My wife is a huge George Michael fan and has been awaiting this re-release since it was first announced over a year ago.
She is also still mourning his untimely passing last Christmas.
She likes Listen Without Prejudice more than Faith and likes to make the argument that the album did exactly what George Michael wanted it to do - make him into a serious artist moving away from the bubble gum days of Wham!
I like Faith better and find Listen Without Prejudice a little "heavy-handed," as the All Music review put it years ago. It just feels like he's trying way too hard to be a "serious" artist and it takes away some of the great fun that Michael gave us with Faith.
In listening to the 3CD/1DVD release that arrived this week at our house, nothing has changed in how we view the album. The wife still loves it, thinks it's Michael's best album and wishes he had gotten around to make Volume 2 (as Listen Without Prejudice is named "Volume 1") while I think it's a bit overblown and not as fun as Faith.
They added an MTV Unplugged concert to the package which comes six years after the original album as well as a disc of B-sides and Mixes. The wife prefers the B-sides and Mixes and says it was worth it to get the Heal the Pain version with Paul McCartney and Desafinado with Astrud Gilberto (the last two songs on the B-Sides and Mixes disc.)
Give Listen Without Prejudice a shot if you're a big George Michael fan like my wife and, if you're not, there's always Faith (which got a decent re-release in 2011.)
LTM Records had released Force back in 2009, but it's gone out of print, so it's good to have Mute reissuing the album (albeit, with what looks to be a slightly different track list if the Amazon listing is accurate.)
LTM put out a couple of other ACR albums along with Force (I'd Like To See You Again, which came out on the Factory Benelux imprint, and Mind Made Up, which came out on LTM proper) that are both deleted, though Factory Benelux did release a double cd edition of Sextet that contains both the issued album and some non-album sides and Peel sessions.
If you're a fan of Factory Records or post-punk funk, ACR are highly
recommended. A few years ago, I got into a Factory Records obsession and
began buying up as many LTM and Factory Benelux reissues as I could. If
you can get your hands on them, they have excellent sound and great
packaging.
Hopefully some of the other ACR albums that are out of print will get reissues, but for now, we have these three Mute releases to look forward to.
It's been quite the weather day in New York City, with humidity feeling like it's a 100% and rain pouring down intermittently as a cold front starts through the region.
I got partially wet on the way to the train but when I got home, all was better because a package was waiting for me with some Pet Shop Boys reissues from the Catalogue: 1985-2012 remasters series
Back in 2001, the Pet Shop Boys reissued 6 albums from 1984-1997 in their "Further Listening" series that added a second disc of B-sides, remixes, additional tracks and unreleased songs to remastered versions of Please, Actually, Introspective, Behavior, Very and Bilingual.
In July the Pet Shop Boys embarked on a new series of "Further Listening" reissues, this time starting with the Parlophone albums Nightlife, Release, Fundamental. They followed those up with releases of Yes and Elysium, two of their more recent albums, in Further Listening form. The previously released 1984-1997 albums, long out of print, will see re-releases as well.
All five of the 2017 remasters were waiting for me when I got home, but I knew which one I was going to listen to even before I got them unwrapped the package.
I have long been a big fan of Release, the 2002 PSB album with Johnny Marr on guitar for seven of the tracks. The liner notes to the remaster say this is one of the least favorite albums for PSB fans, and I get that, as it has a more guitar-oriented sound than other PSB albums. But I really dig this album (in fact, I initially bought the Limited Edition version of it that had a second disc of some extra songs and remixes), especially the first five songs, so I was excited to get the remastered version.
It's on right now and I have to say, the remaster sounds excellent to my ears. There are two extra discs, "Further Listening 2001-2004 Volume 1 and Volume 2," that "contain tracks of master quality recorded during the same period of time as the main album as well as the Pet Shop Boys own remixes of their tracks." Most of the stuff from the Release Limited Edition made it to "Further Listening 2001-2004" discs (a couple ended up on the 2017 Nightlife remastered package, though Break 4 Love: US Radio Edit, originally on the Limited Edition, doesn't appear to be on any of the 2017 reissues.)
In any case, I highly recommend these Pet Shop Boys remasters. If you're a bit of an obsessive and you like having a lot of what got recorded in a particular time period in one place, the Catalogue: 1985-2012 remasters series is for you. I am really interested to see what the remasters of the 1984-1997 cds have because the "Further Listening" track listings are said to be different from the original 2001 releases. I had to track those 2001 remasters down via Amazon third party sellers, so I'm going to hold onto them no matter what, but this 2017 remastering campaign is, as as usual with the Pet Shop Boys, a classy and interesting exercise in art, commerce and music, and really lets you delve deep into the music.
PS: A nice remastered box of Liza Minelli's album Results, produced by the Pet Shop Boys and Julian Mendelsohn, is also out recently, and the partially PSB-produced Dusty Springfield album Reputation came out in 2016. So if you're looking to immerse yourself in the Pet Shop Boys catalogue and some of their ancillary projects, there's no time like now.
Here are the links to the remasters out so far - give them a chance if you haven't already:
So much about the world is changing these days at what often seems like breakneck speed. That goes doubly for the music business. This site has been started by somebody with a nostalgia for the "good old days" when you could do a record or cd store crawl all across Manhattan and find great music to purchase and cherish.
Nowadays, there are only a handful of record stores, one or two cd stores and most of the music people listen to they stream. But there's something enjoyable about searching out and purchasing great music that you don't get from streaming it or listening to it on You Tube. Alas, other than buying from Amazon or a few other Internet retailers, it's much harder these days to do anything other than stream or download music.
This site looks to remedy that. We'll talk music of all kinds, both old and new, and we'll talk about places to find music and support those who make it and sell it. Mostly, we'll get nostalgic about the "good old days" and lament all that is vanishing.
I hope you'll join me on a trip down Memory Lane Records and Cds.
