Taylor Swift - Who I've Always Been (2005)

Taylor Alison Swift was born on 13 December 1989 in West Reading, Pennsylvania, and was named after singer-songwriter James Taylor. She spent her early years on a Christmas tree farm that her father had purchased from one of his clients in his former job as a stockbroker, eventually moving to a rented house in the suburban town of Wyomissing, Pennsylvania, where she attended Wyomissing Area Junior/Senior High School. At the age of nine, she became interested in musical theater and performed in four Berks Youth Theatre Academy productions, travelling regularly to New York City for vocal and acting lessons. She later shifted her focus toward country music, inspired by Shania Twain's songs, and spent weekends performing at local festivals and events. After watching a documentary about Faith Hill, she felt sure that she needed to move to Nashville to pursue a career in music, so when she was eleven she traveled with her mother to visit Nashville record labels and submitted demo tapes of Dolly Parton and The Chicks karaoke covers, but these were rejected as the market was already flooded with singers with the same idea. When she was around 12 years old, computer repairman and local musician Ronnie Cremer taught her to play guitar, and also helped with her first efforts as a songwriter, leading her to write 'Lucky You', and in 2003 Swift and her parents started working with New York-based talent manager Dan Dymtrow. With his help, she modelled for Abercrombie & Fitch as part of their "Rising Stars" campaign, and she had an original song included on a Maybelline compilation CD. After performing original songs at an RCA Records showcase, the 13 year old singer was given an artist development deal and began making frequent trips to Nashville with her mother. 

When in Nashville she worked with experienced Music Row songwriters such as Troy Verges, Brett Beavers, Brett James, Mac McAnally, and the Warren Brothers, and formed a lasting working relationship with Liz Rose. They began meeting for two-hour writing sessions every Tuesday afternoon after school, and the fruits of these sessions were recorded as demos and burned to CD to give out to talent agents. Two volumes of her acoustic demos were recorded in 2003, and the following year, when she was 14, she became the youngest artist to be signed by the Sony/ATV Tree publishing house, although she soon left the Sony-owned RCA Records due to the label's lack of care. At an industry showcase at Nashville's Bluebird Cafe in 2005, Swift caught the attention of Scott Borchetta, a DreamWorks Records executive who was preparing to form an independent record label, Big Machine Records, and she became one of the label's first signings, while her father purchased a three-percent stake in the company for an estimated $120,000. She had been writing and recording tracks for a couple of years before starting work on her debut album with Producer Nathan Chapman, and 13 of these recordings were burned to a CD in 2005, with four of the songs later being re-recorded for the 'Taylor Swift' album. All the songs on this disc are full band recordings, and the music is universally excellent, so much so that she could easily have released this disc as a country/pop album in 2005. For this post I've removed three of the songs which did eventually appear on her first album, to make room for some others from the same year which were not included on the disc. One that I did leave on was 'Teardrops On My Guitar', which she'd written with Liz Rose about her unrequited love for high school classmate Drew Hardwick, name-checking him in the lyrics, but she also recorded a version with a more general appeal by replacing 'Drew' with 'you', and I've included that version here. This album give us a taste of Swift's musical direction in this early part of her career, and it shows what a precocious talent she was, considering that these recordings were made when she was just 15 or 16 years old.  

Track listing

01 I'm Only Me When I'm With You
02 Teardrops On My Guitar
03 I'd Lie
04 Sweet Tea and God's Graces
05 Better Off 
06 What Do You Say
07 Brought Up That Way
08 Welcome Distraction
09 Dark Blue Tennessee
10 R-E-V-E-N-G-E
11 Nevermind
12 Thirteen Blocks
13 Making Up For Lost Love 
14 Need You Now
15 We Were Happy
16 This is Really Happening
17 Who I've Always Been

Charli XCX - Pop Princess (2009)

Following the cancellation of her album in 2008, Charli XCX continued to write and record her songs, publishing the odd one on her MySpace page, but mostly just for herself. In April 2009 she supported Peaches on her Ether 09 show at the Royal Festival Hall, alongside London drag-scene queen Jonny Woo, wearing the outfit on the cover of this album. She also released her second single, the double A-side 'Emelline'/'Art Bitch', on her own Orgy Music label, and she spent the rest of the year amassing a collection of songs which you can now hear on this post, which she could easily have released as an album in 2009. Obviously these are early examples of her songwriting, and so titles such as 'I Wanna Be Darth Vader' and 'Dinosaur Sex!' are in evidence, but some of these songs pave the way for how she her sound would change over the next couple of years.    

Track listing

01 Art Bitch
02 Emeline
03 I Wanna Be Darth Vader
04 Pop Princess
05 Too Cool
06 Another Romantic Situation (feat. Daisy Geggus) 
07 Beach Hut In Hawaii
08 Dinosaur Sex!
09 Do It Well
10 Falling In Love Again
11 Fearless
12 I Like You
13 Jungle Time
14 Photography
15 Pirates

Brian Eno - Music For The Great Gallery (2012)

In 2012, Brian Eno decided to compose some music which could be played in The Great Gallery Of Venaria Reale, in Italy, so that visitors could be bathed in an ambient soundscape while visiting this architectural masterpiece. Eno's own notes give an insight into his workings:
I started writing '12 Seasons: Music For The Great Gallery' in my studio in London. I had seen pictures and plans of the Reggia di Venaria and I was confident I had found the right approach: I worked for a few weeks on a track that I brought to the Reggia for testing in May 2012. However, when I listened to it in the extraordinary context of the Great Gallery, I realized that it was not right. What I had composed - in my studio in London, wrapped up in England's grey climate - was introspective and somewhat dark. There was not doubt in my mind that it was an "interior" track. What is most striking about the Great Gallery - and you realise as much only when you step into it - is that it is soaked in light and space: nothing further from an "interior" feeling. Juvarra had designed it to invite the world to get in, so it seemed appropriate that music should exist inside as well as outside of space, almost like a cloud or an atmosphere that would envelop the construction from the outside. Conceptually, this music is similar to other works I did around forty years ago (e.g., Discreet Music, 1975). I am still deeply fascinated by the range of transformations that are possible starting with a limited stock of original notes, and this piece is a perfect example in this sense. Nevertheless, there is also a new starting point. Building on the Reggia’s classical imprint, I wanted to make sure that the track was made up of several movements rather than a single block. Thus only 4 or 5 or 6 of the original 7 sounds I had decided to work with will eventually be used in each section. This means that the emotional quality of each section is slightly different, and as it progresses, the piece evolves and takes on different overtones. I love the Great Gallery of La Venaria, it is a sort of secular cathedral, and I hope that my music will encourage more people to spend time in the Gallery than it is normally the case.
In its final version the piece is made up of two one-hour tracks consisting of 12 sections each. 
Only four speakers are in place, two at the entrance and two at the end of the Gallery, all facing the center of the hall. Visitors walking down the Gallery are wrapped into two distinct sound flows: as they approach the center of the hall, echoes of the sounds behind turn into a memory that blend in the soft reverberations of the sounds that lay ahead. The two movements are complete when they meet at the heart of the Gallery. The sound tracks are made of melodic cores that are sketched and whispered, with the warmer sound of real violins in place of samplings. This recording was taped by Renzo on Saturday 29 September 2012, with the first half being recorded walking in the Gallery, while the second half is taped in the dead center of the Gallery. It's an excellent quality recording, probably due the superb acoustics in the Gallery, and although you can hear voices and noise from people visiting the installation, it's almost as if they are meant to be there, and they seldom distract from the music. Eno's 2012 album 'Lux' was based on these pieces that he composed for the Gallery, but this recording features the original compositions. 

 
Track listing 

01 Music For The Great Gallery

The Mighty Lemon Drops - Some Of My Best Friends Are Songs (1986)

The Mighty Lemon Drops formed in Wolverhampton in 1985, and featured Paul Marsh (vocals/guitar), David Newton (guitar), Tony Linehan (bass) and Keith Rowley (drums), who had all enjoyed chequered careers in numerous Wolverhampton outfits. Newton had previously played with Active Restraint in 1982, which also included Marsh and Linehan. They in turn played regularly alongside Another Dream, and both bands featured on single releases by local label Watchdog Video And Records. Newton and Neal Cook of Another Dream put together the Wild Flowers, alongside Dave Atherton, and after a further single and a support to Simple Minds, Newton moved on once more, forming the Sherbert Monsters with Marsh and Linehan, later changing their name to The Mighty Lemon Drops. The temporary drummer was Martin Gilks (later with the Wonder Stuff), before Keith Rowley stepped in full-time. Their first recordings were issued as a cassette under the title of 'Some Of My Best Friends Are Songs', which included a number of songs that would later be re-recorded for their debut album, although a couple of other tracks remain exclusive to the tape. Only 150 copies were run off, and they were originally sold at gigs, with the leftovers being sold by mail order. In June and July of 1986 the band recorded some demos in Birmingham, and you can hear how much they'd progressed in that year from those early recordings. They'd already released their first single, 1985's 'Like An Angel', on Dan Treacy's Dreamworld Records label, and had recorded three tracks for the NME's 'C86' cassette album, of which 'Happy Head' was selected for inclusion, putting them at the forefront of the nascent jangle-pop genre that the cassette was trying to promote. By adding the 1986 Birmingham demos to the eight songs from the 'Best Friends' cassette we have an album from the very earliest days of the band, showing that even at the start of their career they knew where they wanted to go. 

Track listing

01 Pass You By
02 Take My Heart
03 My Biggest Thrill
04 Like An Angel
05 My Feelings
06 Sympathize With Us
07 Behind Your Back
08 On My Mind
09 Now She's Gone
10 There She Goes Again
11 Uptight
12 Take Me Up
13 Hypnotized

Bob Marley & The Wailers - Walk The Proud Land (1976)

Just about every song that eventually appeared on Bob Marley & The Wailers' studio albums had a demo recording, and often also a rehearsal take, and they are all great recordings that showcase the 'bare-bones' versions of songs that we would eventually know and love when the finished versions became available on the band's albums. From 1972's 'Catch A Fire' right up to the band's final studio albums 'Uprising', and the posthumous release 'Confrontation' of 1981, the Wailers were meticulous in rehearsing their material, frequenting studios such as Harry J's, Dynamic, Joe Gibbs, The Black Ark and Bob's own Tuff Gong studios, all in Kingston Jamaica, plus Island's Basing Street Studios in London. As well as the demos and rehearsals of tracks that eventually ended up on the band's albums, there were also songs that never made the final cut, and that's what I'm concentrating on here. I've already posted a horns mix of 'Exodus', the un-dubbed version of 'Catch A Fire', and the 'Confrontation' demos, but there is so much more tucked away that I can make up another 54 minute album from just the unreleased songs from 1973 to 1976. Three of these tracks did eventually officially surface, but not in this form, as 'Punky Reggae Party' was released as a stand-alone single in 1977, and the posthumous 'Iron Lion Zion' came out in 1992, while 'Slogans' was added to yet another collection of the band's singles in 2005. However, these are the original versions taped in the early 70's, with 'Punky Reggae Party' stretching out to nearly nine minutes, and the original studio demo of what would become 'Slogans' is a very basic version, using a drum machine with live instruments, and including Marley's original third verse which was cut from the released version. There are still more gems hidden away, such as the Black Ark demos with Lee 'Scratch' Perry, and some unreleased songs from Marley's final sessions, but for now enjoy this collection of rarely heard songs from their classic mid-70's period. 

Track listing

01 You Can't Blame The Youth
02 Walk The Proud Land
03 No Sympathy
04 The Oppressed Song
05 Reincarnated Souls
06 Iron Lion Zion
07 Am A Do
08 Keep The Faith
09 Rainbow Country
10 Jungle Fever
11 Soul Shake Up Party
12 Can't Take Your Slogans No More
13 Punky Reggae Party
14 Roots

Charli XCX - 14 (2008)

Charlotte Emma Aitchison was born on 2 August 1992 in Cambridge, and raised in Start Hill, Essex. While her parents were not very musical, she demonstrated an affinity for music from an early age, being interested in pop acts such as the Spice Girls and Britney Spears, and she began writing songs at the age of 14, writing a song called 'Fish and Chips Shop'. She managed to convince her parents to apply for a loan for her to record her first album '14', and in early 2008, she began posting songs from the album, as well as numerous other demos, on her official Myspace page. This caught the attention of a promoter running numerous illegal warehouse raves and parties in east London, who invited her to perform. She was billed on flyers under the stage name Charli XCX, which was her MSN Messenger display name when she was younger, and despite the illicit nature of the gigs, her parents were supportive of her career and attended several raves with her. In late 2008 promo copies of her album were released, along with two singles, '!Franchesckaar!' and the double A-side 'Emelline'/'Art Bitch', all on her own Orgy Music label. At the time it came out she included a short bio about herself, saying that the songs she writes were about her mates and experiences, and that she played all the instruments and did all the singing, including the backing vocals, but her drumming was a bit shit so she got her producer Darren to drum on 'Lucy'. Her influences at that time were Kate Nash, Hadoucken!, Justice, Crystal Castles, Calvin Harris and things like afro-beatz and other jamz, and the CD came with a 16 page colour booklet, with photos and lyrics to all the songs. Little is known about this album, other than it was distributed to friends, and possibly press, before a full commercial release was cancelled. In the first post of what will be a number of unreleased albums by the young singer, here are the very first songs that anyone would hear from her, and although they are pretty different from what was to come, they show Charli XCX blending together pop and nu-rave in a brash style that embodies her DIY beginnings. 

Track listing

01 !Franchesckaar!
02 Lucy
03 Chas's Song
04 Leave Me
05 I'll Teach You A Lesson
06 Machines
07 Supermodels And Holiday Stunners
08 Watch The Rain
09 Live Life
10 Neon Fashion And Glowstix
11 Mauritius
12 Alcoholic
13 Yet Again
14 14

Marva Josie - Birthday Fella (1967)

Marva Josie was born in Clairton, Pittsburgh, and has an impressive 5 and a half octave range to her voice. It's no surprise then that she was picked up by Time Records in the early 60's, and the label issued her first single 'Later For You Baby'/'You Lied' in 1962. Moving to Sahara Records, she released 'I Don't Care' in 1963, and after that two more singles followed for United Artists in 1964 and 1965. Signing to Julmar Records in 1967, she released her final two solo singles, 'Oohbiskubido' and 'I'm Satisfied', after which she met the great jazz band leader Earl 'Fatha' Hines in 1968. Impressed by her range, style and appearance she became the latest in a long line of important vocalists who had worked with the master pianist, following in the footsteps of Herb Jeffries, Billy Eckstine, Sarah Vaughan, Johnny Hartman and Etta Jones, all of whom owed some part of their career to Hines. Her first album as vocalist with Hines was her own 'This Is Marva Josie' in 1973, where she traded the soul sound of her 60's singles for the jazz that Hines was known for, and in 1977 they issued 'Jazz Is His Old Lady...And My Old Man', credited to Earl 'Fatha' Hines with Marva Josie. In 1976 they both played at the White House for President Gerald Ford, and later for President Jimmy Carter, and Josie is still currently performing jazz in New York. However, this album collects together her fine soul recordings from the 60's for a variety of labels, and hearing the power of her voice you can understand why Hines was impressed when he met her.   

Track listing

01 Later For You Baby (single 1962)
02 You Lied (b-side of 'Later For You Baby')
03 I Don't Care (single 1963)
04 Heartbreak City (b-side of 'I Don't Care')
05 Birthday Fella (single 1964)
06 Did You Ever Love Someone (b-side of 'Birthday Fella')
07 How Do You Say Goodbye (unreleased acetate 1964)
08 Joey's Kisses (b-side of 'How Do You Say Goodbye')
09 I Love New York (single 1965)
10 Don't (b-side of 'I Love New York')
11 Crazy Stockings (single 1966)
12 I'll Get By (b-side of 'Crazy Stockings')
13 Oohbiskubido (single 1967)
14 Now Is The Time (To Love Me) (b-side of 'Oohbiskubido')
15 I'm Satisfied (single 1967)
16 Love's Burning Fire (b-side of 'I'm Satisfied')

Embrace - Soulmates (2006)

Embrace released their fifth studio album 'This New Day' on 27 March 2006, preceded by the single 'Nature's Law' the week before. This album saw the whole band contributing to the writing, whereas before this the McNamara brothers had written virtually all of the band's material themselves, and they recorded twenty four songs in nine days. In March 2006 they were chosen to record England's official football World Cup 2006 song, 'World At Your Feet', which received its first radio airplay on 21 April 2006 on BBC Radio 1 to a generally poor reception among football fans, but an overall positive reception from music critics. It was released on 5 June 2006, and entered the UK Singles Chart at number 3, while 'Natures Law' entered the charts at number 2, providing them with their biggest hit to date. 'This New Day' went straight into the charts at number 1 and became their third chart topping album in the UK. The band played a new song 'Heart And Soul' live, which was expected to appear on their sixth album, but although a live version of the song appeared on the b-side of the 'I Can't Come Down' single, a studio recording is yet to appear. After the success of the singles and album in 2006, the band withdrew to write material for their sixth album, but it was to be seven years before Richard McNamara finally announced on the band's Facebook page that they were going back into the studio, so that seems the perfect place to draw this series to a close, with this collection of all the b-sides that appeared in 2006. I've titled these five albums in both alphabetical and date order, starting with 'Blind' in 1998 and ending with this post from 2006, and to keep a sense of continuity they're all housed in sleeves which feature an 'embrace'. 

Track listing 

01 Deliver Me (b-side of 'Natures Law' 2006)
02 Collide (b-side of 'Natures Law' 2006)
03 Soulmates (b-side of 'Natures Law' 2006)
04 World At Your Feet (single 2006)
05 What Lies Behind Us (b-side of 'World At Your Feet')
06 Love Orders (b-side of 'World At Your Feet')
07 Whatever It Takes (b-side of 'World At Your Feet')
08 Just Admit It (b-side of 'Target' 2006)
09 Run Away (b-side of 'Target' 2006)
10 One Luck (b-side of 'Target' 2006)
11 Thank God You Were Mean To Me (b-side of 'Target' 2006)
12 Heart And Soul (b-side of 'I Can't Come Down' 2006)

Beyoncé - Control (2013)

Beyoncé's first solo recording was a feature on Jay-Z's song ''03 Bonnie & Clyde' that was released in October 2002, peaking at number four on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart, but her own debut solo album was released in June 2003, after her Destiny's Child compatriots Michelle Williams and Kelly Rowland had released their solo efforts. The album sold 317,000 copies in its first week, debuting at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, and has since sold 11 million copies worldwide, with the album's lead single, 'Crazy in Love', becoming the first of many number-one singles for her as a solo artist in the US. Following the 2006 disbanding of Destiny's Child, Beyoncé released her second solo album, 'B'Day', which contained singles 'Irreplaceable' and 'Beautiful Liar', as well as starting a film career, with appearances in 2006's  'The Pink Panther' and 'Dreamgirls', followed by 'Obsessed' in 2009 and 'The Lion King' in 2019. Her marriage to Jay-Z and her portrayal of Etta James in 2008' film 'Cadillac Records' influenced her third album, 'I Am... Sasha Fierce', earning her a record-setting six Grammy Awards in 2010, and spawning the hit singles 'If I Were a Boy', 'Single Ladies', and 'Halo'. After professionally splitting from her manager and father Mathew Knowles in 2010, Beyoncé released her musically diverse fourth album '4' in 2011, and later achieved universal acclaim for her sonically experimental albums, 'Beyoncé' (2013) and 'Lemonade' (2016), the latter of which was the world's best-selling album of 2016, and the most acclaimed album of her career, exploring themes of infidelity and womanism. Throughout her solo career she's recorded many more songs than could fit on her albums, taping up to 40 of them for her debut album alone. After its massive success, she planned to release her second album in 2004 featuring tracks that were cut from it, such as 'Settle For You', 'What's Good With You' and 'Ice Cream Truck', but that never happened. Her third album in 2008 was to be called 'Virtuoso Intellect', and was to be a dance-oriented record produced by Freemasons, but once again this idea was put on the back-burner. When coming up with her fourth album, Beyoncé started writing and producing songs inspired by Afrobeat star Fela Kuti, although the only surviving song from this session is 'End Of Time', and in 2013 her fifth album was to feature songs produced by Major Lazer, and also include some inspired by '60s doo-wop, Aretha Franklin and Diana Ross. Before collaborating with Boots and reworking some of the songs for her 'Beyoncé' album, she planned to release a much more diverse record, and although we still got some of the results of those sessions, like 'Partition', 'Grown Woman', and 'Rocket', those Aretha/'60s doo wop/Major Lazer/Diana Ross songs never made it. As none of these albums are ever likely to see the light of day, here's a selection of tracks that could have appeared on them, spanning the decade from 2003 to 2013. 

Track listing

01 Settle 4 U ('Dangerously In Love' out-take 2003)
02 Waiting ('I Am... Sasha Fierce' out-take 2008)
03 Roc ('I Am... Sasha Fierce' out-take 2008)
04 Slow Love ('I Am... Sasha Fierce' out-take 2008)
05 Postcard (New Shoes) ('B'Day' out-take 2006)
06 I'm Alone Now ('I Am... Sasha Fierce' out-take 2008)
07 Baby You're The Only Man ('Dangerously In Love' out-take 2003)
08 Kick Him Put (Next Ex) ('B'Day' out-take 2006)
09 Stop Sign ('I Am... Sasha Fierce' out-take 2008)
10 Forever To Bleed ('I Am... Sasha Fierce' out-take 2008)
11 Control ('I Am... Sasha Fierce' out-take 2008)
12 Ice Cream Truck ('Dangerously In Love' out-take 2003)
13 Wake Up ('Beyoncé' out-take 2013)
14 Standing On The Sun ('Beyoncé' demo 2013)
15 God Made You Beautiful ('Beyoncé' out-take 2013)

Charli XCX - XCX World (2017)

Charli XCX has been writing songs since she was 14, and following her breakthrough debut album 'True Romance' in 2013 she's achieved significant success among young pop fans. Following the success of her second album 'Sucker', and the singles from it 'Break The Rules' and 'Doing It', she began working alongside producers associated with the UK collective PC Music, developing a more experimental sound and image. While working on her third album, she released the 'Vroom Vroom EP' in 2016, and a couple of mixtapes appeared in 2017, with 'Number 1 Angel' and 'Pop 2' both delighting fans. The same year she released the singles 'After The Afterparty' and 'Boys', both of which were to feature on her third album, tentatively titled 'XCX World'. The album was completed in mid-2016, but after being delayed multiple times it was eventually shelved, although it was leaked online in August 2017, ultimately causing its release to be cancelled. Charli XCX then started working on new projects, which eventually became 2019's 'Charli' studio album. The scrapped album's photoshoot, shot by Bradley & Pablo, also leaked in August 2018, so fans now had the complete package of songs and artwork, and she's since admitted that she's aware of the album's popularity amongst her fans, and that she loves the songs that were meant for it, but that the album will likely never be released. Despite its unfortunate fate, Charli XCX repurposed some of the songs, and officially released 'No Angel' and 'Girls Night Out' - previously teased as unreleased songs from the album - as installments from a series of monthly singles in the summer of 2018, and so 'XCX World' has ended up as a mixture of released and unreleased tracks, and what she has described as "the most pop thing, and the most electronic thing" she had ever done. Following this introductory post, I shall be posting a series of albums made up of unreleased songs from the last 14 years, taken from the nearly 200 tracks that she's recorded over that period which have never seen the light of day, including the legendary punk album from 2014 , and a collection of demos that she recorded to offer her songs to other artists. 

Track listing

01 Girls Night Out (feat. TyNi)
01 Taxi
03 Come To My Party
04 The One I Die 4
05 Bounce (feat. Kyary Pamyu Pamyu)
06 Waterfall (feat. Nooie Bao)
07 Down Like Woah
08 Queen Lizzy
09 Good Girls
10 Can You Hear Me?
11 No Angel
12 Boys
13 I Wanna Be With U
14 After The Afterparty (feat. Lil Yachty)

Kendrick Lamar - Compton State Of Mind (2012)

Kendrick Lamar Duckworth was born on 17 June 1987, and was raised in Compton, California, embarking on his musical career as a teenager under the stage name K.Dot, and at the age of 16 releasing a mixtape titled 'Youngest Head Nigga in Charge (Hub City Threat: Minor of the Year)' that garnered local attention and led to his signing with indie record label Top Dawg Entertainment. He began recording material with the label and subsequently released a 26-track mixtape in 2005 titled 'Training Day', and after receiving a co-sign from Lil Wayne, he released his third mixtape in 2009, titled 'C4', which was heavily themed around Wayne's album 'Tha Carter III'. Soon after, he decided to no longer go by the stage name of K.Dot and opted to use his birth name. In 2010 he began to gain recognition after his fourth mixtape 'Overly Dedicated' found an audience, and the following year he independently released his first studio album 'Section.80', which included his debut single 'HiiiPoWeR'. By that time, he had amassed a large online following and collaborated with several prominent rappers, subsequently securing a record deal with Dr. Dre's Aftermath Entertainment, under the aegis of Interscope Records. Lamar's major-label debut album 'Good Kid, M.A.A.D City', was released in 2012 to critical acclaim, recognition and mainstream success. His third album 'To Pimp A Butterfly' came out in 2015, and incorporated elements of funk, soul, jazz, and spoken word, predominantly centred around the Black-American experience. It became his first number-one album on the US Billboard 200 and was an enormous critical success. Before 'To Pimp A Butterfly' propelled Lamar into the hip-hop and rap mainstream, he was still recording songs independently, and in 2012 he released a number of them on a mixtape under the name 'Compton State Of Mind'. This featured all new material which hadn't appeared on his official albums, and this collection bridges the gap between the critically acclaimed 'Good Kid, M.A.A.D City' and the ground-breaking 'To Pimp A Butterfly'.  

Track listing

01 Kendrick Lamar 
02 Today
03 Imagine (feat. Jay Rock and Punch)
04 LMAO 
05 Little Johnny 
06 The Best Rapper Alive 
07 Yung Boys World 
08 Dreams
09 Skill Still Appeal
10 World Negatives 
11 Compton State Of Mind 

Embrace - Feels Like Glue (2004)

Following the release of 'Out Of Nothing' in 2004, Embrace appeared on Radio 1's Live Lounge, and they recorded a version of the D12 rap song 'How Come', which was later included as a b-side on their 'Ashes' single. 2005 was something of a quiet year for the band, and so in October they released their first compilation,'Dry Kids', which featured 18 tracks taken from singles and EPs across their entire career, but bearing in mind just how many rare recordings were tucked away on their singles and EPs up to 2005, it had to be a very selective track list. Later that year the band released the live album 'A Glorious Day - Live In Leeds', and it was promoted with the release of the studio version of 'Glorious Day' from the 'Out Of Nothing' album, which was their only single from that year. This post collects the b-sides of all the singles from the 'Out Of Nothing' album, released in 2004 and 2005. And is it just me, or is the melody of 'Milk And Honey' suspiciously similar to Bad Company's 'Feel Like Makin' Love'.

Track listing

01 Madelaine (b-side of 'Looking As You Are' 2004)
02 I Ache (b-side of 'Looking As You Are' 2004)
03 Soldiers Hours (b-side of 'Looking As You Are' 2004)
04 The Final Say (b-side of 'Looking As You Are' 2004)
05 Enough (b-side of 'Ashes' 2004)
06 Maybe I Wish (b-side of 'Ashes' 2004)
07 Flaming Red Hair (b-side of 'Ashes' 2004)
08 How Come (Live) (b-side of 'Ashes' 2004)
09 Hallelujah (b-side of 'A Glorious Day' 2005)
10 Feel Like Glue (b-side of 'A Glorious Day' 2005)
11 Red Eye Shot (b-side of 'A Glorious Day' 2005)
12 Milk And Honey (b-side of 'A Glorious Day' 2005)

Various Artists - The Hitmakers Sing Randy Newman (1975)

Like the recent Tony Hazzard post, when Randy Newman's debut album came out in 1968, nearly all of the songs had already been released by groups and artists as singles or album tracks, generally in more fully-realised arrangements than Newman's own versions. Newman had been a professional songwriter since he was 17, and cited Ray Charles as his greatest influence growing up, and his first single as a performer was 1962's 'Golden Gridiron Boy', released when he was 18. The single flopped and so he chose to concentrate on songwriting and arranging for the next several years, with an early writing credit being 'They Tell Me It's Summer', which was used as the b-side of the Fleetwoods 1962 single 'Lovers By Night, Strangers By Day'. This led to further commissions from the Fleetwoods, as well as Pat Boone, and some of his other early songs were recorded by Gene Pitney, Jerry Butler, Petula Clark, Dusty Springfield, Jackie DeShannon, the O'Jays, and Irma Thomas, among others, with his work as a songwriter meeting with particular success in the UK. Top 40 UK hits written by Newman included Cilla Black's 'I've Been Wrong Before', Gene Pitney's 'Nobody Needs Your Love', and 'Just One Smile', and the Alan Price Set's 'Simon Smith And The Amazing Dancing Bear'. In fact, Price championed Newman by featuring seven of his songs on his 1967 album 'A Price On His Head'. Newman's eponymous 1968 debut album was a critical success but never entered the Billboard Top 200, and apparently the album sold so poorly that Warner offered buyers the opportunity to trade it in for another record in the company's catalog. It's hard to believe that the album was out of print for over 15 years until it was issued on CD in 1995, as Newman's songs have now been covered by an impressive number of artists, including Barbra Streisand, Helen Reddy, Bette Midler, Alan Price, Van Dyke Parks, Dave Van Ronk, Judy Collins, Glen Campbell, Cass Elliot, Art Garfunkel, the Everly Brothers, Claudine Longet, Bonnie Raitt, Dusty Springfield, Tom Odell, Nina Simone, Lynn Anderson, Wilson Pickett, Pat Boone, Neil Diamond and Peggy Lee, and 'I Think It's Going To Rain Today' has become something of a standard. Ten of the album's eleven tracks were covered both before and after its release, and despite Newman's undoubted songwriting skills, even his most ardent fans couldn't say that his vocals are particularly melodious, and so having professional singers performing his songs adds to them them immensely. As the original album was a bit short, I've added similar covers of half a dozen songs from his 1970 follow-up '12 Songs' to boost it to a very enjoyable 47 minutes.    

Track listing

01 Love Story (The Brothers 1967)
02 No One Ever Hurt This Bad (The Alan Price Set 1967)
03 Living Without You (Keith Shields 1967)
04 So Long Dad (Manfred Mann 1967)
05 I Think He's Hiding (Jack Sheldon 1969)
06 Linda (Jack Jones 1969)
07 Cowboy (Three Dog Night 1970)
08 The Beehive State (The Doobie Brothers 1971)
09 I Think It's Going To Rain Today (Eric Burdon & The Animals 1967)
10 Davy The Fat Boy (Joe Brown 1968)
11 Have You Seen My Baby? (Chris Smither 1970)  
12 Let's Burn Down The Cornfield (Lee Hazlewood 1969)
13 Lucinda (Joe Cocker 1975)
14 Yellow Man (Georgie Fame & Alan Price 1971)
15 Old Kentucky Home (The Beau Brummels 1967)
16 Rosemary (Blood, Sweat & Tears 1973)