by Rodney Eric Griffith | Armour of Rod | |
Speaking of Fiona Apple, here is a brief list from memory of LPs and singles that are famously unreleased. (I didn’t qualify LPs that were later reconfigured under the same title.)
Fiona Apple, Extraordinary Machine
Completed 2003-2004.
Probably art directed.
Tracks leaked.
Badfinger, Head First
Completed 1975.
Cover photo shot taken but subsequently lost.
Finally released in 2000 based on a tape copy of Phil McDonald’s mix.
The Beach Boys, SMiLE
Not completed, 1966-1967.
Art directed and covers/booklets printed.
Recreated by Brian Wilson, 2004.
The Beatles, Get Back
Completed 1969.
Art directed.
Superseded by Let It Be, 1970.
Victoria Beckham, Come Together
Completed 2004.
Art directed.
Promo copies issued.
Notorious second solo album produced by Damon Dash.
Danielle Brisebois, Portable Life
Completed 2000.
Art directed.
Promo copies issued.
Cancelled.
Bob Dylan, Bob Dylan In Concert
Recorded 1963.
Art directed.
Cancelled.
Bob Dylan, The Basement Tapes
Recorded 1967.
Released 1975.
John Fogerty, Hoodoo
Completed.
Art directed.
Acetates and test pressing created; acetates and master tape destroyed by John Fogerty.
Jimi Hendrix
First Rays of the New Rising Sun
Tentatively sequenced.
Released per artist’s original intentions, 1997.
Paul McCartney
Cold Cuts
Compilation of previously unreleased material, 1978/1980.
Never issued.
Monty Python
Hastily Cobbled Together For A Fast Buck
1987 compilation by André Jacquemin of previously unreleased material.
Never past the proposal stage.
Prince and the Revolution, Dream Factory
Completed 1986.
Mastered and art-directed according to Alex Hahn’s Possessed: The Rise and Fall of Prince.
Abandoned when the group split.
Prince, Crystal Ball
Completed 1986.
Mastered.
Rejected by Warner Bros. for its length. Superseded by Sign ‘O’ The Times.
Prince, The Black Album
Completed 1987.
Mastered and art-directed. Promo copies pressed.
Finally released 1994.
The Rolling Stones, Necrophilia
1972 compilation of previously unreleased material.
Art-directed.
Sort of became Metamorphosis.
The Rolling Stones, “Cocksucker Blues”
To this day, the last Rolling Stones single remains unreleased (it is absent from the contents of Singles 1968-1971). It was incendiary enough for Decca to have rejected its release (after insisting the group owed one more single to fulfill its contract) then, and maybe even now.
Sheryl Crow, Sheryl Crow
Completed 1992.
Promo cassette distributed.
Release cancelled.
XTC, “Wrapped In Grey” single
Art directed and pressed as 7" and CD, both of which included previously unavailable demo tracks.
Withdrawn by Virgin Records. This was the straw that broke the camel’s back; XTC refused to record anything else for Virgin, who eventually released them from their contract.
Frank Zappa, Läther
Completed and mastered, 1976/1977.
Finally released as intended 1996.
Dave Allen has passed away. I had been curious why Dave Allen At Large, which had been syndicated in America in the late 1970s/early 1980s, had never reappeared—the BBC story indicates he refused to allow it to be rebroadcast, which is kind of a shame.
Rodney | 9:54:00 AM [permalink]First William Shatner, now this. Brilliant.
Rodney | 7:51:00 PM [permalink]Some of Fiona Apple’s suppressed recordings—“Extraordinary Machine”, “Used To Love” and “Get Him Back”—sound like the kind of records Harry Nilsson would be making.
Rodney | 8:02:00 AM [permalink]I asked my mother to buy me a copy of Let’s All Sing with The Chipmunks. (“Songs from The Alvin Show”, read the cover.) I would have been 4 or 5. My mother asked me if I didn’t already have this record, and of course I didn’t and knew so.
When I got home, I discovered the album included “Chipmunk Fun’—which had originally appeared on The Alvin Show, except that it was missing the introduction, a parody of Person To Person. I tried explaining the difference to my mother, but she just shrugged it off with “I told you so.”
This was likely my first record collector experience. Around the same time I can remember being intrigued by label designs (the Apple label and the swirled Capitols were an early favourite), stickered covers (by the time I was around to be gifted with Chipmunks LPs, Liberty had moved the Bagdasarian catalogue to its budget-line subsidiary, Sunset, and they stickered over the Liberty labels on some of the front covers, which I found bizarre even then), and inner sleeves on LPs.
I’ve been fascinated ever since.
You don’t often see one of these: a Mary Hopkin Pocket Disc, a 4" flexidisc on Apple that sold for 50¢ from a vending machine circa 1968.
Rodney | 7:01:00 PM [permalink]The W&G film, shorn of its subtitle, premieres 7 October (presumably that’s a US release date, hopefully it premieres in the UK much sooner).
Rodney | 8:01:00 AM [permalink]
