Weezer - Ecce Homo (2012)

When Rivers Cuomo started to think about writing Weezer's tenth studio album, he was coming up with songs that sounded totally different from their previous record 'Hurley', which had been kind of dark, whereas the new songs seemed to be more upbeat. During the time that Cuomo was writing these songs, he experienced several important life events: On December 6, 2009, during Weezer's tour in support of Raditude, the bus carrying Cuomo, his wife, his daughter, their nanny, and his assistant Sarah Kim, skidded off an icy road in Glen, New York. Cuomo suffered three cracked ribs and some internal bleeding, resulting in Weezer subsequently having to cancel the remainder of the tour. He eventually recovered from his injuries, but another tragedy was around the corner, and on 8 October 2011, former Weezer bassist Mikey Welsh was found dead in a hotel room as a result of an overdose. Around this time, Cuomo also lost his grandfather, a former girlfriend, and his Vipassana meditation teacher, and was separated from his family for five months due to the difficult birth of his son, Leo, during this period. All this made Cuomo re-evaluate his life, and so for the band's next record he came up with a concept album titled 'Ecce Homo' (Latin for "Behold the man"), deriving the title from the book of the same name by Friedrich Nietzsche. The concept for 'Ecce Homo' centred around a character named Sebastian who, for deliberately ambiguous reasons, appeared to exist throughout various eras of history and, over the course of the narrative, comes to realize the necessity of faith in a higher power. The album cover would have been the 1474 Antonello da Messina painting, also called 'Ecce Homo', which was later used for the fan-club single 'Everybody Needs Salvation', and the plan was that the album would have included a fold-out star map, and a picture of the Tower of Babel. In the end the idea was scrapped, and four of the tracks eventually appeared on Weezer's actual tenth album 'Everything Will Be Alright In The End', which was released in 2014. A selection of demos considered for 'Ecce Homo' were included as part of the digital compilation 'Alone XI: The EWBAITE Years' in 2020, and this gives us a starting point in piecing the album together, which is based on a track listing from Weezer's own website. 

Track listing

Act I:
01 Semper Fidelis
02 The Rules Of Life
03 Gravity Will Bring You Down
04 Sing My Blues Away
05 The British Are Coming
Act II:
06 Narcissus Blooming
07 Ain't Got Nobody
08 I Won't Flake On You
09 Ivory Telephone
10 Cleopatra
Act III:
11 The Waste Land
12 Bless The Whole Wide World
13 Everybody Needs Salvation
14 A Boat On The Sea
15 Anonymous
16 Resurgam Fidei ('Return To Ithaka')

The Sundays - Nothing Sweet (1997)

Vocalist Harriet Wheeler and guitarist David Gavurin met as students at Bristol University in the mid-1980's, and after falling in love and moving in together, they wrote music in their free time while collecting unemployment benefits. Except for Wheeler's vocal duties in a band called Jim Jiminee, the couple had no musical background, but Gavurin had a drive to write music, and Wheeler displayed similar feelings. After the couple had completed several songs, they migrated to London and enlisted the support of bassist Paul Brindley and drummer Patrick Hannan, who had also attended Bristol University, and whose brother Nick had also been a member of Jim Jiminee. The band chose the name The Sundays' as it was the only one everyone could agree upon, and demo tapes were sent out to several London clubs after the group felt energized by their efforts. Responses to the tape were enthusiastic and an employee at Vertigo Club offered the band an opening slot for an upcoming show in August 1988, which just happened to have three reviewers in the audience from the top music papers. Instead of reviewing the main band, they wrote about The Sundays, and the group subsequently became the focus of a record label bidding war. They eventually signed with Rough Trade Records and had a distribution deal signed for the United States with DGC Records, releasing their first single 'Can't Be Sue' in January 1989. It topped the British indie charts and received acclaim as one of the best singles of the year, with the group soon being invited to record a session for the John Peel radio show. 

They worked on their debut album for over a year, as unlike many bands who sign a record deal after playing the circuit for years, the band didn't have enough material for a long-player, but after writing and recorded more songs, 'Reading, Writing And Arithmetic' was released in January 1990. It was a commercial success, reaching number 4 on the UK charts, and peaking at number 39 on the Billboard 200 in the United States. Its distinct Englishness in lyrics, augmented by Harriet Wheeler's accent, alongside their lighter-than-air guitar pop, influenced the nascent Britpop scene, notably impacting bands like Sleeper, while the hit single 'Here's Where The Story Ends' gave them considerable success in the USA. The band experienced some hardships leading up to the recording of their second album, as in 1991 Rough Trade Records went bankrupt, and a lot of their bands had to find new record deals. The Sundays signed with Parlophone Records in the UK, but constant touring coupled with their decision to manage themselves hampered the group's creative output. This was already an issue, as Gavurin and Wheeler were the main songwriters, and were perfectionists when it came to writing and recording their music. The band's low profile around this time led to rumours that they had disbanded, but this was laid to rest with the issue of a new single, 'Goodbye', which was a minor hit in the Autumn of 1992, and the b-side was a cover of The Rolling Stones' 'Wild Horses'. Their next album, 'Blind', was finally released in October 1992, and was as successful as their debut, peaking at number 103 on the Billboard 200. Critical reception was also positive, although some critics thought the album lacked the quality song-writing of its predecessor. 

After a tour of the US, the band holidayed in Thailand and, upon returning to England, they put their music career on the back burner for a time, with Gavurin and Wheeler expressing a desire to settle down. Wheeler gave birth to the couple's daughter, Billie, in March 1995, and they also built a recording studio in their home, not only to save on the cost of renting a studio, but also to expand their creative freedoms. After a five year hiatus, the group reconvened and released their third album, 'Static & Silence', although the reviews were more mixed than for their first two records. While the band retained much of the same sound that they developed on previous albums, they added horns to a number of tracks, and although the album was not as successful as their others, the single 'Summertime' became their most successful hit to date on the UK chart ,and achieved a top 10 spot on the US Alternative Rock chart. As might be expected, bearing in mind how hard Gavurin and Wheeler found it to write their music, not many of their singles included exclusive material, with only one new song appearing in 1990, and two in 1992, but for their comeback in 1997 they were much more prolific, and so if we add in the previously unreleased 'Turkish', we have a nice 41-minute album of rare and hard to find recordings from this enigmatic band.    

Track listing

01 Don't Tell Your Mother (b-side of 'Can't Be Sure' 1990)
02 Noise (b-side of 'Goodbye' 1992)
03 Wild Horses (b-side of 'Goodbye' 1992)
04 Here's Where The Story Ends (live, b-side of 'Wild Horses' 1993)    
05 Turkish (unreleased song 1997)
06 Can't Be Sure (demo) (b-side of 'Cry' 1997)
07 You're Not The Only One I Know (demo) (b-side of 'Cry' 1997)
08 Through The Dark (b-side of 'Cry' 1997)
09 Life Goes On (b-side of 'Cry' 1997)
10 Nothing Sweet (b-side of 'Summertime' 1997)
11 Gone (b-side of 'Summertime' 1997)
12 So Much (bonus track on re-issue of 'Static & Silence' 1997)

Personal Trainer - Fiddlefunk (2023)

Following on from my recent discovery of new bands The Ezra Collective and English Teacher, my new tip for the top is Personal Trainer. They are a Dutch indie rock band based in Amsterdam, who are occasionally referred to as a collective, as they are built around frontman Willem Smit, and have a continuously changing line-up with which they perform. The band initially started as a solo project of Smit, who frequently asked different people to play along on stage, and currently he is the only permanent member of the group, with his fellow band members rotating between artists who are part of, among others, Netherlands counterparts Canshaker Pi, Pip Blom, Steve French and The Klittens, as well as English bands Home Counties and Bull. In 2020, they performed at Eurosonic Noorderslag in Groningen, and in 2021 they played continuously for 24 hours in Paradiso Amsterdam. On record, Smit teams up with Casper van der Lans to produce efforts that cement their status at the head of the burgeoning Dutch guitar scene, and they've been releasing singles and EP's since 2019, with their first album, 'Big Love Blanket' appearing in 2022 on The Industry record label. Now signed to Bella Union, they released their second album this year, with 'Still Willing' receiving praise from critics and the public alike, and so if, like me, you are only now discovering the delights of Personal Trainer, then here is all the music that they've released up to this point, which was not included on either of their albums. 

Track listing

01 The Lazer (original single version 2019)
02 Stormchaser Of The Month (b-side of 'The Lazer')
03 Edible Plastic (single 2020)
04 Issue Box (b-side of 'Edible Plastic')
05 The Industry (b-side of 'Edible Plastic')
06 Crops (from the 10" 'Gazebo' EP 2021)
07 Politics (from the 10" 'Gazebo' EP 2021)
08 Muscle Memory (from the 10" 'Gazebo' EP 2021)
09 Fiddlefunk (from the 10" 'Gazebo' EP 2021)
10 The Loozer (from the 10" 'Gazebo' EP 2021)
11 1,000,000 (from the 10" 'Live At Katzwijm' EP 2023)
12 Total Wotal (from the 10" 'Live At Katzwijm' EP 2023)
13 The Feeling (single 2023)
14 Babyolifantjes (b-side of 'The Feeling')

Sunday Girl - Four Floors (2012)

Jade Williams was born on 21 May 1988 in Sidcup, Greater London, and is professionally known as Whinnie Williams. She grew up in Broxbourne, working at a local pet shop every Sunday during her teenage years, and as she had not revealed her name to the other members of staff, she became known as Sunday Girl, which would later become her music alias. Having overcome stage fright through hypnosis, she joined many cover bands, including a ska band, a jazz band, and a trio who did covers of '40s blues standards with a ukulele and double bass. However, she soon became bored of singing covers and so took a gap year during her studies to travel and, more importantly, focus on her song-writing. While singing at a night club, she was discovered by a manager, and he helped direct her to work with other songwriters, which led to her eventual signing with Polydor Records and Universal's Geffen Records in late 2009. Her debut single as Sunday Girl was 'Four Floors' in March 2010, followed by 'Self Control' in July, and then she was offered a support slot on Ellie Goulding's tour during November. Her third single, 'Stop Hey', was officially released through iTunes by Polydor in February 2011, and in June she was featured on Martin Solveig's album 'Smash', performing 'Let's Not Play Games', which she co-wrote. 

Her cover of 'Love U More', originally by Sunscreem, was promotionally released in October 2011, but its commercial release was delayed indefinitely, although that seemed insignificant when her big break came, with her cover of Pixies' 'Where Is My Mind?' being used for Thomson's 2011 holiday TV campaign, and the single's success helped her to be signed by Universal's Island Records in early 2012. In turn, this led to other TV ads, in particular for supermarket chain Aldi, with her cover of 'My Favourite Things' in 2015. In March 2012 she co-wrote the song 'Turn Up The Radio' for Madonna's twelfth studio album 'MDNA', and her song 'High & Low' was featured on the official motion picture soundtrack of 'StreetDance 2'. In February 2013 she announced the end of the Sunday Girl project, and released her first singles under the name Whinnie Williams, with both 'You Don't Love Me' and 'Break Hearts In Your Sleep' appearing in 2013. In 2018 she founded interiors brand Poodle & Blonde, and has been the host for BBC 3 show 'Flat Out Fabulous' since 2020, but with the end of the Sunday Girl project, the proposed Polydor album was shelved, so I've taken all her known recordings up to 2013 and added a few choice covers from Blur, Keisha, MGMT and Everything Everything, to add to the one from Pixies, and we end up with the album that could have appeared in 2012 if Sunday Girl had carried on. 

Track listing

01 Stop Hey
02 Self Control
03 Four Floors
04 Human Love
05 Where Is My Mind
06 TiK ToK
07 Love U More
08 Tender
09 Time To Pretend
10 High & Low
11 Photoshop Handsome

Selena Gomez - Seven Heavens (2017)

Selena Marie Gomez was born on 22 July 1992, in Grand Prairie, Texas, to a 16 year old mother, and the family had financial troubles throughout Gomez's childhood, with her mother struggling to provide for the pair. She first gained an interest in pursuing a career in entertainment watching her mother prepare for stage productions, and in 2002, she began her acting career on the children's television series 'Barney & Friends, portraying the character Gianna. She appeared in thirteen episodes of the show between 2002 and 2004, after which she was dismissed as she was "too old" for the series. In 2007 she was given a recurring role on the Disney Channel series 'Hannah Montana', as pop star Mikayla, and she later auditioned for a role in the network's series 'Wizards Of Waverly Place', ultimately winning the lead role of Alex Russo. 'Wizards Of Waverly Place' saw Gomez playing a teenage girl in a family of wizards who own a restaurant in New York City, and it quickly became a success for the Disney Channel, and marked Gomez's breakthrough into the mainstream. Following her appearance in the teen musical comedy film 'Another Cinderella Story', she contributed three songs to the soundtrack, including the single 'Tell Me Something I Don't Know', which became her first entry on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart. She also recorded the song 'Fly To Your Heart' for the soundtrack of the animated 2008 film 'Tinker Bell', and that same year, at age 16, she signed with Hollywood Records, and formed her own production company, July Moon Production. Her film and TV career continued throughout 2009, and hoping to cross over into the music industry, she formed the pop rock band Selena Gomez & the Scene through her record deal with Hollywood Records. 

The group's debut studio album, 'Kiss & Tell', influenced by pop rock and electronic rock, was released in September 2009, and it debuted at number nine on the Billboard 200 albums chart in the U.S. with first-week sales of 66,000 copies. It received mixed reviews, with some critics praising its fun nature and others criticizing Gomez's vocal performance, and although the lead single was not commercially successful, the second single, 'Naturally', became a breakthrough hit, reaching number twenty-nine in the U.S. and number seven in the United Kingdom. In 2010, Selena Gomez & the Scene released their second studio album 'A Year Without Rain', which debuted on the U.S. Billboard 200 at number four, and once again it received mixed to positive reviews, with some critics reacting negatively to Gomez's Auto-Tuned vocals. The band's third and final studio album, 'When the Sun Goes Down', was released the following year to the usual mixed reviews, and the album's lead single, 'Who Says', was the band's highest charting effort, peaking at number twenty-one in the U.S. Gomez confirmed in January 2012 that she would be taking a break from music, placing Selena Gomez & the Scene on hiatus, and for the next twelve months she concentrated on her axcting, but despite earlier claims that she would be taking a break from music, she released 'Come & Get It' as the lead single from her debut solo album in 2013. 

It became her first top-ten entry on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100, reaching number six, and the 'Stars Dance' album was released in July, debuting at number one in the U.S. The mixed reviews continued, with critics this time commenting on her inability to create her own musical identity and panning her vocal abilities. In April 2014, Gomez fired her mother and stepfather as her managers, as she wanted to find fresh handlers as part of a strategy to "move on into more adult-oriented fare in film and music", and with her contract with Hollywood Records coming to an end, she surprise-released her new single 'The Heart Wants What It Wants' in November 2014. To complete her contract with her label, they released her first greatest hits album, 'For You', after which she officially parted ways with Hollywood Records and later signed with Interscope Records in December 2014. While working on her second studio album, she collaborated with German DJ Zedd on 'I Want You To Know', released in February 2015, and she followed this in June with 'Good For You', featuring rapper ASAP Rocky, as the lead single from her second studio album. Gomez released her second studio album, 'Revival', in October 2015, and its dance-pop and electropop vibes were finally reviewed positively by critics, who praised its production and lyrical content. 

Gomez embarked on her worldwide Revival Tour in May 2016, which focussed solely on her as an artist, and featured less choreography and fewer effects than her previous tour. She Gomez began working on her third studio album while touring, and added a new song titled 'Feel Me' to the setlist of her Revival Tour, with the song later being released in February 2020, due to high demand from fans. After touring in North America, Asia and Oceania, she cancelled the European and South America legs in August 2016 due to anxiety, panic attacks and depression caused by her lupus, and following the cancelation of her tour, she rechecked into rehab to focus on her mental health, and was noticeably absent from social media. After being absent from the public eye for four months, she triumphantly returned to the spotlight by appearing at the American Music Awards where she was nominated for Favourite Pop/Rock Female Artist and Artist of the Year, the first of which she won. In February 2017, Gomez and the Norwegian DJ Kygo released a single together titled 'It Ain't Me', which reached the top ten of most major music charts worldwide, including the U.S. and the U.K. 

In May she released the single 'Bad Liar' to universal acclaim from music critics, with some deeming it her best song to date, and she followed this with 'Fetish' featuring rapper Gucci Mane two months later. In October 2017, Gomez and EDM producer Marshmello released the single 'Wolves', which was another commercial success, and in May 2018, the single 'Back To You' was included on the soundtrack of the TV series '13 Reasons Why: Season 2', but the third album remained elusive, and was nowhere to be seen. In October 2019, Gomez released 'Lose You To Love Me' as the lead single from her third studio album, and the next day, she surprise-released the album's second single, 'Look At Her Now', with the album 'Rare' following in January 2020, becoming her third consecutive number-one album in the US. In 2017 she was photographed wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the legend Seven Heavens, and this was taken to be the title of her third album, which was expected to come out in 2017, but as it appeared to have been put on the back-burner until she re-appeared in 2020, then I've collected all the songs that she recorded for it and have constructed her actual third album from 2017, now titled 'Seven Heavens'. 

Track listing

01 Fetish (feat. Gucci Mane)
02 Bad Liar
03 Strong (feat. Justin Bieber)
04 P.O.S.E. (Praise On Someone Else)
05 Kinda Crazy
06 Stained
07 It Ain't Me (feat. Kygo)
08 Feel Me
09 Back To You
10 Bad Guy
11 Higher Or Heaven (feat. Halsey)
12 Love's Not Over (feat. Cody Simpson)
13 Wolves (feat. Marshmello)

Jay-Z - The Greatest MC (1994)

Shawn Corey Carter was born on 4 December 1969, in Brooklyn, New York City, and was raised in Marcy Houses, a public housing project in Brooklyn's Bedford–Stuyvesant neighborhood. His father abandoned the family, and so he and his three older siblings were raised by his mother. He attended Eli Whitney High School and George Westinghouse Career and Technical Education High School, both in Brooklyn, and then Trenton Central High School in Trenton, New Jersey, but he didn't graduate, dropping out during his sophomore year at Trenton Central High School. According to his interviews and his lyrics, he sold crack cocaine after leaving school, and was shot at three times during this period. Known as "Jazzy" around the neighborhood, he later adopted the stage name "Jay-Z" in homage to his mentor Jaz-O. He can briefly be heard on several of Jaz-O's early recordings in the late 1980's and early 1990's, including 'H. P. Gets Busy', 'The Originators' and 'Hawaiian Sophie', and he also became embroiled in several battles with rapper LL Cool J in the early 1990's. He first became known to a wider audience on the posse cut 'Show And Prove' on the 1994 Big Daddy Kane album 'Daddy's Home', with Jay-Z being referred to as Big Daddy Kane's hype man during this period. However, Kane explains that he did not fill the traditional hype man role, and was instead basically making cameo appearances on stage when Kane left the stage to change outfits. He appeared on a popular song by Big L, 'Da Graveyard', and on Mic Geronimo's 'Time To Build' in 1995, which also featured early appearances by his former Murder Inc. colleagues Ja Rule and DMX. His first official rap single was 'In My Lifetime', which was released with an accompanying music video in 1995, but before this he had recorded a number of demo tracks which he passed around in the hope of finding a record deal. With no major label prepared to give him a deal, he sold burned CDs out of his car, and with Damon "Dame" Dash and Kareem "Biggs" Burke, created Roc-A-Fella Records as an independent label in 1995. After striking a distribution deal with Priority, Jay-Z released his 1996 debut album 'Reasonable Doubt', with beats from acclaimed producers such as DJ Premier and Super DJ Clark Kent, and an appearance by The Notorious B.I.G. The album reached number 23 on the Billboard 200, and was generally favoured by critics, kick-starting a career which would make him one of the biggest rap stars on the planet. But everyone has to start somewhere, and so here are those 1994 demos, collected together and named after the opening track of the album, which shows that even at the start of his career, Jay-Z knew exactly what he wanted to be. 

Track listing

01 The Greatest MC
02 What's In A Name? 
03 Get Off My Dick (feat. Sauce Money) 
04 Understand Me 
05 Pass the Roc 
06 Broken English & Drug Sellin' 
07 Rippin' It Up, Right? (feat. Sauce Money) 
08 Nuttin' But Love (feat. Sauce Money) 
09 Under Pressure (feat. Sauce Money) 
10 Behind The Ropes (feat. Sauce Money) 

Leona Lewis - Perfection (2010)

The success of her 2009 album 'Echo' had raised Leona Lewis's profile enough for her to be asked to provide vocals on a cover of 'Everybody Hurts', released in January 2010 to help raise money for victims of that year's earthquake in Haiti. Her first tour, titled 'The Labyrinth' supporting 'Spirit' and 'Echo', started in May 2010, and was scheduled to cover North America from July to August supporting Christina Aguilera's Bionic Tour, but Aguilera cancelled, leaving Lewis's plans in limbo. However, a DVD of the UK leg of the tour, along with a ten-track CD, was released with the title 'The Labyrinth Tour Live from The O2' on 29 November 2010. She began work on her third album, 'Glassheart', shortly after she completed 'The Labyrinth' tour, and although originally announced to be released on 28 November 2011 in the UK, it was delayed for a year before it eventually appeared. During 2010 Lewis worked with numerous writers and producers including Ammo, Jonas Quant, Chuck Harmony, Claude Kelly, Ryan Tedder, Fraser T Smith, Al Shux, Steve Robson, Dallas Austin, Rico Love, and Ne-Yo, and a lot of material was recorded for 'Glassheart', but most of it was eventually scrapped, and more sessions took place in 2011 and 2012. In September 2011 she released the dance-pop single 'Collide', written by Autumn Rowe and produced by Sandy Vee, and it debuted on the official UK top 40 singles chart at number 4. She followed this in December 2011 with 'Hurt: The EP', containing four covers, and she closed the year by performing on the American version of X Factor, and as the featured performer for the closing of the 2011 Doha Film Festival, where she sang ten songs. A number of the tracks recorded in 2010 have now surfaced, and so although she didn't release a studio album that year, she certainly had enough material to do so, and so this is what it could have sounded like, with the addition of the 'Collide' single. 

Track listing 

01 Save Myself 
02 How Everything You Are
03 Breaking Into Pieces
04 Crying Is Beautiful
05 The Fabric Of Our Lives
06 I Know Who I Am (from the film 'For Coloured Girls' 2010)
07 I Didn't Want To Hurt You

08 Collide
09 Mountains
10 Can't Fight It   
11 Hero

12 Everybody Hurts
13 Perfection

14 Haunted  

Mansun - My Idea Of Fun (2004)

Paul Draper and Stove King met in the early 1990's, whilst working in the printing industry as photo re-touchers for rival companies situated opposite each other on the same industrial park in Little Stanney, on the outskirts of Chester. Through their shared love of David Bowie and 1980's new wave bands, including Duran Duran and ABC, they started socialising together at weekends, going to gigs in Liverpool and playing along to drum loops together in their bedrooms, formenting the desire of forming a band together. While King was a relative newcomer to playing bass, Draper had previously formed and fronted the electronic duo Grind with programmer-keyboard player Steve Heaton while studying at Thames Polytechnic, and they were often accompanied live by school friend Carlton Hibbert on drums. Grind released one 12" single in 1991 on the small What's In It For Me Records label, and they gigged around London at venues such as The Rock Garden and The Brain, and once supported Beverley Craven at the Mean Fiddler. Following the split of Grind, Draper applied for a grant from The Prince's Trust and set up a music company called Ambiance Productions, producing relaxation tapes to be sold in "hippie shops" across the north-west of England. In early 1995 Draper and King enlisted Maidstone expat Dominic Chad, who was the bar manager at the Fat Cat pub on Watergate Street in Chester, and with the aid of a drum machine, the trio began rehearsing at Crash Rehearsal Studios in Liverpool. 

They were spotted by passing A&R scouts Mark Lewis and Alan Wills, who were there to see Cast, and overheard the band through their rehearsal room door. They were offered a publishing contract with Polygram Music Publishing four days after reluctantly handing over a demo tape that had cost £150 to record, featuring 'Take It Easy Chicken', 'Skin Up Pin Up', 'Moronica' and 'She Makes My Nose Bleed'. Grey Lantern, as they were called at the time, after Draper's DC Comics influenced alter ego, which helped him overcome his nervousness on stage, soon changed their name to Manson, after the cult leader Charles Manson. Their self-financed debut release 'Take It Easy Chicken', came out in September 1995 on their own Sci-Fi Hi-Fi Recordings label, and it soon attracted the attention of BBC Radio 1 DJs Steve Lamacq and John Peel. Despite not having played a single gig, and later admitting that they couldn't play together as a band very well, they found themselves at the centre of a record label bidding war, resulting in them signing to Parlophone's sub-label Regal Recordings, releasing the follow-up single 'Skin Up Pin Up'/'Flourella' in November 1995. By this time they had changed their name to Mansun, following threatened legal action from the Charles Manson Estate, but when it was later reported that Charles Manson had started spelling his name with a "u", Draper joked that they should sue him in return. 

Following the release of their single, the band were moved up to the main Parlophone label, and released several EP's, including an expanded re-release of the debut single. The first line-up of the band alongside Draper, King and Chad had featured former Grind drummer Carlton Hibbert and drum machine programmer Mark Swinnerton, but after five months of touring, Swinnerton left the band in January 1996. As a four piece, the band continued touring, including support gigs with Cast, Audioweb and Shed Seven, until Hibbert was sacked in May 1996 following a series of rows with an inebriated Chad, that resulted in a bizarre incident that involved a pineapple being thrown at Chad's face in Cambridge. Throughout the early days of the band, Chad was involved in a string of violent alcohol fuelled incidents, and at one point the entire group was banned from every outlet of the now defunct roadside restaurant chain Happy Eater, all Hard Rock Cafes worldwide and every Holiday Inn hotel in the UK, because of his antics. Despite this, it was Hibbert who had to go, to be temporarily replaced by ex-Kinky Machine drummer Julian Fenton. In August 1996 Andie Rathbone joined as a permanent drummer, and February 1997 saw the release of the band's critically acclaimed debut album 'Attack Of The Grey Lantern'. Although the band had finished recording most of the album prior to Rathbone joining, they went back into the studio to record new songs 'Taxloss' and 'Mansun's Only Love Song', and to re-record several drum tracks. 

The album appeared to contain a conceptual storyline, which Draper referred to as "small town weirdo observations", and it was influenced by The Goon Show and Monty Python, whilst ending with a hidden track, "An Open Letter To The Lyrical Trainspotter", proclaiming (reportedly sarcastically) that "the lyrics aren't supposed to mean that much". Following the release of the standalone 'Closed For Business' EP in October 1997, the band found themselves short of songs when going into the studio sessions at Olympic Studios to record their second album 'Six'. Suffering from writer's block, Draper took inspiration from books that Chad had taken out with him on tour, such as '120 Days Of Sodom' by Marquis de Sade, 'The House At Pooh Corner' by A. A. Milne, and 'Dianetics: The Modern Science Of Mental Health' by L. Ron Hubbard, Quickly scanning them to get the gist of the books, he then formed lyrics based on them, with many of the musical ideas being assembled during soundchecks on the previous US tour. With the lack of complete songs going into the album sessions, Draper set out to put together works-in-progress at the weekends, so that there was enough material each week for the band to work on. Through constant touring, the band were now more confident about recording in the studio, and set out to replicate their live sound, making the album heavier and more guitar based than the more commercial sounding drum loop and synthesiser based sound of the debut. 

The album was preceded by the singles 'Legacy', which provided the band with the highest-charting single, and 'Being A Girl', while several more singles followed its release, including 'Negative' and a re-recording of the album's title track, 'Six' produced by Arthur Baker. The album was released in the UK and Europe on 7 September 1998, and in the US on 20 April 1999, with an alternative running order, different artwork, and the re-recorded single version of the title track. Draper wasn't happy with the album, and described it as being "commercial suicide", with many of the best tracks being relegated to b-sides. Mansun's third studio album, 'Little Kix' (early working titles included 'Magnetic Poetry' and 'The Trouble With Relationships') saw Draper and Chad decamp to the south of Spain in March 1999 where they wrote and demo'd ideas for the album. Draper claimed that following the commercial and critical disappointment of 'Six', he didn't feel any pressure to follow it up and therefore set out to go in a different direction with the new album, going for a more "acoustic-guitary" sound. Despite initially feeling happier with the new record, Draper refused to tour or promote it, and although 'I Can Only Disappoint U' gave the band their biggest selling single to date, Draper's refusal to promote the album led to it stalling at number 14 in the charts. 

Draper later claimed that he was demoted as the band's producer for 'Little Kix', as the rest of the band wanted to ensure he didn't go off on another tangent as with 'Six', and so former XTC and Police producer Hugh Padgham was drafted in, resulting in a more commercial sounding third album. In January 2001, prior to the final single 'Fool' being released off 'Little Kix', Draper announced that the band were set to enter the studio in March or April and that they wanted to release new material as soon as possible. By May they were considering whether to release an EP or to hold the material back for a full album, but in August, Chad posted on the band's official website to inform fans that the band had abandoned plans for an EP and were now halfway through recording their fourth album, which would be "harder" than 'Little Kix'. In March 2002, and with no sign of new material, it was claimed that the delay in the new album being finished was due to Chad injuring his hand after falling into a fire grate, keeping him from playing for four to five months, but it was later confirmed that the real reason was that Draper had been diagnosed with cancer during recording sessions at Rockfield Studios, after a blister appeared on his left hand middle finger that kept bleeding. 

He was diagnosed with Bowenoid malignancy, and responded positively to five cycles of chemotherapy, although he was unable to play for several months after his finger swelled up following treatment. Following Draper's recovery, the band embarked on a short UK tour during April and May, but by October there was still no sign of the new album. Following extended delays in the band delivering it to Parlophone, rumours spread in December 2002 that the band had been given an ultimatum that if they didn't complete the album by early in the new year, they would be dropped. In January 2003, a posting on the band's official Yahoo list claimed that a member of the band had quit, did not want to rejoin, and the remaining members did not want him back", and that as a result of this, the band had split up. Following months of speculation, the split was officially announced on 2 May 2003, and it was revealed that it was Stove King's departure that had resulted in the band's dissolution. With news of the split being confirmed, and with the knowledge that most of the self-titled fourth album had already been recorded, an online petition was set up by fans to persuade Parlophone to release the material. The tracks were then released in September 2004, along with some non-album singles and a selection of b-sides, in a 3 CD box set entitled 'Kleptomania'. This post expands that release by including every non-album track recorded by the band during their career, including one final single from the unreleased fourth album in 2004.  

Track listing

Disc I - 19995-1996
01 Take It Easy Chicken (original single 1995)
02 Skin Up Pin Up (single 1995)
03 Flourella (b-side of 'Skin Up Pin Up')
04 Ski Jump Nose (b-side of 'Egg Shaped Fred' 1996)
05 Lemonade Secret Drinker (b-side of 'Egg Shaped Fred' 1996)
06 Thief (b-side of 'Egg Shaped Fred' 1996)
07 Untitled (b-side of 'Egg Shaped Fred' 1996)
08 Drastic Sturgeon (b-side of 'Take It Easy Chicken' re-issue 1996)
09 The Greatest Pain (b-side of 'Take It Easy Chicken' re-issue 1996)
10 Moronica (b-side of 'Take It Easy Chicken' re-issue 1996)
11 Rebel Without A Quilt (b-side of 'Wide Open Space' 1996)
12 Vision Impaired (b-side of 'Wide Open Space' 1996)
13 The Gods Of Not Very Much (b-side of 'Wide Open Space' 1996)

Disc II - 1996-1997
01 No One Knows Us (b-side of 'Stripper Vicar' 1996)
02 The Edge (b-side of 'Stripper Vicar' 1996)
03 The Duchess (b-side of 'Stripper Vicar' 1996)
04 An Open Letter (b-side of 'Stripper Vicar' 1996)
05 Things Keep Falling Off Buildings (b-side of 'Stripper Vicar' 1996)
06 The Holy Blood And The Holy Grail (b-side of 'She Makes My Nose Bleed' 1997)
07 The Most To Gain (b-side of 'She Makes My Nose Bleed' 1997)
08 Closed For Business (single 1997)
09 K.I.Double S.I.N.G. (b-side of 'Closed For Business')
10 Everyone Must Win (b-side of 'Closed For Business')
11 The World's Still Open (b-side of 'Closed For Business')
12 Grey Lantern (b-side of 'Taxloss' 1997)
13 The Impending Collapse Of It All (b-side of 'Taxloss' 1997)

Disc III - 1998-1999
01 GSOH (b-side of 'Legacy' 1998)
02 Can't Afford To Die (b-side of 'Legacy' 1998)
03 Spasm Of Identity (b-side of 'Legacy' 1998)
04 Check Under The Bed (b-side of 'Legacy' 1998)
05 Face In The Crowd (b-side of 'Legacy' 1998)
06 Been Here Before (b-side of 'Being A Girl (Part One)' 1998)
07 Hideout (b-side of 'Being A Girl (Part One)' 1998)
08 Railings (b-side of 'Being A Girl (Part One)' 1998)
09 I Care (b-side of 'Being A Girl (Part One)' 1998)
10 I Deserve What I Get (b-side of 'Negative' 1998)
11 When The Wind Blows (b-side of 'Negative' 1998)
12 King Of Beauty (b-side of 'Negative' 1998)
13 Church Of The Drive Through Elvis (b-side of 'Six' 1999)
14 But The Trains Run On Time (b-side of 'Six' 1999)
15 What's It Like To Be Hated (b-side of 'Six' 1999)

Disc IV - 2000-2004
01 Decisions, Decisions (b-side of 'I Can Only Disappoint U' 2000)
02 Repair Man (b-side of 'I Can Only Disappoint U' 2000)
03 My Idea Of Fun (b-side of 'I Can Only Disappoint U' 2000)
04 Golden Stone (b-side of 'I Can Only Disappoint U' 2000)
05 I've Seen The Top Of The Mountain (b-side of 'Fool' 2000)
06 Promises (b-side of 'Fool' 2000)
07 Fade In Time (b-side of 'Fool' 2000)
08 Black Infinite Space (b-side of 'Fool' 2000)
09 The Drifters (b-side of 'Electric Man' 2000)
10 The Apartment (b-side of 'Electric Man' 2000)
11 Slipping Away (single 2004)
12 Getting Your Way (b-side of 'Slipping Away')

Christina Aguilera - Too Beautiful For Words (2006)

Christina Aguilera's recording career began in 1997, when she moved to Japan from the US, and recorded a duet with Japanese singer Keizo Nakanishi, with whom she performed in concert shows around the country. Their song, 'All I Wanna Do', was released as a single but failed to have any commercial success, and so in June 1997 she went on to Romania to represent the United States in a singers contest during the Golden Stag Festival, although she failed to win over the audience. On her return to the US she recorded numerous demo tapes, sending them to record labels such as Walt Disney Records, and they chose her to record 'Reflection', the theme song from the animated 1998 film 'Mulan'. Following the attention she received for this, she caught the ear of Ron Fair, the A&R executive from RCA Records, who consequently signed her to the label. In late 1998 she began to record her debut studio album, into which the label reportedly invested over $1 million worth of writers, producers and vocal lessons. It was around this time that her first solo recording was released, with 'I Come Undone' appearing on the 'The Scene Compilation – So. Cal Edition 3' various artists album. In May 1999, Aguilera released 'Genie In A Bottle', the lead single from her long-awaited debut album, and it topped the Billboard Hot 100 for five consecutive weeks, and became the second best-selling single of 1999. The song became an international success, increasing Aguilera's popularity worldwide, and from this point on her career was assured. Her self-titled debut album, 'Christina Aguilera', was released on 24 August 1999 to critical praise, debuting at number one on the Billboard 200, and it was promoted by the release of a non-album promo singe, 'Dreamy Eyes'. Unlike many of her contemporaries, she tended not to add non-album songs to the b-sides of her singles, and so most of her rare recordings are songs recorded exclusively for film soundtracks, or are collaborations with other artists, and so I've collected the best of them here, including a couple of b-sides, a track from a joint EP with Justin Timberlake, an exclusive recording for a Mercedes Benz promotional campaign, and some guest appearances with Ricky Martin, Herbie Hancock, and P. Diddy. 

Track listing

01 All I Wanna Do (single featuring Keizo Nakanishi 1997)
02 I Come Undone (from 'The Scene Compilation – So. Cal Edition 3' 1998)
03 Dreamy Eyes (promo single to promote 'Christine Aguilera' 1999)
04 We're A Miracle (from the film 'Pokemon: The First Movie' 1999)
05 Don't Make Me Love You ('Til I'm Ready) (from the film 'The Next Big Thing' 1999)
06 Too Beautiful For Words (b-side of the German edition of 'What A Girl Wants' 1999)
07 Nobody Wants To Be Lonely (feat. Ricky Martin) (from 'Sound Loaded' by Ricky Martin 2000)
08 Lady Marmalade (with Lil' Kim, Mýa and P!nk) (from the film 'Moulin Rouge' 2001)
09 I Will Be (b-side of 'Dirrty' 2002)
10 That's What Love Can Do (from the 'Justin & Christina' EP 2003
11 Car Wash (feat. Missy Elliott) (from the film 'Shark Tale' 2004)
12 Hello (exclusive recording for the Mercedes Benz Promotional Campaign 2004)
13 A Song For You (feat. Herbie Hancock) (from 'Possibilities' by Herbie Hancock 2005)
14 Tell Me (feat. P. Diddy) (from 'Press Play' by P. Diddy 2006)

Guns N' Roses - P.R.L. (2000)

One of the tracks that Guns N' Roses recorded during the early sessions for 'Chinese Democracy' was titled 'P.R.L.', and for some time no-one really knew what this stood for, with suggestions including Please respect...life? Peace, respect, love? People really low? Practice, rough, love? But perhaps in keeping with the Chinese theme of the eventual release, the general consensus is that it stands for Legend Red Panda backwards, and although this might stretch credulity a bit, fans have accepted this and used it to design covers featuring the animal, for an album entitled 'Legend Of The Red Panda'. I didn't really like any of them so have designed my own for this second volume of outtakes from the 'Chinese Democracy' sessions, and once again it's a mix of vocal takes and instrumentals, with 'Going Down' being sung by Tommy Stinson, and I've included 'Oh My God', from the 'End Of Days' soundtrack, as it was recorded during the same time period as the other tracks.  

Track listing

01 P.R.L.  
02 Eye On You  
03 Going Down  
04 Mustache  
05 Oh My God  
06 Shadow Of Your Love  
07 Quicksong  
08 Zodiac 13  
09 The Blues ('Street Of Dreams' demo) 
10 There Was A Time (demo)

Damozel - You Don't Know Me Like That (2000)

Damozel was an R&B girl group from the early 2000's that was put together by hip-hop\R&B artist Kelli "K-Ball" Ball, and included Brandy Merchelle, Tasha Goodner, Lisa Ball and Tamisha "Tish" Lotterberry. In 2000 they released their debut single, 'You Don’t Know Me Like That', which featured rapper Rah Digga, and which failed to make any impact on the charts, but their follow-up single, 'Everyday's A Party' did much better, and peaked at #34 on Billboard’s Hot R&B\Hip-Hop Singles Sales chart. It was also later featured on the soundtrack to the 2001 film, 'Two Can Play That Game', and this seemed enough for their record label MCA Records to offer them an album deal, which they recorded throughout 2000, but the offer was later withdrawn and the album was shelved. After this it seemed as if Damozel faded into obscurity, although they did start performing together again around the 2010's, and released music on their ReverbNation page, but nothing much has been heard from them since about 2014. As usual with these scrapped R&B albums, there is nothing at all wrong with it, and so fans with long memories who fondly remember those two singles can now hear what would have been Damozel's debut album from 2000.

Track listing

01 Intro
02 Could I
03 You Don't Know Me Like That
04 Best Friend
05 Sunshine
06 This Is How We Roll (feat. Memphis Bleek)
07 No More
08 Disrespectful 
09 Trials & Tribulations 
10 She Don't Love You 
11 Give It to Me Straight 
12 Outro 

Genesis - Six Of The Best (Redux) (1982)

Time for another guest post from Mike Solof, and it's an upgrade to a unique album by one of the favourite bands of both of us...Genesis

This project came about because I always loved this 1982 reunion concert but was always disheartened that it was never properly recorded at the time, and that the only versions of it that exist are mostly mid, to fairly decent, audience recordings… UNTIL NOW! What a lot of people don’t know is that four days before the concert, the group gathered together at the Hammersmith Odeon concert hall and professionally recorded the rehearsal of almost the entire concert! I stumbled across these recording years after I had purchased the original bootleg of the live concert, and I was stunned. It contained beautiful, clear, stereo recordings of almost every song they played live just a few days later, with only 'Turn It On Again' and I' Know What I Like In Your Wardrobe)' missing. My friend Paul from Albums That Should Exist (I often guest post there too), recently took the original bootleg of the live concert and remastered it. He did a beautiful job, but still the source was only a fairly decent audience recording, and so there is only so much he could do to improve the sound quality. But then I had a thought. 

Let me digress for a moment. I have lots of bootlegs. And by lots I mean 14TB’s worth. And many times, when the bootleggers couldn’t make a complete concert from one source, they would use a second one (or third or fourth or in some cases even a fifth) to fill in the missing spots so that you got the entire concert with nothing left out. This meant you had the entire show, but often the sound quality varied from source to source. To hear the entire concert you just had to deal with the sound quality changes as it went along. And that’s when I had a thought - why couldn’t I take the fair sounding live concert, and mix in the phenomenal sounding rehearsal recordings to get a really cool sonic upgrade. So that was the Genesis (lol) of this project! I wanted to be as true to the live source as I could…and yet replace as much as I could with the upgraded soundboard recordings. So what you have here is my hybrid version mixing the live and soundboard rehearsal recording. What I ended up doing was first listening to the live recording and seeing which part of each song had that live feel, meaning which parts the audience participated in the most. Sometimes that was clapping out the beat. Other times it was singing along with Gabriel during the chorus’s. And others it was just applauding and cheering in between songs. I wanted to really capture the essence of those original live recordings, but as we all know (or at least hope), crowds don’t yell and scream throughout the entire songs of a concert, usually they just do it at the beginnings and endings, and occasionally other key parts too. 

That gave me my way into this project. I have taken the parts with the audience (usually the beginnings and endings)… and then mixed in the soundboard material as much as possible for the remainder of the song. So the entire concert ended up being about 25% live and 75% soundboard. And, amazingly, it turned out to be a seamless mix! Ok, that’s a lie. It actually turned out to be a semi-seamless mix most of the time. I tried my best to make the transitions between live and soundboard as smooth as I could, but the problem was thqat the live cuts were well...live, and the soundboard was in a perfectly quiet concert hall, so occasionally the transitions are glaringly apparent. I did as much as I could to smooth these spots out by overlapping parts and then fading in and out the tops and tails of the switches and they ended up being mostly successful. The most unsuccessful of these attempts unfortunately occurs during the first song, 'Back In N.Y.C.'. I had a double problem with that one. On top of trying to mix live and soundboard, the rehearsal version of this track cuts in about a third of the way into the track mid sentence, so not only did I have to include a lot more of the fair sounding live version than I would like, but the edit also comes mid sentence. There was no way to smooth this over. It just suddenly happens. BUT THAT’S THE ONLY TIME IT HAPPENS! So be forewarned. It gets much better after the first track! I’m really happy with how this turned out. I think it offers a great alternative to the commonly found live concert and puts its own unique spin on that incredible night. So please, sit back and enjoy this NEW version of 'Six Of The Best' in hopefully the best way you’ll ever hear it! It is certainly an eye and ear opening experience!!        Michael

For my part I thought that this new version deserved it's own unique cover, and so I located an article about the concert in Prog Magazine, which has a superb cover picture, and I've adapted that for the artwork to the album.       pj

Track listing

01 Intro by Jonathan King

02 Back In N.Y.C.

03 Dancing With The Moonlit Knight (Opening Section)

04 The Carpet Crawlers

05 Introduction by Peter Gabriel

06 Firth Of Fifth

07 The Musical Box

08 Solsbury Hill

09 Turn It On Again

10 The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway

11 Fly On A Windshield / Broadway Melody Of 1974

12 In The Cage

13 Tube Story

14 Supper's Ready

15 I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)

16 The Knife

17 Closing Words

PS. You guys all know I love to include info packed PDF’s for each of my projects, and this one is no different. In the folder is the original PDF info as provided by Paul on his site. (Check it out… it’s an amazing sister site to this one!) He did such a great job on it that I knew I couldn’t do better, so he’s generously letting me just repost it here. Thanks Paul!! 

Michael 

Vain - All Those Strangers (1991)

Vain was an American glam metal band from San Francisco Bay Area, California, formed in 1986, and consisting of Davy Vain (lead vocals), Dylana Nova Scott (guitar), Danny West (rhythm guitar), Ashley Mitchell (bass) and Tommy Rickard (drums). From 1986 to 1987 the band proceeded to play shows in San Francisco, before playing regularly in Los Angeles where they also opened for Guns N' Roses prior to their success. After showcasing to major record labels, including Geffen Records, Vain signed with Island Records in 1988. They released their debut album the following year, with 'No Respect' peaking at number 154 on the Billboard 200. The record was critically well received, and the band fearured on the covers of both Kerrang! and BAM magazines. They began recording their second album, titled 'All Those Strangers', with producer Jeff Hendrickson, and its release was advertised in Japan, while a number of pre-release cassettes were released. However, when Island Records were bought by PolyGram in 1991, Vain were dropped by the label, and 'All Those Strangers' remains unreleased. The same year, West and Rickard departed the band, being replaced by Shawn Rorie and former Guns N' Roses drummer Steven Adler, after which Vain renamed themselves Road Crew, although that band split up before the year was out. Vain reformed in 1993 and went through a number of line-up changes for the release of their next two studio albums, and by 2005 Scott and West had returned to the band, with Rickard rejoining in 2009. In all, Vain recorded seven albums between 1989 and 2017, although only six of them gained an official release, and to to complete the set here is the cancelled 'All Those Strangers' from 1991.

Track listing

01 Love Drug
02 Planet’s Turning
03 Shooting Star
04 Too Bad
05 Far Away
06 Wake Up
07 Freak Flag
08 Here Comes Lonely
09 Shouldn’t Cry
10 Do You Sleep With Strangers?
11 Looking Glass

Leona Lewis - Unreachable (2009)

After Leona Lewis won the third series of The X Factor in 2006, her winning song was released as a single on 17 December 2006, and 'A Moment Like This' broke a world record after being digitally downloaded more than 50,000 times in less than 30 minutes, becoming the UK Christmas number-one single for that year. In February 2007 she signed a £5 million five-album contract in the United States with Clive Davis's record label, J Records, with Simon Cowell and Davis working together in a "first-of-its-kind" partnership on both the song and producer selection for Lewis's debut album, 'Spirit'. When the record was released in November 2007 it entered both the Irish Albums Chart and the UK Albums Chart at number one, becoming the fastest-selling debut album in both countries, and the UK's fourth-fastest selling album of all time. Lewis's second single, 'Bleeding Love', produced by Ryan Tedder and written by Tedder and Jesse McCartney, was released in October 2007 in the UK, giving her a second number one single, remaining at the top of the charts for eight weeks. In August 2008, Lewis performed 'Whole Lotta Love' with guitarist Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin at the 2008 Summer Olympics closing ceremony in Beijing, representing the handover to London as the host of the 2012 Summer Olympics. Work on her second album, 'Echo', took place throughout 2009, including work with Ryan Tedder, Justin Timberlake, Max Martin, Arnthor Birgisson, Kevin Rudolf, and John Shanks, and it was recorded in Los Angeles and took nine months to produce. It was released in November 2009, and reached reached number one in the UK Albums Chart, as well as the top ten of Austria, Ireland and Switzerland. She also recorded the theme song for the 2009 science fiction film 'Avatar', with 'I See You' being nominated for Best Original Song at the 67th Golden Globe Awards. The Sessions for 'Echo' produced more recordings than could be included on the album, and in recent years a number of unused tracks have leaked, and there are enough from 2009 alone to make a companion album to 'Echo' from the same time-frame, so here are the best of the 2009 outtakes, including a studio version of 'Whole Lotta Love', the theme from 'Avatar', and one left-over from 'Spirit', so as not to waste 'Stay Tonight'.   

Track listing

01 Scene Of The Crime
02 Drive
03 Stay Tonight
04 Fly Here Now
05 You Don't Care
06 Whole Lotta Love
07 Strangers
08 Let Somebody Love You
09 Nowhere Left To Go (feat. Cassidy)
10 I See You
11 Unreachable
12 Intervention 
13 Perfect Stranger
14 Danger Made Me