Cherish - The Moment (2003)

Cherish was an American R&B music group consisting of four sisters, Farrah King (born February 17, 1984), Neosha King (born January 26, 1986) and twins Fallon and Felisha King (born June 5, 1988). They first rose to fame when they teamed up with female hip hop artist Da Brat to record a duet with her, and the finished track, titled 'In Love Wit Chu', was released on 3 March 2003. It was a commercial success in the US, and charted on a number of different charts in the country, such as the Billboard Rhythmic Top 40 chart, and just missed out on breaking the top 40 of the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at number 44. Their first single on their own was 'Miss P.', which was produced by Jermaine Dupri and featured Da Brat, and which was released on Reprise Records in 2003. After the success of their collaboration with Da Brat, the single was expected to be a hit, but it failed to chart on any major charts in the U.S., or countries other than the girl's own, and it's failure could be attributed to the fact that it had very little exposure other than one performance on Soul Train in May 2003. Due to the commercial failure of its lead single, the group's debut album, 'The Moment', was shelved a few months later, and remains unreleased. After their album was dropped, the group recorded three songs for 'The Powerpuff Girls: Power Pop' soundtrack, with 'Chemical X', 'Power Of A Female', and 'Me And My Girls' all appearing on the record. 

In 2005 the girls began work on another album, which they wrote entirely themselves, and which they considered much more mature than their unreleased previous work. On 21 March 2006, Cherish released their first single in three years, titled 'Do It To It', which was met with a positive critical reception, and it also charted on several Billboard charts. It became their first to reach the top 20 of the Billboard Hot 100, where it peaked at number 12, and it was also a major hit in New Zealand, the UK, Ireland, Australia, Germany and France. After the success of 'Do It To It', their debut album, 'Unappreciated' (a barbed dig at their record company?), was released on 15 August 2006 on Capitol Records, and it debuted at number four on the Billboard 200. It was also a hit in Japan and the UK, and in January 2009 the title track was released as the second single, but while it was received warmly by critics, it failed to achieve the commercial success of its predecessor. With their career now established, the girls went on to release their second album, 'The Truth', in 2008, as well as a couple more singles, but in Spring 2008 Fallon and Felisha confirmed that they were working on a side project that didn't involve the other two members of the group, and under the name F+F they began recording an album separate from Cherish. 

In early 2009 a track by F+F called 'Infected' was leaked online by an unknown source, and this fuelled rumours that the band was breaking up, and in fact both Farrah and Neosha did exit the group, leaving just the duo of Fallon and Felisha. Despite announcements over the years that the band are getting back together and recording new music, nothing was heard from them until December 2016, when Fallon and Felisha announced during a Facebook live video that they were reuniting as Cherish once again, but would be working on new music as a duo, and that Farrah and Noesha would feature on a number of the songs. However, apart from a trio of singles on the Free The Lyrics label in 2017, nothing more has been heard from them. At their peak they were a tight little band, and their first album didn't really deserve to be canned just because their first single as a group didn't perform as well as their earlier collaboration, and so here is that shelved album from 2003. 

Track listing

01 Intro (feat. Jermaine "J.D." Dupri) 
02 Miss P. (feat. Da Brat)
03 Stay With You  
04 I Won't Leave You  
05 Loving You  
06 Voices Beyond  
07 Better Be Me  
08 Gimmie Some Space  
09 I Thought I Told Ya  
10 I Wanna Be Your Girl  
11 Poisonous  
12 Boyfriend  
13 Power Of The Female  

Various Artists - The Hitmakers Sing Bob Dylan's 'The Times They Are A-Changin'' (2001)

Whereas Bob Dylan's previous albums, 'Bob Dylan' and 'The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan', combined original material and cover songs, 'The Times They Are A-Changin'' was the first to feature only original compositions. It consists mostly of stark, sparsely arranged ballads concerning issues such as racism, poverty, and social change, and the title track is one of Dylan's most famous, with many feeling that it captures the spirit of social and political upheaval that characterized the 1960's. Some critics and fans were not quite as taken with the album as a whole, citing its lack of humour or musical diversity, but it still peaked at No. 20 on the US chart, eventually going gold, and belatedly reaching No. 4 in the UK in 1965. Work had begun on 6 August 1963, at Columbia's Studio A, with Tom Wilson once again as producer for the entire album, and the session yielded a usable take of 'North Country Blues'. Another session at Studio A was held the following day, this time providing master takes of four songs: 'Ballad Of Hollis Brown', 'With God On Our Side', 'Only A Pawn In Their Game', and 'Boots Of Spanish Leather', after which sessions did not resume for more than two months. During the interim, Dylan toured briefly with Joan Baez, performing a number of key concerts that raised his profile in the media, and when he returned to Studio A on 23 October he had six more original compositions ready for recording. Master takes for 'The Lonesome Death Of Hattie Carroll' and 'When The Ship Comes In' came from this date, and on 24 October final takes of 'The Times They Are A-Changin'' and 'One Too Many Mornings' were recorded. The final session took place on 31 October, and the entire session focused on one song — 'Restless Farewell'— whose melody is taken from an Irish-Scots folk song, 'The Parting Glass', and it produced a master take that ultimately closed the album. Almost as soon as the album appeared in February 1964, Peter, Paul and Mary covered 'When The Ship Comes In', and by the following year Manfred Mann had charted with their version of 'With God On Our Side', while The Seekers had recorded the title track and Nina Simone covered 'Ballad Of Hollis Brown'. Most of these versions are from the couple of years following the release of the album, but it took until 1988 before someone tackled 'Only A Pawn In Their Game', and 2001 for a cover of 'Restless Farewell' to follow Joan Baez's version in 1968, so here they all are on this tribute to a classic Dylan album.  

Track listing

01 The Times They Are A-Changin' (The Seekers 1965)
02 Ballad Of Hollis Brown (Nazareth 1973)
03 With God On Our Side (Manfred Mann 1965)
04 One Too Many Mornings (The Beau Brummels 1966)
05 North Country Blues (Joan Baez 1968)
06 Only A Pawn In Their Game (The Lenny Nelson Project 1988)
07 Boots Of Spanish Leather (The Silkie 1965)
08 When The Ship Comes In (Peter, Paul And Mary 1964)
09 The Lonesome Death Of Hattie Carroll (Phranc 1985)
10 Restless Farewell (Norman Blake & Peter Ostroushko 2001)

Dua Lipa - All To Myself (2020)

Following the release of her self-titled debut album in 2017, Dua Lipa started working on new material for her second album in January 2018, and in April she issued a collaboration with Calvin Harris on the 'One Kiss' single, which topped the UK Singles Chart for eight weeks, and which went to become the biggest selling song of 2018 in the UK. It was later reported that she would be releasing collaborations with other artists, with the first one being 'Electricity' with Mark Ronson, which came out in September. In January 2019 she released the single 'Swan Song' as part of the soundtrack to the 2019 film 'Alita: Battle Angel', and later announced that she'd spent the preceding year in the writing process for her second studio album, which would be a "nostalgic" pop record that "feels like a dancercise class". Following the release of its lead single 'Don't Start Now', her second album, 'Future Nostalgia', and its accompanying tour were announced in December 2019. The single peaked at number two on both the UK Singles Chart and the US Billboard Hot 100, where it earned the longest top 10 stay for a British female artist. The second single leading up to the release of the album was 'Physical', which came out in January 2020, and following one more single, 'Break My Heart', 'Future Nostalgia' was issued in March to widespread critical acclaim. It peaked at number one on the Official UK Albums Chart the following week in April 2020, while four of the album's singles entered the top ten of the Official Singles Chart, making her the first British female artist since Vera Lynn to have three top-ten singles in a single calendar year. As with her previous album, Lipa had amassed a vast stock of music that she could pick and choose for inclusion on her second album, and once again they are too good to just be thrown away, and so here is the first of three collections of rejected songs from 2020.

Track listing

01 Ball & Chain
02 Firestarter
03 Better This Way
04 Guilty
05 25-8
06 Talk About It
07 Naked
08 All To Myself
09 Act Of God (feat. Ant Clemons)
10 Delicious
11 Whay I Like
12 If It Ain't Me (feat. Normani)
13 Secrets
14 Love Is Religion

Jason Crest - The Senile Mysteries Of Black Mass (1969)

Formed in Tonbridge, Kent from the ashes of The Good Thing Brigade, Jason Crest were signed to Philips in the latter part of 1967 after being discovered by former Four Pennies bassist Fritz Fryer, who got them a recording contract. The label thought that their name was a little inappropriate so this was duly changed with a slight amendment from one of the group's tracks, 'The Collected Works of Justin Crest'. Within weeks of being spotted, the newly named Jason Crest were in the studio recording their first single, 'Turquoise Tandem Cycle', a debut dubbed by Philips on advertisements as "the first new group of 1968". Over the years this song has often linked them to such bands as Procol Harum and Tomorrow, especially with the former for it's distinctive organ sound, but despite a fair measure of airplay the single failed to click. The same thing happened with their second single 'Juliano The Bull' , nice enough but banned by Radio One after some bright spark suggested it was "promoting blood sports", although they could have just flipped the single, as on this release the b-side, 'Two By The Sea', was actually the stronger of the two songs. After two flopped singles, Philips pulled the plug on the groups original songs and opted for a cover version, the song in question being The Move's '(Here We Go Round) The Lemon Tree', but the record company's choice of single ended up with the same fate, despite considerable radio play. Bassist Ron Fowler quit around this time, as working in a band and a full time job time didn't mix, especially when the band toured Germany, and so he was replaced by John Selley. After three flops, Philips were desperate for a hit, so Fryer got the band to record one of his own numbers, and a fourth single, the more commercial 'Waterloo Road', was recorded and promptly bombed, which was probably just as well as it's one of their weakest tracks. 

With one single left on the contract, 'A Place In The Sun' was released in 1969, but despite being one of their best recordings, the public were still not convinced, and once again it flopped, although rather surprisingly the strange 'Black Mass' found it's way onto the flip, as Philips had earlier decided that the song was unfit for public consumption. With no success after five singles, the proposed Philips album was cancelled, even though it had already been given a title of 'The Senile Mysteries of Black Mass', and gradually the band drifted apart. Fryer already had a new interest in the emerging The Open Mind, and Philips were in no mood to renew their contract after a series of flops, so Terry Clarke was the first to leave, joining up with London-based outfit Orang Utan, whilst the remaining members continued with new vocalist Brian Prebble and ex-Mike Stuart Span/Leviathan guitarist Brian Bennett under the name of High Broom. In 1971 Clark, Smallcombe and Siggery all sorted out their differences and formed Holy Mackerel, releasing their self-titled album in 1972. There have been two compilations of the band's work released over the years, plus a collection of their radio sessions on the Tenth Planet label, but no-one has ever tried to piece together their cancelled album, so that's what I decided to do, as that way we could just use the best recordings and ditch the lesser singles like 'Waterloo Road' and 'Juliano The Bull'. I've also added in one of their radio sessions which fitted nicely into the running order, and it's all housed in the original artwork, which had already been commissioned before the album was cancelled.   

Track listing

01 Turquoise Tandem Cycle
02 My House Is Burning
03 Two By The Sea
04 Patricia's Dream
05 Black Mass
06 A Place In The Sun
07 Charge Of The Light Brigade 
08 What's It Like?
09 Good Life
10 Teagarden Lane
11 King Of The Castle
12 The Collected Works Of Justin Crest

Sam Smith - To Die For (2020)

Samuel Frederick Smith was born on 19 May 1992 Cambridgeshire, and both parents encouraged his singing at a young age, after the budding vocalist impressed them with a rendition of Whitney Houston's 'My Love Is Your Love'. Smith pursued vocal training and soon appeared in local theatre productions and with Youth Music Theatre UK, going through six managers before ultimately moving to London at age 18 to pursue opportunities there. Smith's breakthrough came as a vocalist on Disclosure's 'Latch', which peaked at number eleven on the UK Singles Chart, and the following year they performed on Naughty Boy's 2013 single 'La La La', which became a UK number one single. Smith's debut studio album, 'In The Lonely Hour', was released in May 2014 through Capitol Records UK, and the second single from the record, 'Money On My Mind', became their second number one single in the UK, as did its follow-up 'Stay With Me'. The album won four awards at the 57th Annual Grammy Awards, including Best Pop Vocal Album, Best New Artist, Record of the Year, and Song of the Year, while the song 'Writing's On The Wall' served as the theme for the 2015 James Bond film 'Spectre', and it won a Golden Globe Award and an Academy Award for Best Original Song. Smith's second studio album, 'The Thrill Of It All', was released in November 2017 and debuted at number 1 on the UK and US album charts, and its lead single, 'Too Good At Goodbyes' also topped the UK charts. 

On 13 February 2020, they revealed that a third studio album, then titled 'To Die For', was scheduled to be released on 1 May, but a few weeks later it was announced that due to the ongoing effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, the release of the third album would be delayed, and there would also be a number of changes to the album track list and title, although it would still be released sometime within 2020. 'I'm Ready', a collaboration with American singer Demi Lovato, was released on 16 April and charted well in the top 40 of several countries, and on 6 July, Smith released a cover of Coldplay's 'Fix You', followed in September by another single, 'Diamonds', following which the new title for the third album was announced as 'Love Goes', and it was released on 30 October. With the release of 'Love Goes', thoughts of 'To Die For' faded away, but tracks meant for it but which were removed were kept, and some appeared as bonus tracks on special editions of 'Love Goes'. There is a tentative track listing for the album out there, which includes some songs which appeared on 'Love Goes', along with a cover of Donna Summer's 'I Feel Love', and a few otherwise unreleased tracks, and so here is an approximation of what could have been Sam Smith's third album 'To Die For' from 2020. 

Track listing

01 To Die For
02 Dancing With A Stranger (feat. Normani)
03 How Do You Sleep
04 You Will Be Found
05 I Feel Love
06 Love Goes (feat. Labrinth)
07 I'm Ready (feat. Demi Lovato)
08 Sober
09 Promises (feat. Calvin Harris & Fessie Reyez)
10 Heart On My Sleeve
11 Laurel Canyon
12 Fire On Fire
13 Diamonds

The Rolling Stones - Keep It Cool (1982)

The second album extracted from the 'Fully Finished Studio Outtakes' set is dedicated to 1982, as all the tracks come from early sessions in November and December 1982, for what was to be the 1983 'Undercover' album. Once again, notes are from Zen Archer's Aural Surfing Odyssey blog, with corrected years of recording, and when he mentioned that the vocals on 'Keep It Cool' were a little low, I quickly fixed them to sound more audible.  
01 Dreams To Remember (1983)
A classic Stones take on country tonk, Jagger's vocals are variously spoken and screamed while the band bar-room it up in the background. The guitar licks flicker and squeak while the whole track has a cataclysmic tone of collapse. A certain 1970's sound in the vein of John Lennon's 'Walls And Bridges' album. Should be 1982.
02 Still In Love With You (1982)
While we discuss tracks that share DNA with a certain era, this track fits straight in to it's date line. Ponderous, warm, reflective piano and sleepy pedal-steel are enveloped in this delicately produced ballad. Correct year. 
03 I Tried To Talk Her Into It (1982)
A sweet country influenced piece with a great slice of steel guitar. It skips along merrily and wouldn’t sound out of place of any nu-country album released this side of the year 2000. This is longer than the 'Dirty Work Sessions' version too. Correct year. 
04 Part Of The Night (1976)
Also known as 'Golden Caddy' from the Pathé Marconi sessions (as heard on 'Foxes In The Boxes'), this track might as well be 'Never Make You Cry' part two but one where the piano takes the place of the guitar instead. Much later than 1976, at 1982.
05 Keep It Cool (1982)
A clean little number, light piano lines with barely there guitars which drifts at an almost glacial pace. Jagger whispers his vocals at a volume that just barely breaks over the backing. Originally released on 'Foxes In The Boxes', this is the shortest version at just over 5 minutes. Correct year. 
06 Eliza Upchink (1983)
Regards a certain lady of no scruples, this dash of blues runs slightly longer than previously bootlegged at 4:38. Just one year out, as 1982.
07 (You Better) Stop That (1983) 
Short but sweet, very much of it's time and sounding like 'Neighbours', the type of angsty, punky ripple with stabs of electric piano in the background. As above, one year out at 1982. 
08 Can't Find Love (1983)
I think this sounds like George Harrison's/Bob Dylan's 'If Not For You' in the smallest way. At nearly 7 minutes, it's one of the longest tracks on this collection. The mixture also features a Buddy Holly-esque chiming guitar line over a strolling beat. Should be 1982.
09 Cooking Up (1983)
One of the speedier efforts to this set, short speedy guitar riffs as Ronnie and Keith dance around each other and Nicky Hopkins peddles away along side. A curious title to the track, however, it's almost impossible to make out what Mick is singing about. As with all the other tracks, should be 1982.

Track listing 

01 Dreams To Remember 
02 Still In Love With You 
03 I Tried To Talk Her Into It 
04 Part Of The Night 
05 Keep It Cool 
06 Eliza Upchink 
07 (You Better) Stop That 
08 Can't Find Love
09 Cooking Up

The Green Pajamas - The Perfect Chill (2021)

The Green Pajamas have been one of my favourite bands since I first discovered them in the mid-1980's, and since then I've bought every single, EP and album that they've released in their 40 year career. They are still going strong today, issuing their most recent long-player 'This Floating World Is A Dream' just last year, and I've been wanting to post something from them for years, to introduce them to people who have never heard of them, and also to offer some rare and hard to find music to the fans. But in fact they have looked after their fans extremely well over the years, as every so often they would gather up all the freebies given away to magazines and tribute albums, as well as rare one-off singles and b-sides, and anything else they felt worthy of hearing, and release them on a mopping-up compilation album, so if you own 'Indian Winter', 'Narcotic Kisses', 'Through Glass Colored Roses', 'Hidden Minutes', or 'Edge Of The Night' then you probably own nearly every track that they've ever recorded. However, leader Jeff Kelly has recently raided his archives and dug out some of his old cassette recordings, radio shows, live outings, demos and alternate takes and remixes, and issued them in a three volume bootleg series, two of which were rarities collections, and the third comprising various live recordings. By cherry-picking the best recordings from the two studio sets, at last I have something to post from them. 
The Green Pajamas were founded in Seattle in 1984 by Joe Ross and Jeff Kelly, who had begun composing his first songs at the age of 11, and forming a group called the Electric Garbage Cans. His parents bought him a reel-to-reel tape recorder, and he spent his teenage years compiling literally hundreds of cassettes of original material. After graduating from college, Kelly briefly joined a new wave band dubbed the Larch, but when he met Ross at a party the two formed the Green Pajamas, informed by their mutual love of the Beatles, and inspired by the Los Angeles "paisley underground" community. The group debuted in 1984 with the cassette 'Summer Of Lust' on the Green Monkey label, and issued a flurry of tapes before recording their proper full-length debut, 'Book Of Hours', in 1987. After 1990's 'Ghosts Of Love', the Green Pajamas went on hiatus, during which time Kelly issued the solo LP 'Coffee In Nepal' in 1991, but in 1997 the band resurfaced with the single 'Doctor Dragonfly' as well as 'Indian Winter', a collection of singles and compilation tracks. 'All Clues Lead To Meagan's Bed' followed in 1999 and 'Seven Fathoms Down And Falling' arrived in 2000, being a couple of their very best records, and the following year they released the 'In A Glass Darkly' EP, which was inspired by J.S. Le Fanu's writing, as well as the full-length 'This Is Where We Disappear', another simply superb record. 

A mishmash of discarded singles and outtakes, 'Narcotic Kisses', was released in 2002 along with a full-length album, 'Northern Gothic', and they celebrated their 20th anniversary in 2004 with a 14-track retrospective disc, 'Through Glass Colored Roses', and a live in-studio album, 'Ten White Stones', which featured some great Neil Young-style guitar playing. Another full-length studio effort, the unabashedly psychedelic '21st Century Séance', was released the following year, and in 2006, the band released yet another compilation disc, 'Night Races Into Anna', followed by a companion piece to 'Northern Gothic', 2007's 'Box Of Secrets: Northern Gothic Season Two', while the all-new conceptual piece 'Poison In The Russian Room' dropped in 2009, and it's still one of my favourite albums from the band. For their next project, they penned a set of songs about drinking and heartache with a slight rootsy feel, released in 2011 as 'Green Pajamas Country!', but they were back in dark but more musically familiar territory with 2012's 'Death By Misadventure', while nautical themes dominated 2012's 'To the End Of The Sea', and the off-cuts collection 'Supernatural Afternoon', which brought together rare single sides and unreleased material, followed in 2017. 

A third instalment in the Northern Gothic series, 'Phantom Lake: Northern Gothic 3', appeared in 2018, followed by 2021's 'Sunlight Might Weigh Even More', and then 2022's 'Forever For A Little While', which was re-issued as a vinyl release the next year as 'This Floating World Is A Dream'. The recent bootlegs start right at the beginning of the group, with a live recording from 1984, but I wanted to post just the songs that I'd never heard before, so I've picked out the demos and out-takes, and added in a number of contributions to tribute albums and magazine freebies that have never appeared on their own compilations, and so this collection should complete the most die-hard fan's discography of the group, so that they now own every song that they've ever recorded. The only track which has appeared before on CD is 'Missing Miss MacColl', which was Kelly's humble and sincere tribute to the singer Kirsty MacColl, who had recently died in an accident. When he recorded it for inclusion on the 'More Tell-Tale Signs Of Earworm' compilation album he had a cold, and had to keep his voice low in the mix, and so on this first mix the lyrics are much easier to hear. If you already know the band then you'll love this mopping-up collection, and if this is the first thing you hear from them then I hope that it will encourage you to investigate their huge back catalogue, and to discover the best kept secret that is The Green Pajamas.  

Track listing

01 You're Losing Me (Out-take 1988)

02 Such A Lovely Daughter (from Unhinged magazine flexi-disc 1990)

03 Dr. Dacey (Demo 1987)

04 Love Song (Demo 1990)

05 Woman, Woman (Demo 1996)

06 Cathy (Demo 1997)

07 Agent 99 (Out-take 1997)

08 The Perfect Chill (Demo 1999)

09 A Rose For Emily (from 'Wake Up Your Windows, Let's Do The Zombies' 7" 2000)

10 She Took A Long Cold Look (from 'Asyd Vinyl (A Tribute To Syd Barrett)' 2000)

11 Missing Miss MacColl (re-recording of track from 'More Tell-Tale Signs Of Earworm' 2001)

12 Got To Get You Into My Life (from the Mojo magazine CD 'Revolver Reloaded' 2006)

13 La Folie (out-take 2006)

14 A Long Way From Home (from the Mojo CD 'The Modern Genius Of Ray Davies' 2006)

15 XXXI (from 'Chamber Music: James Joyce (1907)' tribute album 2008)

16 Ring Around The Sun Medley (Out-take 2012)

17 William (Demo 2021)

18 Copper Eyed Girl (2021 remix of contribution to 'A Spoonful Of Sugarbush' 2017)

19 Such A Lovely Daughter (Reprise) 

The cover is a painting by Jeff Kelly's wife Susanne Kelly, who has provided the artwork for a number of the band's albums. 

La Toya Jackson - Startin' Over (2002)

Following her escape from an abusive marriage and her subsequent divorce, La Toya Jackson was reduced to performing in Europe and South America to start making money to pay off the huge debts which her ex-husband had accumulated in her name while they were married. In the wake of the September 11 attacks on New York in 2001, Jackson was moved to write 'Free The World', and the song's positive reception spurred her on to write more songs, ending up with a full album. The album's title, 'Startin' Over' was a reference to the six years that she'd spent out of the public's view in order to rebuild her life after divorcing husband/manager Jack Gordon. The original album was completed in September 2002 and issued as a promotional CD the following year in order to secure a distribution deal, but in 2006 the promo was leaked to the internet, and the official release was beset with years of delays, while in the interim Jackson recorded entirely new material that might be released in the future. 'Startin' Over' includes autobiographical tracks about her relationship with her abusive ex-husband and former manager, and several of them hint towards brutal beatings and plans to have her family killed, and one of the tracks, 'Mafia Style', is a reference to Gordon's meetings with mobsters on New York's Mulberry Street. In 2006 Jackson recorded a new song titled 'Starting Over', but plans to release it as a single that year were scrapped, and instead it was reconstituted as a jingle for Australian beverage maker Star Ice. In June 2011 she released the 'Starting Over' EP, which included the 2006 song of the same name, plus six tracks from the aborted album, and it's issue was timed to coincide with her book of the same name, with the EP being subtitled 'Songs That Inspired The Book'. This confirmed that the 'Startin' Over' album was finally consigned to the vaults, and so for fans who want to hear the rest of the scrapped record, here is the full 'Startin' Over' album, including a bonus dance remix of 'Free The World'. 

Track listing

01 No More Drama  
02 Just Wanna Dance  
03 C'est La Vie 
04 Anger Management (Skit)  
05 Don't Want You No More  
06 Home 
07 Call Me  
08 That's Why I Love You  
09 Something About You 
10 Mafia Style (Skit)  
11 Should've Left You 
12 Free The World  
13 Player  
14 You're So Nasty  
15 Sorry Lies  
16 Tropical Breeze  
17 Free The World (Dance Remix) 

Various Artists - The Hitmakers Sing Gordon Lightfoot's 'Did She Mention My Name?' (2023)

Gordon Lightfoot's second album 'The Way I Feel' was released in 1967, and to kick off Canada's Centennial year, the CBC commissioned Lightfoot to write the 'Canadian Railroad Trilogy' for a special broadcast on January 1, 1967. This was the centre-piece of his new album, which was generally well-received, if perceived as slightly inferior to its predecessor, and 'Did She Mention My Name?' followed in 1968, being his first to feature orchestration, and it included 'Black Day In July', about the 1967 Detroit riot. Weeks later, following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. on April 4, radio stations in 30 states pulled the song for "fanning the flames", even though it was actually a plea for racial harmony. Lightfoot's reputation as a songwriter of note was still in evidence, confirmed by the fact that nearly every track on the album had been attempted by other artists by 1970, and so here are some of the best versions of the songs from Gordon Lightfoot's third studio album from 1968, with two songs from the same era added to the end to make up for 'May I' and 'Boss Man' not having available cover versions.    

Track listing

01 The Wherefore And The Why (The Johnstons 1968)
02 The Last Time I Saw Her (Glen Campbell 1971)
03 Black Day In July (The Tragically Hip 2003)
04 Magnificent Outpouring (The Triban 1969)  
05 Does Your Mother Know (The Sandalwood Candle 1970)
06 The Mountain And Maryann (Kenny Rankin 1969)
07 Pussywillows, Cat-tails (Pat Hervey 1970) 
08 I Want To Hear It From You (Lou Rawls 1968)
09 Something Very Special (Dylan Bell 2023)
10 Did She Mention My Name (George Hamilton IV 1968) 
11 Bitter Green (The Idle Race 1971)
12 The Gypsy (Petula Clark 1974)

Justin Bieber - JB6 (2021)

After releasing his fifth studio album, 'Changes' in 2020, Justin Bieber was interviewed by Apple Music DJ Zane Lowe, and said that he wanted his next record to reflect the things that he had learned about commitment and building trust. In the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, when Bieber was in quarantine at his house in Toronto, he was sent a plethora of demos submitted to his management team by songwriters, managers, publishers and producers. He recorded the songs he liked in his home studio and sent them back to his inner circle, and work on what was to become the 'Justice' album intensified once he got back to Los Angeles a couple of months later. While his last album was R&B oriented, for this record nothing was off limits, and by December 2020 he had amassed at least an albums worth of material, and so by January 2021 he was able to announce on Twitter that he was going over the track listing for the album. He finally announced the release of the album on 26 February 2021, and along with that announcement, an EP titled 'JB6' was released for digital download and streaming. The EP includes the original versions of three of the already-released singles -  'Holy' (featuring Chance The Rapper), 'Lonely' (with Benny Blanco) and 'Anyone', as well as acoustic versions of the former two. 'Justice' dropped on 19 March 2021, and was a decent addition to Bieber's catalogue, seeing a return to his pop roots, and being distinguished by a variety of modes that includes vaporous synth-rock and strumming acoustic ballads, hip hop gospel and bedroom EDM, and sun-dazed R&B and contemporary Afrobeat. Since the release of the album, a number of unreleased songs have surfaced, with some of them carrying on the R&B sound of 'Changes', while others sound more like out-takes from 'Justice', so I've gathered up the best of them, and added in a couple of out-takes/rarities from a few years earlier if it felt like they fitted, to make up a companion album to 'Justice', named after, and featuring two acoustic tracks from, the 'JB6' EP.    

Track listing

01 Hit The Ground
02 Double Negative
03 Holy (Acoustic) (feat. Chance The Rapper)
04 No Pain
05 Long Way Home
06 Over & Over
07 Swag Mean
08 You And Me (feat. will.i.am)
09 Lonely (Acoustic)
10 Change The Weather
11 No One

12 Unconditional
13 I Wanna Be (feat. Nasri)
14 We Were Born For This

I'm no Bieber expert, but I did later discover that a few Youtube posts were not actually him, such as 'Raise The Bar' (actually 'My Reasons' by 3in) and 'Letter To A Broken Heart' by Zion Foster, so if any of these are not really Bieber then can you let me know.  

Catch - Victim Support (1997)

Catch were an English indie pop band consisting of singer and keyboardist Toby Slater, bassist Wayne Murray and guitarist Ben Etchells, and evolved from Slater's first band Brattish, who were active in 1994–95. That band featured bass guitarist and backing vocalist Matthew Harding, who was briefly a member of Catch, but reputedly left when Slater refused to give him a writing credit. Brattish rehearsed the Catch material extensively, paid for by interested A&R men, but never gigged, and after the name change they released their debut single 'Bingo' in 1997, which saw them appearing on Top of the Pops, Light Lunch, The Paul Ross Show (performing three songs live), The Jack Docherty Show and various Saturday morning UK TV shows. The band's debut album was rush released in Indonesia due to their sudden popularity there, and they visited Jakarta for a promotional tour and performed acoustically for fans, but the UK release was delayed due to Slater being unhappy with it at the time. Before any remedial work could be done on the record, Catch split up, and Slater moved to Los Angeles to pursue a solo career. This led to the album being denied a release in any form in the UK, and the tentatively titled 'Victim Support' was cancelled by Virgin. When Slater returned to the UK he formed a group featuring former members of the UK band Salamanda, and began recording and gigging under his own name. The Toby Slater Band released one single, 'Consumption', and some other songs were made available online via Slater's own website, but fans of the 'Bingo' single really want to hear the record that should have followed it, and so here is that shelved album by indie-poppers Catch from 1997. 

Track listing

01 Dive In 
02 Bingo 
03 Half The World Away 
04 Don't Wait Up 
05 Pity The Man 
06 Expensive Kiss 
07 Start Of Something 
08 Over Again 
09 Maybe Tonight 
10 My Burst Balloon 
11 A New Soul 
12 Goodbye

Azealia Banks - Fantasea II: The Second Wave (2018)

Following the release of her debut studio album 'Broke With Expensive Taste' in 2014, Azealia Banks' next project was a follow-up to her first mixtape 'Fantasea'. 'Fantasea II: The Second Wave' had been worked on alongside the recording of 'Broke With Expensive Taste', and had been intended to be released in July 2014, following the 2013 single 'Count Contessa', but it was eventually put on hold so that Banks could concentrate on her studio album. In 2017 she released the second promotional single 'Escapades' in support of the upcoming album, and in 2018 she signed to eOne Music and released the singles 'Anna Wintour' and 'Treasure Island', as well as the promotional single 'Movin' On Up (Coco's Song, Love Beats Rhymes)' in anticipation for the album. In mid-2018 she cancelled the project, although she carried on working on it, and in August it was announced that it would still be released someday. In June 2019 she took to her Instagram to say she would never release a full body of work as she felt the world was not deserving of her music, but a few days later she posted pictures working in a studio with Russian producers. In the same month, she shared a snippet of 'Icy Pisces', and said that she was looking for a singer to feature on it, thus proving the album was still in development, and in April 2021 she told fans that it would be released in the summer. However, to date it has still not appeared, and so I've collected up all the tracks that are available to put something together to tide us over until it does eventually appear. 

Track listing

01 Along The Coast
02 Taste's State (feat. Busta Rhymes)
03 Treasure Island
04 Anna Wintour
05 Count Contessa
06 Pyrex Princess
07 Escapades
08 Venus
09 Movin' On Up (Coco's Song, Love Beats Rhymes)
10 Playhouse
11 Blossom
12 In Excelsis
13 Chi Chi

The Beach Boys - SMiLE (1967)

For visitors to blogs like this one, Albums That Never Were, Albums That Should Exist, or Albums Reconstructed etc, the holy grail of unreleased albums has to be The Beach Boys' 'SMiLE'. Originally planned as a follow-up to 'Pet Sounds', the 1967 recording sessions collapsed under the weight of Brian Wilson's perfectionism, mental instability and drug use. The Beach Boys shelved the project and released the simplified 'Smiley Smile' in 1967, and since then there have been many, many fan reconstructions of the record posted on blogs the world over. In fact, the very first CD that I ever bought was a 'SMiLE' bootleg - yes, I bought a bootleg CD before I'd even tested out my new CD player on an actual album. Since then audio editing has become much more accessible for the amateur enthusiast, and so, for instance, soniclovenoise over at Albums That Never Were has posted four versions of the album, and there are many, many reconstructions of varying quality available on Youtube. Not only that, but the sessions have been officially released, and Brian Wilson has even played it live, so what more can possibly be said about it. Well, how about a remix where AI has been trained to sing like Brian, using a recent singing voice conversion model, and then to add his 1967 vocals to the tracks where Brian himself never sang. It took over 100 hours of work, and he was prepared for a backlash from fervent purists who would class this as sacrilege, but Dae Lims has now posted his completely remixed version of 'SMiLE' on Youtube, and as the download link keeps being deleted then I'm posting it here so that BB fans can at least hear it once to make up their own mind. I'm not yet convinced about whether AI is a saviour or a menace to the arts, but when you hear what it can do in the right hands then I start to think that it could be a part of the future of music if used ethically. Give this a listen and decide for yourself if it's the best ever version of 'SMiLE', or if it's a complete and utter abomination. 

Track listing

01 Our Prayer
02 You're Welcome
03 Heroes And Villains
04 I'm In Great Shape
05 Barnyard
06 Do You Like Worms
07 Cabinessence
08 The Old Master Painter/You Are My Sunshine
09 Wonderful
10 Fire/I Wanna Be Around 
11 Vega-Tables
12 Wind Chimes
13 Child Is Father Of The Man
14 I Love To Say Dada/In Blue Hawaii
15 Surf's Up

All songs remixed using AI de-mixing technology.
Tracks 3,4,5,6,8,9,10,12,13,14,15 contain new AI vocals.
Tracks 3,4,7,9,10,12 contain AI enhanced vocals.
'Do You Like Worms' contains new melodies, partially based on 'Little Pad' by The Beach Boys.
'Child Is Father Of The Man' contains new lyrics and melodies, inspired by the original and 2004 versions of the song.