Kanye West & Ty Dolla $ign - Vultures Volume 2 (2024)

'Vultures 1' is the first collaborative studio album by rapper Kanye West and singer Ty Dolla $ign, and it was released independently through West's YZY brand on 10 February 2024. The album features uncredited guest vocals from West's daughter North, Freddie Gibbs, YG, Quavo, Playboi Carti, Travis Scott, Bump J, Lil' Durk, Rich the Kid, and Chris Brown, and production was primarily handled by West himself, alongside Digital Nas, JPEGMafia, Chrishan, 88-Keys, Wheezy, Ojivolta, DJ Camper, Timbaland, No I.D., Wax Motif, the Legendary Traxster, and Anthony Kilhoffer, among others. It sustained multiple delays and changes to its tracklist before its final release, and several listening events to promote it, including a multi-stadium listening event and a concert in Reggio Emilia, were cancelled. The title track was released on 22 November 2023 and served as its lead single, and a set of listening events titled 'Vultures Rave' preceded the release of the second single, 'Talking/Once Again', which features uncredited guest vocals from his daughter North West. On 15 February  2024 the business-to-business music distributor FUGA started to remove the album from streaming and download services, because it had been published using their platform's automated processes after they had explicitly declined to publish it, but it was redistributed the same day through Label Engine. In contrast to West's previous two albums, it finds him mostly forgoing religious themes, and received mixed reviews from critics, with many criticizing the album's unoriginality and lyrics, namely those addressing West's rhetoric towards preceding controversies. This didn't stop it debuting at the top of the US Billboard 200, though, becoming West's eleventh number-one album, and Ty Dolla $ign's first. Recording sessions had been taking place since the summer of 2023, and so it's no surprise that many tracks had to be removed from the final track listing, including 'Everybody' and 'New Body', after the Backstreet Boys and Nicki Minaj respectively refused permission to use samples of their work. As usual with West's work, it didn't take long for them to appear online, and so here are the offcut's from 'Vultures 1', which you won't be surprised to learn that I've called 'Vultures Volume 2', and it's housed in an updated version of the original scrapped artwork. 

Track listing

01 Everybody (feat. Charlie Wilson & Lil' Baby)
02 Time Moving Slow

03 Timbo Freestyle
04 Slide
05 New Body (feat. Nicki Minaj)
06 Promotion (feat. Future) 
07 Lifestyle (feat. Lil' Wayne) 
08 Drunk (feat. Kodak Black & Bad Bunny)
09 Worship (feat. North West & Charlie Wilson)
10 River (feat. Young Thug)
11 Gun To My Head (feat. Kid Cudi)
12 Unlock
13 North's Song (feat. North West & James Blake)
14 Once Again
15 Forever Rollin' (feat. Lil' Baby)
16 All This Money On The Floor (feat. YG)
17 IG Models (feat. Future & Lil' Durk)
18 Don't Kill The Party (feat. Tyga)
19 Work Done/Diablo

Leslie Carter - Like Wow! (2001)

Leslie Barbara Ashton (née Carter) was born on 6 June 1986 in Tampa, Florida, and at the age of 13 she signed a record deal with DreamWorks Records, where she began recording her debut album. This was set for release in June 2000, but it was delayed because DreamWorks wanted to test her fanbase before releasing the record in order to ensure its success. Her single 'Like Wow!' appeared on the 'Shrek' soundtrack and received minor radio airplay, peaking at No. 99 on the Billboard Hot 100, and her debut album of the same name was set for release on 10 April 2001. However, following a number of reported problems from the set of her debut music video, Dreamworks cancelled the album and dropped her from the label, although promo copies later became available online, and "Metal Mike" Saunders of The Village Voice described it as "the best bubblegum album of the entire '97–Y2K era." She started a small club tour in Canada in December 2005, and had a showcase in New York City in January 2006, with hopes it would lead to a new record deal, showing that she'd abandoned her bubblegum pop roots for a more mature, pop rock-oriented sound. In late 2006 she founded the band The Other Half, which included her backup musicians, with the final line-up consisting of Carter on vocals, Mike Ashton on drums, Jason Eldon on electric guitar, and Sean Smit on bass and back-up vocals, but in September 2009 they mutually decided to split up. On 31 January 2012 Carter was found unresponsive at the home of her father and stepmother while she was visiting them. She'd fallen asleep after she fell in the shower and did not wake up. She was just 25 years old. She only released the one single in her way too short career, and so to show that she wasn't just a one-hit wonder, here is her shelved album from 2001. Fans of B*Witched should love this record. 

Track listing

01 Be Mine
02 Like Wow
03 They Don't Know
04 I Need To Hear It From You
05 Too Much Too Soon
06 Shy Guy
07 I Wanna Be Your Girl
08 True
09 Boy Like That
10 Mine

Camila Cabello - Unforgettable (2017)

Karla Camila Cabello Estrabao was born on 3 March 1997, and is best known for being a member of the girl group Fifth Harmony, which became one of the best-selling girl groups of all time. She auditioned for the TV talent competition show The X Factor in Greensboro, North Carolina, with Aretha Franklin's 'Respect', but her audition was not aired because the series did not get the rights for the song. After elimination during the "bootcamp" portion of the process in Miami, Florida, Cabello was called back to the stage along with other contestants Ally Brooke, Normani, Lauren Jauregui, and Dinah Jane to form the girl group that would later become known as Fifth Harmony. After finishing in third place on the show, they signed a joint deal with Simon Cowell's Syco Music and Epic Records, and released the EP 'Better Together' to some acclaim (see previous 5th Harmony post here). Two albums followed, with 'Reflection' coming out in 2015, followed by '7/27' the following year. In November 2015, Cabello collaborated with Canadian singer Shawn Mendes on a duet titled 'I Know What You Did Last Summer', a song they wrote together, charting at number 20 in the US and number 18 in Canada, and in 2016 American rapper Machine Gun Kelly released a joint single with Cabello called 'Bad Things', which reached a peak of number four on the US Billboard Hot 100 songs chart. On 18 December 2016, Fifth Harmony announced Cabello's departure, with both sides giving contradictory explanations of the circumstances for her exit. After her departure she appeared on songs from Norwegian DJ Cashmere Cat and rappers Pitbull and J Balvin, and later she announced the future release of her first studio album, at the time titled 'The Hurting. The Healing. The Loving.'. 

Her debut solo single 'Crying In The Club' was released in May 2017, followed by a performance at the 2017 Billboard Music Awards, and then new writing and recording sessions for her album were undertaken following the success of her 'Havana' single, in order to capitalise on it's success. The single became Spotify's most-streamed song ever by a solo female artist in June 2018, with over 888 million streams at the time, and so she wanted the album to go in that musical direction. This postponed the album's original release date, and 'Camila', her debut album, was eventually released on 12 January 2018. It was a pop record containing Latin-influenced songs and ballads, and debuted at number one in the United States with 119,000 album-equivalent units. In April 2018 she embarked on the Never Be the Same Tour, her first headlining concert tour as a solo artist, and by May she was performing as the opening act for American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift in her Reputation Stadium Tour. In October 2018, Cabello announced she would start working on new music in the new year, and in April 2019 it was announced that she would star in an upcoming film adaptation of 'Cinderella', directed by Kay Cannon for Sony Pictures. Because her debut album was drastically revised after the success of 'Havana', a number of songs were dumped from it in order to make room for the new 'Havana'-influenced tracks, and so there were quite a few demos and out-takes left over when it was released. Enough, in fact, to make up a perfectly acceptable companion album to 'Camila', which could have been released shortly afterwards to tide fans over until her next single was released in 2019. 

Track listing

01 Be Right Here
02 Love Life
03 Come When I Call (feat. Pharrell Williams)
04 Must Be Love
05 Cleopatra
06 OMG (feat. Quava)
07 Scar Tissue
08 Curious
09 The Middle
10 Unforgettable
11 Died
12 Thinkin' Bout One
13 Knows Me
14 Witness
15 Just Like You
16 The Boy (feat. Ed Sheeran)

Various Artists - The Hitmakers Sing Joni Mitchell (2014)

Roberta Joan Anderson on 7 November 1943, in Fort Macleod, Alberta, Canada, and moved with her family to Saskatoon, which she considers her hometown, at age 11. She wanted to play the guitar, but as her mother associated the instrument with country music and disapproved of its hillbilly associations, she initially settled for the ukulele, although she eventually taught herself guitar from a Pete Seeger songbook. She started singing with her friends at bonfires around Waskesiu Lake, northwest of Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, and after dropping out of school after a year at age 20, she started to play gigs as a folk musician on weekends at her college and at a local hotel. In 1964, at the age of 20, she told her mother that she intended to be a folk singer in Toronto, and wrote her first song 'Day After Day' on the three-day train ride east to Ontario. In February 1965 she was playing gigs again around Yorkville, often with a friend, Vicky Taylor, and was beginning to sing original material for the first time, written with her unique open tunings. In March and April she found work at the Penny Farthing, a folk club in Toronto, where she met New York City-born American folk singer Charles Scott "Chuck" Mitchell, from Michigan. Chuck was immediately attracted to her and impressed by her performance, and he told her that he could get her steady work in the coffeehouses he knew in the United States. She left Canada for the first time in late April 1965, travelling with Mitchell to the US, where they began playing music together, and they later married, with Joni taking his surname, although the marriage and partnership ended with their divorce in early 1967. Following this, she moved to New York City to follow her musical path as a solo artist, and while she was playing one night in 1967 in the Gaslight South, a club in Coconut Grove, Florida, David Crosby walked in and was immediately struck by her ability and her appeal as an artist. She accompanied him back to Los Angeles, where he set about introducing her and her music to his friends, and soon she was signed to the Warners-affiliated Reprise label by talent scout Andy Wickham. 

Crosby convinced Reprise to let Mitchell record a solo acoustic album without the folk-rock overdubs in vogue at that time, and 'Song To Seagull' was released in March 1968. She toured steadily to promote the album, creating eager anticipation for her second LP, 'Clouds', which was released in April 1969. This contained her own versions of some of her songs already recorded and performed by other artists, such as 'Chelsea Morning', 'Both Sides, Now', and 'Tin Angel', and the covers of both albums were designed and painted by Mitchell herself.  In April 1970 Reprise released her third album, 'Ladies Of The Canyon', and her sound was already beginning to expand beyond the confines of acoustic folk music and toward pop and rock, with more overdubs, percussion, and backing vocals, and for the first time, many songs composed on piano, which became a hallmark of Mitchell's style in her most popular era. 'Ladies Of The Canyon' was an instant smash on FM radio and sold briskly, eventually becoming Mitchell's first gold album, but she made a decision to stop touring for a year and just write and paint. The songs she wrote during the months she took off for travel and life experience appeared on her next album, 'Blue', released in June 1971, which was an almost instant critical and commercial success, peaking in the top 20 of the Billboard albums chart in September and also hitting the British Top 3. The lushly produced 'Carey' was the single at the time, but musically, other parts of 'Blue' departed further from the sounds of 'Ladies Of The Canyon', with simpler, rhythmic acoustic parts allowed a focus on Mitchell's voice and emotions, while others such as 'Blue', 'River' and 'The Last Time I Saw Richard' were sung to her rolling piano accompaniment. With the music now so much more than just folk songs, they were soon picked up and recorded by a variety of artists in other fields, such as soul rendition of 'All I Want' by The Supremes, or the hard rock of 'This Flight Tonight' by Nazareth. The songs from 'Blue' have continued to be covered ever since, with Linda Ronstadt tackling 'River' in 2000, and Wilson Phillips taking on 'California' in 2004. 'Blue' is often cited as one of the best albums of all time, being rated the 30th best album ever made in Rolling Stone's 2003 list of the "500 Greatest Albums of All Time", and so here is a unique interpretation of it by a variety of artists who appreciate the quality of her song-writing.   

Track listing

01 All I Want (The Supremes 1972)  
02 My Old Man (Sandbloom 2011) 
03 Little Green (Blue Tapestry 2002) 
04 Carey (Goldie Hawn 1972)  
05 Blue (Sarah McLachlan 1994)  
06 California (Wilson Phillips 2004) 
07 This Flight Tonight (Nazareth 1973) 
08 River (Linda Ronstadt 2000)  
09 A Case Of You (Phoebe Snow 1998)  
10 The Last Time I Saw Richard (Clare Maguire 2014)

Demond - Street Tales (1997)

R&B singer Demond was signed to 550 Music/Epic Records, and recorded his debut album 'Street Tales' for them around 1997. Two singles were released from it, with 'AllIWannaDo' reaching #24 on the Billboard Bubbling Under chart, and 'Ooh La La' just breaking the top 60 on the R&B chart, but neither of these charting records were enough to stop the cancellation of the album. It's a great shame, as this record has some really interesting experimentation, especially on the two longer tracks - 'Beamer' and 'Warm Embrace'. Luckily it was not completely scrapped, and so with a subtly coloured version of the cover, here is one of my favourite unreleased R&B albums from the last 25 years.

Track listing

01 AllIWannaDo
02 Ooh La La
03 Loser
04 Beamer
05 True To The Game
06 Show Me The Money
07 Baby Can I Touch You
08 Warm Embrace
09 Sometimes
10 Anything

Meghan Trainor - Treat Myself (2019)

Meghan Elizabeth Trainor was born on 22 December 1993, in Nantucket, Massachusetts, and she began singing at age six, at a Methodist church with her father, who was a music teacher and organist. Her family encouraged her to pursue her musical interests, and she had told her father she wanted to become a recording artist, so she began writing songs and recording them using the digital audio workstation software GarageBand. At the age of 12, she began performing as part of the cover band Island Fusion, which also included her aunt, younger brother, and father, staying with them for four years, singing and playing piano, guitar, and bongo drums. She and her family left Nantucket when she was in the eighth grade, temporarily relocating to Orleans, Massachusetts, before moving to North Eastham, where she attended Nauset Regional High School and studied guitar, played trumpet, and sang in a jazz band for three years. While she was a teenager, her parents encouraged her to attend songwriting conventions, and at 15, she took guitar lessons from former NRBQ member Johnny Spampinato. During this time, Trainor used Logic Studio to record and produce her compositions, and later worked independently in a home studio built by her parents. Between the ages of 15 and 17, she independently released three albums of material she had written, recorded, performed, and produced, with her debut album 'Meghan Trainor' being released on Christmas Day 2009, followed by the acoustic albums 'I'll Sing With You' and 'Only 17' the following year. Though she'd been offered a full scholarship to the Berklee College of Music, she decided to pursue her songwriting career and signed with Big Yellow Dog Music in 2012, starting out as a songwriter-for-hire, because of her ability to compose in a variety of genres, but being unsure about becoming a recording artist herself. 

Throughout 2013 she travelled to Nashville, New York City and Los Angeles, where she wrote and helped produce country and pop songs, singing lead and background vocals on demos for other artists, and her vocals were occasionally used on the final recordings. In June 2013 Trainor met producer Kevin Kadish in Nashville, and they found that they both liked retro style music and began recording together that month, later writing 'All About That Bass' together. The duo offered the song to several record labels, all of which rejected the doo-wop song because it was not "synth-y, pop-y" enough, but she when she performed the song for Epic label boss L.A. Reid, he signed her 20 minutes later. 'All About That Bass' was released as her debut sonhle on 30 June 2014, and it reached number one in 58 countries, and it sold 11 million units worldwide. Her debut EP, 'Title', with songs composed by Trainor and Kadish, was released in September 2014, and peaked at number 15 on the US Billboard 200. Her three self-released albums were removed from sale in the build-up to the release of her major-label debut studio album 'Title', which replaced her EP of the same name on the iTunes Store, and it was released on 9 January 2015, debuting at number one on the US Billboard 200. Singles from the record, 'Dear Future Husband' and 'Like I'm Gonna Lose You', reached the Hot 100's top 20, and she began her first headlining concert tour, That Bass Tour, on 11 February 2015, but just before starting her "MTrain Tour" in July, she was diagnosed with a vocal cord haemorrhage, and her medical team ordered her to undergo complete vocal rest, delaying the first two dates of the tour. 

In August she announced the cancellation of the remainder of her North American tour, undergoing surgery "to finally fix this once and for all". In March 2016 she released the first single from her new album, with 'No' peaking at number three on the Billboard Hot 100, which was followed by 'Me Too' in May, the day before her 'Thank You' album appeared, and although it received mixed reviews, it still debuted at number three on the US Billboard 200. In December 2017 Fox announced Trainor as one of the judges on the show 'The Four: Battle For Stardom', along with Sean Combs, DJ Khaled and Charlie Walk, with the show's first two seasons being broadcast in 2018. Her third major-label studio album, 'Treat Myself', was scheduled for release on 31 August 2018, but was delayed because she wanted to write and record more songs for it, and its lead single 'No Excuses' was released in March 2018 and peaked at number 46 on the Billboard Hot 100, followed by 'Let You Be Right', 'Can't Dance' and 'All The Ways', and 'Treat Myself' was given a January 2019 release date, although it was not actually released until 31 January 2020. Trainor wrote enough material for four albums while trying to adapt to new trends in the music industry, and the final track listing was drastically different from the original incarnation, and it received mixed reviews on its release, only reaching number 25 on the US Billboard 200. In the end only four songs from the original track list made it to the actual album, with even the title track being removed, and so this early version of 'Treat Myself' is almost a completely new album for you to enjoy. 

Track listing

01 Treat Myself 
02 No Excuses 
03 Let You Be Right 
04 Hard To Please 
05 Evil Twin 
06 I'm Down 
07 Foolish 
08 Look At Us 
09 Another Opinion 
10 Don't Think About Leavin' 
11 Can't Dance 
12 All The Ways 
13 After You 
14 Good Morning (feat. Gary Trainor) 

Tracks 01, 03, and 11 released as singles.
Tracks 06, 07, 12 and 14 later released on 'The Love Train' EP.
Tracks 02, 05, 09 and 13 kept for the official album.
Tracks 04, 08 and 10 previously unreleased.

Dua Lipa - Roses & Fire (2017)

This second collection of demos and out-takes from Dua Lipa is another great album which could have been released at the same time as her actual debut in 2017.

Track listing

01 Lot To Love
02 All Or Nothing
03 Berlin Summer
04 Pour Me A Lie
05 Favourite Problem
06 Bad Idea
07 Top Dollar
08 Try
09 Roses & Fire
10 Afterlight
11 Save Someone
12 Wicked And Wild
13 Lose Myself

Mike Solof - Off The Beatle Track - Episodes 48/49 (1992)

You may have seen that Mike has mentioned in the notes to his Beatles Remix albums that he started doing them after hosting a Beatles-themed radio show in the US, and a while ago he sent me a load of these shows to listen to, and after hearing a few I thought they would be a great addition to the blog. The only thing stopping me posting them was the fact that I didn't know much about the background of the shows, but out of the blue I've just received a complete history of how they came about from Mike himself, so I'm now able to start posting them. Here's how it all started...........  
When Mike was around 13, in 1976, he used to listen to NPR, which was a classical station, at the same time as he was just getting into the Beatles, and he realized that 'Yesterday' was basically a classical song but just with Paul singing. He got thinking about all the rock groups that took that idea and ran with it, like, to name just a few, The Moody Blues with 'Nights In White Satin', Elton John's 'Indian Sunset', ELP's 'Pirates' and Peter Gabriel's 'Down The Dolce Vita'. That would make a cool show on the classical station and push its bounds, and so he wrote to them with the idea and they wholeheartedly umm...didn’t agree! Jump to 1988, and Mike's interest in the Beatles had greatly intensified in college, when someone played him the Red and Blue albums, and he suddenly realized that all these songs that he didn’t know were the Beatles, were in fact the Beatles! He wasn't the first person to realise that this exceptional group had gone from 'Love Me Do' to 'I Am The Walrus' in the span of just six years. Around that time he was in his local college Record Store, when suddenly he noticed a back room with a black curtain that said you must be over 18 to enter. One day he jokingly said to the owner "what's back there, porn?", and the owner said no, it's bootlegs. The naive Mike said "what are bootlegs?", and he was led behind the black curtain to a locked case that contained about 40 CDs ranging in price from about $30 each up to about $120. Two of them caught his eye - they were Beatles bootlegs entitled Ultra Rare Trax Volume One and Two and they were $90 apiece (for a single CD), and he decided to take a chance and splurged on them. At the time he had a really phenomenal stereo system set up in his college room, and when he slipped these CD's on and heard 'I Saw Her Standing There (Take Two)' in a quality beyond anything that I had heard before, it was so clear and so stunning that he stood there in shock. It was like the band was right there in the room, and that moment cemented his love for the Beatles and all things bootlegs! 
Soon after that his research into the Beatles led him to a website called Beatles-A-Rama. It was 24 hours a day of beautifully produced Beatles stuff, and it often played many things that he had never heard before. After listening to that station for a couple of years he finally got up the nerve to write to the owner, Pat Matthews. He was a super nice guy and they got along great, so Mike told him about his idea to do a single two hour show based around classic rock and it's influences from classical music, using all sorts of different bands, but grounding it in Beatles songs like 'Yesterday', 'I Am The Walrus' and 'Strawberry Fields', plus a few others where they used classical instruments in the song ('Penny Lane' and 'For No One' come to mind). He said great, send me a show, so Mike bought himself a microphone and learned how to record things on Audacity, and proceeded to create a two hour show, the one that he'd been planning in his mind since he was 13. Once Pat had played the tape his reply was unexpectedly... "Love it. You're on every Saturday at 10.00am". And that was the start of 11 years of his own show called 'Off The Beatle Track' on Beatles-A-Rama, running to over 300 episodes in its 11 year run. 
As I said, Mike has sent me a load of these shows, and of course the first one I listened to was the 'classical music' one which started the whole thing off, so in the first of a sporadic series, here are Episodes 48 and 49 of Mike's 'Off The Beatle Track' radio broadcast. 

Track listing

01 Episode 48 - Classical Classics Part 1

02 Episode 49 - Classical Classics Part 2

Normani - 1996 (2019)

Normani Kordei Hamilton was born on 31 May 1996, and she rose to fame as a member of the American girl group Fifth Harmony, which became one of the best-selling girl groups of all time. She auditioned for the second season of The X Factor USA in 2012 with a performance of 'Chain Of Fools' by Aretha Franklin that earned approval from all four judges. She was cut during the second round of boot camp, but was invited back to the show to perform as part of a group with Ally Brooke, Lauren Jauregui, Dinah Jane, and Camila Cabello, who later named itself Fifth Harmony, and made it to the finale, finishing in third place. In October 2013, Fifth Harmony released their first EP, 'Better Together' (see previous post here), followed by their debut album, 'Reflection', in 2015, and their second album, '7/27', in 2016. After Cabello's departure from the group in December 2016, Fifth Harmony released their self-titled album as a quartet in August 2017, and Normani became the quartet's de facto leader, leading solos and choreography. Her onstage confidence in the group caught the attention of executive Tunji Balogun, who founded RCA's imprint Keep Cool, and manager Brandon Silverstein, who began working with Normani in late 2017. On 19 March 2018, the group announced their decision to take an indefinite hiatus to pursue solo careers. Before that, from February 2016 through to January 2017, Normani released covers of several songs, including Tory Lanez's 'Say It' and mashups of Drake's 'Fake Love'/'Sneakin'', and Solange's 'Cranes In The Sky'/'Don't Touch My Hair', with the help of producers The Invaders. 

She competed on season 24 of 'Dancing With The Stars' from March through May 2017, alongside her dancing partner, professional ballroom dancer Valentin Chmerkovskiy, and they reached the finals, finishing in third place. In October 2017, it was announced that she'd signed to management company S10 Entertainment as a solo artist, and her duet with Khalid, 'Love Lies', from the soundtrack of the romantic teen comedy-drama film 'Love, Simon' was released the month before Fifth Harmony retired, in February 2018. In April it was announced that Normani had become the first ever artist to sign to Keep Cool/RCA Records, ahead of the release of her debut solo album, as well as signing a modelling contract with Wilhelmina, and a contract with Puma to endorse the brand's RS-0 shoes. In October Normani and Calvin Harris released their EP, 'Normani x Calvin Harris', which features the songs 'Checklist' (with Wizkid) and 'Slow Down', and this was followed by 'Waves' in November, with her album being scheduled to be released in the first quarter of 2019, and its title was hinted to be a number. On 11 January 2019, Normani and Sam Smith released the song 'Dancing With A Stranger', which peaked at number 3 in the United Kingdom and number 7 in the U.S. charts. The song earned her a nomination for Song of the Year at the 2020 Brit Awards, and just one year into her solo career, she became the fastest solo artist (without an album) to surpass one billion combined streams on Spotify. 

In August 2019 she released the single 'Motivation', co-written by Ariana Grande, which was her first truly solo record, without a featured artist. By this time 2019 was almost over, with no sign of her album, and it was announced that it would appear some time in 2020, confirming that it was only a little more than halfway complete. Her next release was when she collaborated with Ariana Grande and Nicki Minaj on the song 'Bad To You', for the soundtrack of the 2019 film 'Charlie's Angels', which was released in November. In January 2020, she joined rapper Megan Thee Stallion on the song 'Diamonds', which served as the lead single for the soundtrack of the 2020 superhero film 'Birds Of Prey', and in February she was listed on BET's "Future 40" list, which is a list of "40 of the most inspiring and innovative vanguards who are redefining what it means to be unapologetically young, gifted & black". 2020 passed with still no sign of her debut album, and in July 2021 she released 'Wild Side', featuring Cardi B, which reached number 1 on the Mainstream R&B/Hip-Hop chart, and which won her the Best Dance Performance award at the 2021 BET Soul Train Music Awards. In an interview following her win, she was asked if she had a message for her fans, and she responded with "Summer's gonna be lit", referencing when her album will be released. 

In March 2022 she released a new single, 'Fair', and the following month she was announced as the face of Cracker Jill, for which she sang a reimagined version of the song 'Take Me Out To The Ball Game'. The same day she was also announced by Vogue France as the face of AMI Paris' photo campaign for the French brand's L'Accordéon bag. July saw the release of another single with Calvin Harris, Tinashe and Offset, 'New To You', which was taken from Harris's album 'Funk Wav Bounces Vol. 2'. In February 2023, she voiced the character Giselle, a member of the fictional '90s music group The Soul Vibrations, on the second season of the animated Disney+ television series 'The Proud Family: Louder And Prouder', and in August she announced that she'd split with the management company S10 Entertainment, and signed a new management deal with managers Brandon Creed and Lydia Asrat. With another year gone and still no sign of that album, could this be the final straw, as music that she'd originally recorded would now be five years old. As her management seems unable to get their act together and release Normani's first solo album, then it's up to us to do it for them, so here is a collection of tracks recorded in the first couple of years of her solo career, and using the 'number' title that was hinted at way back in 2018. 

Track listing

01 Blessing
02 Motivation
03 1-On-1
04 Runaround
05 Time Waster
06 Last Best Thing (feat. Kiana Lede)
07 Waves (feat. 6LACK)
08 Somebody Else
09 Ride Out
10 Blue
11 Insomnia (Whiskey)
12 Gold
13 Feel Me

The Veronicas - Life On Mars (2012)

The Veronicas is an Australian pop duo from Brisbane, formed in 2004 by identical twin sisters Lisa and Jessica Origliasso. Before that the twins made their first demo recordings with Brisbane producer Stuart Stuart at Analog Heart Records in 2001, firstly in an electronic style and, a year later, a second batch of songs in the pop rock style that the group initially became known for. In 2004 the sisters, who were then performing as The Twins, were introduced by Gabrielle McKinley to Robin Donald Smith, who owned the recording and music publishing company Multiplay Music Australia. After meeting their father/manager and auditioning the girls, Multiplay offered to sign The Twins to their first recording and music publishing agreements, after which Smith took them on several world-wide songwriting trips to Britain, Sweden, Canada and the US in order for them to collaborate with top songwriters in each country to further develop their skills. On their return to Australia in 2005, Smith met with executives at Engine Room and negotiated a contract with Warner Bros. Records in the US, who recognised that Smith had discovered and developed a musical talent. They renamed themselves The Veronicas after Winona Ryder's character in 'The Heathers', and set about recording their debut album, which was released in October 2005, with 'The Secret Life Of...' entering the ARIA Album chart at No. 7, and spending a year in the Australian Top 40. It was released in the US on 14 February 2006, debuting at No. 3 on the Billboard Top Heatseekers chart, and it was also successful in New Zealand, Belgium and Holland. 

In early 2007, The Veronicas began work on their second album, which was written and recorded in Los Angeles, California, and when 'Hook Me Up' was released in Australia on 3 November 2007 it crashed in at number two on the Australian ARIA Albums Chart. Writing for their third studio album had started in December 2009, and recording began in January 2010, with influences now including classical music, classical rock and pop genres, and bands such as The Subways, The Dead Weather, Mazzy Star, Ladytron and Peaches. In February 2012 it was announced that a release date for the album was "coming soon", with "LOM" being tagged on their Twitter feeds as an important phrase. On 2 June 2012 the band revealed the name of the album would be 'Life On Mars', and that it was to be released in September or October 2012. Warner Music then delayed the release of the album until 2013, but did release a single from it, with 'Lolita' appearing in July 2012. Due to label conflicts, the sisters embarked on a process of making many changes to the album, resulting in the release date being postponed again while the content and theme of the project was being changed. They also explained that 'Lolita' was not an official single promoting the new album, but was "just a single release for our Australian fans, as it's been such a long time since we have had anything new over there". On 26 October 2013, The Veronicas announced via their official Facebook page that they had split from Warner Bros. Records, and 'Life On Mars' was consigned to their vaults. Over the years the songs have leaked online, and following a rough track listing we are able to reconstruct what their third album could have sounded like, so here is The Veronicas' 'Life On Mars' for you all to enjoy. 

Track listing

01 Lolita
02 Runaways
03 Did You Miss Me (I'm A Veronica)
04 Army Of One
05 Stutter
06 Alive
07 101
08 Back To Life
09 Dead Cool
10 Take Me Home
11 Spirits And Sin
12 Sugar Daddy

Various Artists - The Hitmakers Sing Jim Croce (2022)

James Joseph Croce was born on 10 January 1943 in South Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and grew up in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania, right outside of Philadelphia. Graduating in 1960, he studied at Malvern Preparatory School for a year before enrolling at Villanova University, majoring in psychology and minoring in German, and discovering an interest in music when he became a leader of the campus singing group The Villanova Singers. Using a $500 wedding gift from Croce's parents, who set a condition that the money must be spent to make an album as they believed that he would give up music after the album failed, he released his first album, 'Facets', in 1966, with 500 copies being pressed. Despite his parents misgivings, the album proved to be a success, and every copy was sold. Croce married his girlfriend Ingrid Jacobson in 1966, and from the mid-1960's to the early 1970's, Croce and his wife performed as a duo, initially including songs by artists such as Ian & Sylvia, Gordon Lightfoot, Joan Baez, and Arlo Guthrie, but they eventually began writing their own music. In 1968, the Croces were encouraged by record producer Tommy West to move to New York City, and they recorded their first album, 'Jim & Ingrid Croce', for Capitol Records. Becoming disillusioned by the music business and New York City, they sold all but one guitar to pay their rent and returned to the Pennsylvania countryside, settling in an old farm in Lyndell. 

When Croce discovered that he and Ingrid were going to have a child, he became more determined to make music his profession, and so he sent a cassette of his new songs to a friend who was a producer in New York City in the hope that he could get a record deal. In 1972, Croce signed a three-record contract with ABC Records, releasing two albums, 'You Don't Mess Around With Jim' and 'Life And Times', with the singles of the title track and 'Time In A Bottle' from the first record receiving some airplay. He toured the United States, performing in large coffee houses and college campuses, but his financial situation remained precarious, as the record company had fronted him the money to record, and much of his earnings went to repay the advance. In 1973 he performed in London, Paris, Amsterdam, Zurich and Dublin, and in July the single 'Bad, Bad Leroy Brown' reached No. 1 on the American charts. This propelled his name into the public orbit, and  a few astute artists recorded covers of his early songs, in particular 'Time In A Bottle', which has become something of a classic song for him. Other tracks from 'Life And Times' continued to be picked up and covered over the next 40 years, and every one of them has now been tackled by a wide variety of artists, so here is a re-interpretation of Croce's second album of 1972, with two of his most famous tracks tagged on the end to flesh out a rather short album. 

Track listing

01 One Less Set Of Footsteps (Tom Swift 2011)  
02 Roller Derby Queen (Pat Surface 2022)  
03 Dreamin' Again (Marisa Malvino 2010) 
04 Careful Man (Jerry Reed 1980) 
05 Alabama Rain (Steiner Albrigtsen 2011)  
06 A Good Time Man Like Me Ain't Got No Business (Singin' The Blues) (Randy Howard 1976) 
07 Next Time, This Time (Mary Hopkin 2008) 
08 Bad, Bad Leroy Brown (Justin Tubb 1974)
09 These Dreams (Maggie's Guitar 2008)
10 Speedball Tucker (Nancy Sinatra 2008)
11 It Doesn't Have To Be That Way (Frank Chiafari 2012)

12 I'll Have To Say I Love You In A Song (Mary Travers 1974)
13 Time In A Bottle (Glen Campbell 1999)

Destiny's Child - Let's Do Us (2004)

Destiny's Child started life as a four-piece group called Girl's Tyme, comprising Beyoncé Knowles, Kelly Rowland, LaTavia Roberson, and LeToya Luckett. Over the course of the early years in their career, Girl's Tyme changed their name to Somethin' Fresh, Cliché, The Dolls, and finally to Destiny, under which name they were signed to Elektra Records, but they were dropped several months later before they could release an album. They then signed to Columbia Records in 1997, adding the word 'Child' to their name, as they were unable to trademark the name Destiny. The group was launched into mainstream recognition following the release of the song 'No, No, No' in 1997, and a debut album followed the next year, but it their best-selling second album, 'The Writing's On The Wall', in 1999 which cemented their reputation as a chart-topping group, containing the number-one singles 'Bills, Bills, Bills' and 'Say My Name'. Despite critical and commercial success, they were plagued by internal conflict and legal turmoil, as Roberson and Luckett attempted to split from the group's manager, Beyoncé's father Mathew Knowles, citing favouritism of Knowles and Rowland. In early 2000, both Roberson and Luckett were replaced with Michelle Williams and Farrah Franklin, but Franklin quit after a few months, leaving the group as a trio. Their third album, 'Survivor', was released in 2001, and the title and themes were interpreted by the public as a channel for the group's recent experiences. It produced the worldwide hits 'Independent Women', 'Survivor' and 'Bootylicious', but in 2001 they announced a hiatus to pursue solo careers, reuniting two years later for the release of their fifth and final studio album, 'Destiny Fulfilled' in 2004, after which they officially disbanded in 2006. While writing songs for their records, they often had left-overs which had to be omitted from the final track listings, either due to time constraints, or because they didn't fit the feel of the album. This post collects thirteen of them, recorded between 1997 and 2004, mopping up all the songs that never made it to one of their studio albums.   

Track listing

01 Forever Starts Today
02 I Try
03 Never Had A Love Like Mine
04 Show Me
05 You & Me
06 Life Like This
07 Like Dat
08 Body Rock
09 Heart
10 Let's Do Us
11 Never Enough
12 Sugar Daddy
13 Twirk

Tracks 1-5 'Destiny's Child' out-takes 1997
Track 6 'The Writing's On The Wall' out-take 1999
Tracks 7 'Survivor' out-take 2001
Tracks 8-13 'Destiny Fulfilled' out-takes 2004 

Sam Salter - Strictly 4 The Bedroom (2008)

After the disappointment of the cancellation of his second album, 'The Little Black Book', Sam Salter left LaFace Records and continue writing for other artists such as Jesse Powell, Jersey Ave., B2K, B5, The Isley Brothers, and Tyrese. He collaborated with the group Talking Book on their single 'On A September Morn', which was released in 2005, and in 2006 he made his stage play debut in Palmer Williams Jr.'s 'What A Man Wants, What A Woman Needs', starring alongside Shirley Murdock. Additionally, he begin working on his third studio album 'Strictly 4 The Bedroom', which he hoped to release in 2008. A few songs premiered on his official MySpace page, including the title track, but with no record deal on the horizon to release it, once again the album was shelved. He carried on producing and songwriting, with songs for El DeBarge and Charlie Wilson in 2010, as well as a feature on Klé's single 'Get It', and he did finally release another single that same year, with 'Straight 2 Heaven' being issued independently. He later signed with Elemental Entertainment INC, and released two digital singles, 'Got Me' and 'To Be Loved'. It's bad enough recording one album and having it binned, but for it to happen twice is doubly unfortunate, and in Salter's case it was through no fault of his own, as both records contains some excellent music. He died on 27 August 2021, at the tragically young age of 46, and so as a tribute to a mostly unrecognised talent, here is his second cancelled album from 2008.  

Track listing

01 When My Heart Cries

02 This Is 4 The Ladies (Make It Cry)

03 Real Love

04 Girl

05 Heart Break

06 I Can Love You

07 Question (How Can I Love U)

08 How Low

09 Work

10 Strictly For The Bedroom

11 When We Love

12 Spotlight

13 Yo Body Is My Body

Dua Lipa - Telling It Like It Is (2017)

Dua Lipa was born on 22 August 1995 in London, the eldest child of Kosovo Albanian parents Anesa (née Rexha) and Dukagjin Lipa. She was musically influenced by her father, who was the lead singer and guitarist of the Kosovan rock band Oda, and he continued to play music at home, including his own compositions and songs of artists such as David Bowie, Bob Dylan, Radiohead and The Police. It's no surprise then that Lipa began singing at the young age of five. She attended Fitzjohn's Primary School, and her music lessons there included the cello, but when she auditioned to enter the school choir, the teacher told her that she couldn't sing, so at the age of nine she began weekend singing lessons. In 2008 her family moved to Pristina after Kosovo declared independence, moving back to London in 2015 to finish her schooling. She starting writing her own songs, which she uploaded to SoundCloud and YouTube, along with videos of her covering tracks such as 'If I Ain't Got You' by Alicia Keys and 'Beautiful' by Christina Aguilera. She also modelled for Topshop and signed with a modelling agency, which helped her land a role as a "singer" in an ITV advertisement for The X Factor in 2013, covering the song 'Lost In Music'. In 2013 she signed a contract with Tap Management, directed by Ben Mawson and Ed Millett, who offered her a monthly salary to leave her job as a cocktail waitress and focus on recording music. During one of the sessions she co-wrote the song 'Hotter Than Hell', which led to her signing a record deal with Warner Bros. Records in 2014. In August 2015 she released her first single, 'New Love', followed by 'Be The One' in October, which reached number one in Belgium, Poland and Slovakia, as well as charting in the top ten in over eleven European territories. 

She toured the UK from January to early December 2016, during time which she released her third single, 'Last Dance', in February, followed by 'Hotter Than Hell' in May, which peaked at number 15 on the UK Singles Chart. Her fifth single 'Blow Your Mind (Mwah)', was released in August, and not only broke the UK Top 30, but was also her first entry on the US Billboard Hot 100, debuting at number 72. In May 2017, she performed at the anniversary of Indonesian television channel SCTV and won the award for Young and Promising International Artist at the SCTV Music Awards, and to build on this success she released her debut self-titled album in June 2017. The new single ,'New Rules', was released the following month, and it was her first number one in the UK. In June she performed at the Glastonbury Festival, and in July she performed at the We The Fest, an Indonesian music festival in Jakarta. In December, she was named the most streamed woman of 2017 in the UK by Spotify, and in January 2018, she received nominations in five categories at the Brit Awards, more nominations than any other artist that year. Between signing with Warner Bros. Records in 2014 and the release of her first album three years later, Lipa had been constantly writing and recording new songs, so that by the time she was ready to choose a dozen of them for her first album, she had around 60 to pick from, and so rather than waste those rejected tracks, I'll be posting four albums of out-takes and demos recorded between 2014 and 2017. 

Track listing

01 One For The Night
02 Between A Bullet And A Heartbreak
03 High, Wild And Free
04 New York (Mend My Broken Heart)
05 Chasing The Dragon
06 Looking For Trouble
07 Telling It Like It Is
08 Follow Me
09 Talk Myself (Out Of It)
10 Kinda Like That
11 Voodoo
12 Under The Lights
13 Yours

Wu-Tang Clan - Once Upon A Time In Shaolin (2023)

Every so often I check Youtube to see if any more tracks have leaked from from the Wu-Tang Clan's legendary 'Once Upon A Time In Shaolin' album. This was the seventh studio album by the American hip hop group, and only one physical copy of the disc was created, with no ability to download or stream it digitally. The music was recorded in secret over six years, and a single two-CD copy was pressed in 2014 and stored in a secured vault at the Royal Mansour Hotel in Marrakech, Morocco, then auctioned through auction house Paddle8 in 2015. A legal agreement with the purchaser stipulated that the album cannot be commercially exploited until 2103, although it can be played at listening parties. The winning bidder was Martin Shkreli, the CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals, who paid a reported $2 million to win this rarity. In March 2018, following Shkreli's conviction for securities fraud, a federal court seized assets belonging to him, including 'Once Upon A Time In Shaolin', and in July 2021 the US Department of Justice sold it to non-fungible token collectors PleasrDAO for $4 million to cover Shkreli's debts. Recording of the album began in the late 2000's with producer Cilvaringz, and it took about six years to complete. It features the entire Wu-Tang Clan, plus rapper Redman, the Wu-Tang Killa Beez, FC Barcelona soccer players, Game of Thrones actress Carice van Houten, and two appearances from Cher. Inspired by musical patronage in the Renaissance, Wu-Tang producer Cilvaringz decided to create 'Once Upon A Time In Shaolin' as an art object, and feeling that the value of music had been cheapened by streaming and online piracy, he and co-producer RZA hoped to return music to the value of fine art. 

The album was held in a silver jewel-encrusted box with a wax Wu-Tang Clan seal and leather-bound liner notes, and as part of the 'art' concept, it was exhibited to a crowd of around 150 art collectors, dealers, and critics in Queens, New York, and about 13 minutes of the album were played to the audience. In January 2016, Shkreli told Vice that he had considered destroying the record or "installing it in some remote place so that people have to make a spiritual quest to listen", but he also promised to release the album free if Donald Trump won the 2016 US presidential election, and after Trump was elected he did stream excerpts of the album online. So far that's all we have heard of it, but Rolling Stone critic Christopher Weingarten wrote that, based on the 13 minutes played in Queens, 'Once Upon A Time In Shaolin' had the potential to become the Wu-Tang Clan's most popular album since 1997. While searching online I stumbled across this album with the same name, and while I was dubious that it was the actual record, I gave it a listen and was pretty impressed with what I heard. It's actually been put together with music produced by @ProjectStrum, and mixed by Youtuber @hidden-chamber. Most of the lyrics comes from the lesser known songs, and from Wu-Tang collaborations with other artists, and it links to the real record by the first track being a commentary on the history of the real album. @ProjectStrum has given some background on his recording process, saying that by 2000 he felt that classic RZA sound that made the Clan was long gone, so he started to really listen\study his technique and sound, and to make a few remixes with other producer's instrumentals and Wu-Tang a cappella's, and around 2008 he started making his own beats, which have then been remixed by @hidden-chamber. It's all housed in a brilliant retro-looking sleeve, and while it's not what I was originally looking for, it will tide me over until 2103, when we get to hear the real thing.  

Track listing 

01 Intro
02 In Your Neighborhood
03 Fake Favorites (feat. Killa Sin)
04 11th Chamber
05 Bigger Than Gunz
06 Wu Killahs
07 Lethal Dose
08 Chessboxin'
09 Deadly Scenario (feat. Kool G Rap & Killa Sin)
10 Crane Style
11 Brutality Of War (feat. Killah Priest)
12 Who Want Some
13 Iron Fist

Boards Of Canada - Hooper Bay (1994)

Boards Of Canada's earliest website included a list of their albums, many of which are shrouded in mystery. They included 'Catalog 3', 'Acid Memories', 'Closes Vol 1', 'Play By Numbers', and finally 'Hooper Bay', and these albums were claimed to have around100 copies, or less, made and distributed to friends and family. 'Hooper Bay' is the band's fifth known release, issued on 12" vinyl and cassette in 1994. It introduced the use of children's voices, a technique which would remain a staple of the band's style through the release of 'Geogaddi', and is named after the Alaskan village of Hooper Bay, which is a Cup'ik Eskimo settlement. Of the EP's five tracks, only a 35-second excerpt of 'Circle', posted on the EHX website in the late 1990's, has ever been heard by those outside of the band's friends and family. In the years since, many fakes have gone up online claiming to be these albums, in particular a set of mp3's labelled 'Hooper Bay' but with significantly shorter track times than the actual EP, can be found on P2P networks, but like most of these, this set is mis-labelled and is not music by Boards of Canada. There's always a slight air of legitimacy considering that three additional albums, 'A Few Old Tunes', 'Old Tunes Vol 2', and 'Random 35 Tracks Tape' have been found (see previous posts here), and confirmed by "mdg", the mysterious user who's friends with the brothers, and who comments on matters for the band on the fan-forum Twoism. Recently someone tried to upload a record to the Discogs database, a website cataloguing every piece of physically released music in history, and although initially his submission was rejected, he provided a backstory, additional details, as well as three videos. One of the videos was the snippet of 'Circle' that we know about, but the other two videos were of side A and side B of the 12" vinyl being played. While the quality is poor (a potential strike into the fake column), it's also coming hot on the heels of last year's 25th anniversary of their debut big label album 'Music Has The Right To Children', so did the band leak this as part of the celebration? Here are those two videos, split into individual tracks, and 'Circle' does sound very similar to the clip that we already have, so it's now up to BOC mega-fans to let us all know if this is real or not. The only thing I'll say is that I can't hear the children's voices which are supposed to be an integral part of the music.  

Track listing

01 Seward Leaf 
02 Geiser 
03 Circle 
04 Noatak 
05 Point Hope 

Ellie Goulding - Bittersweet (2019)

As you will have seen if you've read the notes for the last two Ellie Goulding posts, right from the start of her career she was providing songs to be included in the soundtracks to films and TV series. Sometimes there were taken from her albums, but often they were written specifically for the film, and so I've collected them all here for an album that could be called 'Ellie Goulding At The Movies'. A couple of her tracks have appeared in US or UK TV shows, but the majority of the songs featured in films from 2010 to 2019, and many of them had never appeared on her albums until they were sometimes added to deluxe re-issues. 

Track listing

01 Starry Eyed (from the film 'Kick-Ass' 2010)
02 A Day At A Time (from the film 'Life In A Day' 2011)
03 I Know You Care (from the film 'Now Is Good' 2012)
04 Bittersweet (from the film 'The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2' 2012)
05 You My Everything (from the TV series 'Skins' 2013)
06 How Long Will I Love You (from the film 'About Time' 2013)
07 Hanging On (from the film 'The Host' 2013)
08 Mirror (from the film 'The Hunger Games: Catching Fire' 2013)
09 Beating Heart (from the film 'Divergent' 2014)
10 Heavy Crown (with Iggy Azalea) (from the film 'Kingsman: The Secret Service' 2014)
11 Love Me Like You Do (from the film 'Fifty Shades Of Grey' 2015)
12 When Your Feet Don't Touch The Ground (from the Broadway show 'Finding Neverland' 2015)
13 Still Falling For You (from the film 'Bridget Jones's Baby' 2016)
14 Do You Remember (from the film 'Fighting With My Family' 2019)

Various Artists - The Hitmakers Sing Paul Simon (2000)

Paul Simon met Art Garfunkel when they were both 10, when they performed in a production of Alice in Wonderland for their sixth-grade graduation, and they began singing together when they were 13, occasionally performing at school dances. It was around this time that Simon wrote his first song, 'The Girl For Me', for him and Garfunkel to sing, and in 1957, while still in their mid-teens, they recorded the song 'Hey, Schoolgirl' under the name 'Tom & Jerry', which reached number 49 on the pop charts. Between 1957 and 1964 Simon wrote, recorded and released more than 30 songs, occasionally reuniting with Garfunkel as Tom & Jerry for some singles, including 'Our Song' and 'That's My Story'. Most of the songs Simon recorded during that time were performed alone or with musicians other than Garfunkel, and they were released on minor record labels including Amy, Big, Hunt, King, Tribute and Madison under several pseudonyms, such as Jerry Landis, Paul Kane and True Taylor. In early 1964, Simon and Garfunkel auditioned for Columbia Records, whose executive Clive Davis signed them to produce an album. Columbia decided that the two would be called Simon & Garfunkel instead of Tom & Jerry, and their first album, 'Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M.', was released in October 1964. It contained five Simon compositions, but it was not successful, and so after its release Simon moved to England and performed in folk clubs. While in London he recorded 'The Paul Simon Songbook', which was a collection of his songs, a couple of which had already appeared on the first Simon & Garfunkel album.  The album was released along with the single 'I Am A Rock'/'Leaves That Are Green' in 1965, and as many of these songs were later re-recorded for Simon And Garfunkel albums, this is the perfect collection to offer to other artists to hear their takes on these early works. As often happens, these artists could see the quality of the songs from the start, and so most of these covers appeared between 1965 and 1967, and to round out what is rather a short album I've added two contemporary songs to the end.  

Track listing 

01 I Am A Rock (The Grass Roots 1966)
02 Leaves That Are Green (The Coterie 1969)   
03 A Church Is Burning (Cy, Maia & Robert 1965)
04 April Come She Will (Hamilton Camp 1969) 
05 The Sound Of Silence (The Ravers 1966)   
06 A Most Peculiar Man (The Cowsills 1967)
07 He Was My Brother (The Pilgrims 1964)
08 Kathy's Song (Eva Cassidy 2000)
09 The Side Of A Hill (The Paravrim 1972)
10 A Simple Desultory Philippic (Swamp Zombies 1988)
11 Flowers Never Bend With The Rainfall (The MacDonald Folk Group 1968)  
12 Patterns (Tir Ni Nog 1970) 
13 We've Got A Groovey Thing Going (The Racket Squad 1968)
14 Homeward Bound (The Quiet Five 1966)

Fifth Harmony - Girls Like Us (2016)

After the tour supporting 'Reflection' was complete, Fifth Harmony decamped to the recording studio to begin work on their second album, which was given a provisional release date of 20 May 2016. It was to be named '27/7', after the date that they were formed on The X Factor, and in keeping with this theme of '27', it was later announced that the album's release had been pushed back a week to 27 May. The lead single, 'Work From Home', which featured American singer Ty Dolla Sign, was released in February 2016, and it peaked at number four on the Billboard Hot 100, becoming the group's highest-charting single in the United States. As announced, '27/7' was indeed released on 27 May, and debuted at number four on the Billboard 200, as well as achieving their first chart appearances in Japan and South Korea. A tour supporting the record started in June, and covered South America, North America and Europe, with supporting artists Victoria Monét and JoJo. The group's last performance of 2016, and as a quintet, was on the previously taped 'Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve', during which they performed 'Worth It', 'Work From Home' and 'That's My Girl'. On 18 December 2016, the group announced that Camilla Cabello had left, and that the remaining four members would continue as a four-piece. As before, while recording songs for the '27/7' album, they taped more than they needed, and while some were later added to exclusive Japanese pressings of the album, or given away by Napster, others have yet to make an official appearance, so I've added those unreleased tracks to the Japanese and Napster rarities for one last album by the original five-piece Fifth Harmony. They made one further recording as a quartet, with the eponymously titled 'Fifth Harmony' album being released in 2017, but this time they kept a tighter rein on the out-takes, and although we know the titles of some of the rejected songs, most of them are yet to make an appearance online, apart from one solitary track 'Better With You', which I've slotted in here so as not to waste it. On 19 March 2018, the group announced their decision to take an indefinite hiatus to pursue solo projects, so this is the final post from the girls, although out-takes from some of those solo projects will make an appearance in the future. 

Track listing

01 Girls Like Us

02 No Way

03 Feel So Right

04 PSA

05 Voicemail

06 1000 Hands

07 Come Get It

08 Better With You

09 Monies (feat. Tory Lanez)

10 Big Bad Wolf

11 All Again

12 Ladder

Sam Salter - The Little Black Book (2000)

Samuel Salter was born on 16 February 1975 in Los Angeles, and at a young age he won several local talent shows, with a vocal style that was influenced by Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder. In 1997, after his demo tape found its way into the hands of L.A. Reid of LaFace Records, he was quickly signed to the label and he began to work on his debut album with Kenneth "Babyface" Edmonds. He ended up working with Tricky Stewart and Laney Stewart who produced the majority of the album, as well as Tony Rich, Robin Thicke and Gordon Chambers, and the first single from the sessions was released in early 1997, with 'After 12, Before 6' becoming a Top 20 R&B hit. His debut album, 'It's On Tonight', was released on 23 September 1997 and garnered positive reviews, while a second single from the album, the ballad 'There You Are', was released and hit the Top 40 on the R&B charts. Around this time, he continued to work on his songwriting, providing songs for 98 Degrees, Aaron Skyy, and Kandi Burruss' solo debut. In 1999 Salter began preparing for his sophomore album with LaFace Records, and the lead single 'Once My Sh.. (Always My Sh..)' was released and featured a steamy music video, but the song only received moderate airplay. He completed work on the album, titled 'The Little Black Book', and it was set for release in 2000, but due to a re-shuffle at the label, along with some other issues, it was shelved. Despite this outcome, a few of the songs ended up being recorded by other artists such as Boyz II Men, who recorded 'Color Of Love', and Sisqó, who recorded the non-album song 'Incomplete'. With this validation that it was not the quality of the songs which was the problem, here is what would have been Salter's frankly superb second album for LaFace in 2000. 

Track listing

01 Intro  
02 Make Me Stay  
03 Once My Sh.. (Always My Sh..) 
04 Dime Piece 
05 Go Down 
06 Another Man's Got You 
07 Best Friend 
08 Did I Die 
09 Your Side Of The Bed  
10 Money Can't Buy You  
11 Color Of Love 
12 You Don't Have To Be Lonely 
13 Love Again

Pearly Gates - Fading Into The Night (1979)

The final post in this short celebration of the productions of Ian Levine is 'Fading Into The Night' by Pearly Gates. Viola Billups (aka Pearly Gates) was born on 4 July 1946 in Alabama, and she joined The Flirtations with sisters Earnestine Pearce and Betty Pearce in 1964, moving to London in 1968, where their music was popular. She left the group in 1973 and released her first single 'Sad Old Shadow', written by Lynsey De Paul and Don Gould, on Polydor Records under the name Vie, taking up the Pearly Gates name for her second record 'Johnny And The Jukebox' in 1974. Several more singles followed in the late 70's on RCA Records and Bronze Records, and she was a popular artist on TV, being a regular performer on the Cliff Richard show, until in 1979 she completed her first disco album 'Fading Into The Night' with producer Ian Levine. The album was supposed to have been released by American singer Cobie Jones, who didn't make it to the sessions so Gates took over, but as with the other albums that Levine recorded in 1979, it became a victim of the disco backlash, and was shelved. In 1985 she enjoyed a Hi-NRG hit with the song 'Action', and she toured with Madeline Bell and Katie Kissoon, performing with the James Last Orchestra. Two of her unreleased disco tracks were eventually released on 12" singles in Levine's Nightmare Gold series in 1987, and other tracks appeared on a 'best of' CD in 1995, but here is the original full album as recorded in 1979, to close this celebration of the productions of Ian Levine. 

Track listing

01 No Two Ways About It
02 Caught In A Love Trap
03 Fading Into The Night
04 The Race Is On
05 Home Is In The Streets

Various Artists - Criminal Records (2023)

2023 was a great year for TV drama, with second series being granted to 'Only Murders In The Building', 'Good Omens', 'From', 'Vigil', 'The Afterparty', and 'The Lazarus Project', while intriguing new dramas included 'The Big Door Prize', 'Severance', 'Bodies', and 'Deadloch'. I enjoyed 'Squid Game: The Challenge' almost as much as the original series, and both 'Succession' and 'Better Call Saul' ended on a high after gripping finales. Once again, some of the best things about these shows are the theme tunes, and so here is a second collection of my favourites, including two from sci-fi shows that I've enjoyed over the past few years - 'The Orville' and 'Star Trek: Lower Decks' (OK, I know it's an animated show but it's really well done and doesn't just play it for laughs), plus the superb comedy/drama 'What We Do In The Shadows'. Where the piece is only about a minute or so long I've extended them so that most are now around the two-minute mark, with the seventeen tracks making up a reasonable 40-minute album of mostly crime-related TV shows, and if there are any here that you don't know then do check them out as they are all well worth seeing. 

   

Track listing

01 Fuel To Fire (Agnes Obel) [from 'Vigil']

02 Good Omens (David Arnold)

03 Severance (Theodore Shapiro)

04 Pink Soldiers (Paddy Fletcher) [from 'Squid Game: The Challenge']

05 Que Sera, Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be) (Pixies) [from 'From']

06 Criminal (Robin Foster)

07 The Orville (Bruce Broughton)

08 Deadloch (Amanda Brown)

09 Succession (Nicholas Britell)

10 Walking My Cat Name Dog (Norma Tanega) [from 'What We Do In The Shadows']

11 The Lazarus Project (Ben Lukas Boysen)

12 Only Murders In The Building (Siddhartha Khosla)

13 Better Call Saul Theme (Little Barrie) [from 'Better Call Saul']

14 Bodies (Jon Opstad)

15 Dusty's Lecture (Zachary Dawes & Nick Sena) [from 'The Big Door Prize']

16 The Afterparty (Daniel Pemberton)

17 Star Trek: Lower Decks (Chris Westlake) 

Soukseek hint   criminal aiwe

Various Artists - The Hitmakers Sing Neil Young (2016)

Neil Young had been recording music since 1963, when he had his first local hit single with 'The Sultan' by his band The Squires, through the late 60's with Buffalo Springfield', and then when he started his solo career in 1969. However, it could arguably be said that it wasn't until 1970's 'After The Goldrush' that he came up with a set of songs which could be said to stand the test of time as classics. The songs on that album have become some of his best-known works, and because of that have attracted numerous other artists attempts to give us their own take on them. Most of these artists recognised the quality of the songs straight away, and so the majority of the better covers come from 1970 and 1971, although it was worth the wait to hear Died Pretty's take on 'When You Dance'. Prelude even garnered a hit single with their a cappella version of the title track, and Francois Hardy's Gallic rendering of 'When The Morning Comes' just makes you wish that Young had written some verses to go with it, while Danish garage rockers The Teenmakers decided to add their take on 'Southern Man' to the flip a 1970 single. There's not much more that I can say about these songs, so I'll let the music do the talking, and as 'Oh Lonesome Me' from the album was itself a cover, I've added a couple of extra songs from his CSN&Y phase from the same period to make up the time.    

 

  
Track listing

01 Tell Me Why (Matthews Southern Comfort 1970)  
02 After The Goldrush (Prelude 1973)  
03 Only Love Can Break Your Heart (Jackie DeShannon 1972)  
04 Southern Man (The Teenmakers 1970)  
05 Till The Morning Comes (Francois Hardy 1972)  
06 Don't Let It Bring You Down (Hookfoot 1971)
07 Birds (Linda Ronstadt 1972) 
08 When You Dance I Can Really Love (Died Pretty 1988)
09 I Believe In You (Rita Coolidge 1971) 
10 Cripple Creek Ferry (Anonymous Choir 2016)
11 Helpless (Buffy Sainte-Marie 1971)
12 Everybody I Love You (Morningstar 1979)
13 Ohio (The Isley Brothers 1971)

Ellie Goulding - Tainted Memories (2016)

In 2012, Ellie Goulding appeared on 'Fall Into The Sky' from Zedd's debut album 'Clarity', and on Calvin Harris's song 'I Need Your Love', as well as releasing a cover of Active Child's song 'Hanging On' as a free download on her SoundCloud page. In late July 2012, it was announced that her second album was to be titled 'Halcyon', and it would be released on 8 October 2012, preceded by the lead single 'Anything Could Happen' on 21 August. The album received generally positive reviews from music critics, who complimented Goulding's more aggressive showcase of her voice and the album's bold production, and it debuted at number two on the UK Albums Chart. In November she contributed a track titled 'Bittersweet' (produced by Skrillex) to the soundtrack of 'The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2', and in May 2013 she released a cover of Alt-J's song 'Tessellate' via her SoundCloud page. In July she premiered a song called 'You My Everything' in the first episode of the TV series 'Skins', and that same day she confirmed that 'Halcyon' would be re-released later that year as 'Halcyon Days', appearing on 23 August. The re-release featured ten additional tracks, and was preceded by the single 'Burn', which had been uploaded to her SoundCloud page the previous day. 

She also appeared on the soundtrack to the film 'The Hunger Games: Catching Fire' with the track 'Mirror', and on 15 October 2013, she confirmed on Fearne Cotton's radio show that 'How Long Will I Love You' would be the next single for BBC's Children in Need. On 22 January 2014, Goulding confirmed through her Facebook page that she had contributed the song 'Beating Heart' to the soundtrack for the film 'Divergent', and on 3 February she released a cover of the James Blake song 'Life Round Here' through her SoundCloud page. In November 2014 she announced that she was focusing on a third studio album, and in early 2015 she released the song 'Love Me Like You Do', which was featured on the soundtrack to the film 'Fifty Shades Of Grey'. Having finished recording new material on 27 July 2015, Goulding tweeted a link to an Instagram post of her leaving Abbey Road Studios captioned, "That's a wrap!", and 'Delerium' was released on 6 November 2015 by Polydor Records. Music critics were generally impressed by the overall production of the record, although they were ambivalent in regards to its originality, but it still debuted at number three on the UK Albums Chart. Three singles were taken from the record, with 'On My Mind' as the lead single, followed by 'Army' and 'Something In The Way You Move', and on 19 August 2016 she released the song 'Still Falling For You' for the soundtrack to the film 'Bridget Jones's Baby'. As you can see by the number of songs that she gifted to movie soundtracks, Goulding was writing and recording way more than was needed for 'Delerium', and so once again there were demos and out-takes left over after the album was released, which are collected here for another companion album, this one from 2016. 

Track listing

01 Closed For Love
02 Kingdom
03 Mosaic
04 I've Done Chamber
05 President
06 You Don't Know
07 Tasting Colour
08 Over Me
09 Beautifully Numb
10 Electricity
11 Hush
12 Real Love
13 Tainted Memories