Post updates

I've been playing some of the older albums that I put together over the last year (what else was there to do for the past 12 months?), and I've noticed that a few of them had little things wrong with them that detracted from a complete listening experience, so I've fixed them and the corrected files can now be downloaded to upgrade the original post.

Country Mike - Country Mike's Greatest Hits
Firstly, I've finally managed to source a stereo vinyl rip of 'Country Mike's Greatest Hits', which was the cause of some controversy when I first posted it. As every copy that I found online was a mono one, I was convinced that the album must have been issued like that, but after some heated discussions in the comments, I was assured that a stereo version must exist, and it's taken this long to find it. 

Other fixes are not as drastic as that, so if you have the following albums and want an upgraded version then you can download them now. 

Amy Winehouse - Procrastination - Long Day
Elton John - Young Man's Blues - Rock Me When He's Gone
I can't actually remember what was wrong with these two, possibly dodgy fadeouts or over-long/no gaps between the tracks, but they are now fixed.

Deep Purple - Coronarias Redig
Extra track added that was somehow missed from the original post.

Cerrone - Supernatural Paradise Of Love
I wasn't happy with a couple of the edits, so have redone the whole piece.

Misty In Roots - Salvation
Dub section of 'Rich Man' volume corrected to be the same as the vocal part.

Soulseek update

I know that there are a few people who can't seem to get Soulseek to work, but hopefully most of you are now using it regularly, and finding that it works pretty well. I've had a couple of days where my searches didn't seem to bring up any of my results, so I had to reboot and that seems to have fixed it. 
If you find that your searches don't bring up any results then do bear in mind that if no-one is downloading something when I go to bed then I do turn off the laptop, so try try again in six to seven hours and see if the searches work then. If not then leave a message and I'll try the reboot to see if that fixes it.  

I have to thank Paul over at Albums That Should Exist for turning me onto Soulseek, as not only has it been an ideal solution to sharing my music without leaving links, and risking the blog being deleted again, but I've also used it to find albums that I'd been after for a while that I hadn't been able to find online. I hope that everyone who started using it when I reinstated the blog is also using it to find other music that they want to hear from other uploaders.

If you find that you have absolutely no luck in getting Soulseek to work then leave a message in the comments with your email address and I'll send direct Yandex links, and then delete the comment to keep your email private. When I've sent the first link you will have my email address for future requests. 

Country Mike - Country Mike's Greatest Hits (1995)

In the late '90s, the Beastie Boys took yuletide gift-giving to a new level by putting together a limited-edition album of new music for hundreds of their best pals. Only a few hundred copies of ‘Country Mike’s Greatest Hits’ were made and sent out with a Christmas card from 'Country Mike and The Boys'. Because it was never officially released and has only been obliquely referred to by the Beasties in public, it's difficult to determine exactly when the album was issued, but according to the Beastiemania fan site, a test pressing was first made in 1999, and it was sent out at Christmas 2000. What we do know is that it wasn't really a Beasties record at all, at least in terms of genre; instead, they adopted a tongue-in-cheek Nashville sound for the 13-song set, which they dubbed 'Country Mike's Greatest Hits'. The members of the group had (seemingly sarcastically) floated the idea of making a Christmas album a handful of times in the late '90s, but no one had any reason to believe they were serious — and when a pair of tracks from the Country Mike's sessions popped up on the 1999 'Sounds of Science' Beasties compilation, there wasn't any reason to think they were anything other than goofball unreleased cuts tossed in to add something extra to the mix. In fact, the '...Science' booklet chalked them up to an injury to Mike D earlier in the decade, as expanded in the liner notes. "At some point after 'Ill Communication' came out, Mike got hit in the head by a large foreign object and lost all of his memory. As it started coming back he believed that he was a country singer named Country Mike. The psychologists told us that if we didn’t play along with Mike’s fantasy, he could be in grave danger. Finally he came back to his senses." Eventually, copies of 'Country Mike's Greatest Hits' started circulating on the underground market, where original vinyl pressings of the record still fetch commanding sums. As it's not the usual style of music for the Beasties it might not appeal to all of their fans, but it's a light-hearted distraction put together by them as a side-project with laudable intentions, and so deserves a hearing.   

Track listing

01 Sloppy Drunks
02 Railroad Blues
03 We Can Do This
04 Country Delight
05 Don’t Let The Air Out My Tires
06 How Do You Mend An Achin’ Heart
07 One Song A Night
08 Country Christmas
09 Kenny Jones (Country Knows Best)
10 Country Mike’s Theme
11 On Your Way Up Again (The Fowl Song)
12 We Can Do This (Live)
13 The Half-Wit

Suggested by 'The Greatest Album's You'll Never Hear' by Bruno MacDonald

You may have seen some back and forth in the comments section about the sound quality of this album. Unfortunately the only copy that I could find online was a mono rip which was posted on Youtube, and which was not the best quality sound-wise. Every other post seems to have been taken from that original rip, and so I'm afraid that this is the best you are going to get until someone posts a stereo copy online. Although I was advised to delete this post I've decided to leave it up, and it's entirely up to you whether you download this copy or view it on Youtube - the sound quality will be identical in either case so it's your choice.