort of like what Zappa chose to do after he heard Sgt. Pepper. The difference is that the Sopranos succeeds with flying colors while Zappa’s We’re Only in It for the Money doesn’t.