2017 was a phenomenal year for important anniversary re-issues of some of the most iconic albums of all time. Here, we have collated a 'Best of' list using excerpts of the reviews these albums received on their release this year. The deluxe and special edition releases are for the ultimate collector and fan who wants to delve deeper into the original release, majority revealing previously unreleased tracks, demo's, live recordings and liner notes that unveil some interesting reading and photos.
Ramones - Rocket To Russia - 40th Anniversary
5 stars!
While the Ramones’ self-titled 1976 debut is one of punk’s defining statements, it wasn’t until 1977s Rocket to Russia that the Queens foursome hit their true peak. They’d stripped pop to its contingent parts, then stripped it down some more, and Rocket to Russia was the perfect intersection of their raw rock & roll and bubblegum-pop/surf influences... before their striving for hits became an all-encompassing strain.
Sounding crisper than ever, “Teenage Lobotomy”, “Rockaway Beach”, “Sheena Is a Punk Rocker” remain classics, while 40 years has done nothing to dull the brilliant fun of “I Don’t Care”, “Here Today, Gone Tomorrow”, “Do You Wanna Dance?” and “Surfin’ Bird”.
This massive 77-track collection and its exhaustive extras cover how the sausage was made, with two fascinating alternate mixes and tracking/rough mixes (even an acoustic “Here Today, Gone Tomorrow”!), while the live set from the Apollo Centre in Glasgow, Scotland, is a revelation.
Stone Temple Pilots - Core - 25th Anniversary
The turbulence and tragedy that dogged Stone Temple Pilots over the years, from addiction and trouble with the law to the sacking and later death of troubled frontman Scott Weiland, right up until the recent sad loss of his replacement, Chester Bennington, are so extreme, it’s good to go back to the beginning to remember the optimism and ambition they had in the first place. It’s the 25th anniversary of their debut, Core, and this remastered super deluxe version is jam-packed with demos, session tracks, festival sets, their MTV Unplugged performance and alternative takes.
They were caught up in the grunge tornado at the time, but revisiting Core shows how, more than the majority of their peers, they embraced the old-fashioned, unashamed rock’n’roll swagger that many shunned at the time. Plush, particularly, remains an absolute banger, Dean DeLeo’s instantly memorable riff still sounding fresh today, and Weiland’s rich vocals attacking the soaring verses with show-stopping abandon. Sex Type Thing, meanwhile, is a pitch black exploration of entitled, dangerous machismo that, in a swing version nestled among the collected B-sides, takes on an even more depraved and unsettling tone.
Eagles - Hotel California - 40th Anniversary
5 stars!
Assuming everyone who wants the original set already owns it since its release four decades ago, this reissue needs to up the ante. It boasts remastered sound both in stereo and 5.1 (the surround mix is apparently unchanged from its initial 2001 appearance), ten live tunes culled from three October 1976 dates oddly before the record was released (only including two of its selections), and some extraneous swag with rare pictures, poster and a replica tour book. That’s in hopes of justifying the wallet wincing $99.98 list price (slimmer single and double packages are also available for the budget conscious). The most frustrating aspect of the expanded edition is the abbreviated 50 minute live set since there is audio of the same tour floating around with at least an hour of additional music. Fans hoping to hear demos or early versions of the songs, a natural inclusion for a pricy edition of this type, will also come away empty handed.
That makes this classy 40th anniversary reissue with its hefty 1111 box an adequate gift, likely for the band’s ageing fan base, but an unsatisfying…and expensive– missed opportunity to dig deeper into Hotel California’s musical origins.
The Smiths - The Queen Is Dead - 30th Anniversary
Alongside a remaster of the original album is a disc featuring demos and early takes of almost every song on the record as well as a number of remastered B-sides. Most of the tracks have never before been released, though “The Boy with the Thorn in His Side” demo was available on a Record Store Day 7-inch with another included B-side, “Rubber Ring”. Another newly unearthed track, and early version of “There is a Light That Never Goes Out”, was shared with the announcement of the reissue.
The three-CD/DVD boxed set and the five-LP set each feature a never before released live album entitled Live in Boston. The 13-song concert was recorded at the Great Woods Center for the Performing Arts on August 5th, 1986. Meanwhile, the DVD includes The Queen Is Dead on 96kHz/24-bit PCM stereo and Derek Jarman’s The Queen is Dead film.
“You cannot continue to record and simply hope that your audience will approve, or that average critics will approve, or that radio will approve,” said frontman Morrissey in a press release. “You progress only when you wonder if an abnormally scientific genius would approve – and this is the leap The Smiths took with The Queen Is Dead.”
Whitesnake - 1987 - 30th Anniversary
Here we have the original album, remastered in 2017, and for North America fans, this remaster will be a real treat, as it includes the European version & running order, as well as the two B-Sides "Looking for Love" and "You're Gonna Break My Heart Again" which were only available here in this country on a hits compilation or on the singles. Honestly, these two hard rockers fit in so well with the rest of the album that their inclusion here for US listeners will be a revelation, making the 1987 album now truly complete. Sure, hearing "Still of the Night" kick off the album as opposed to "Crying in the Rain" is a bit odd, but you'll get used to it quickly. I'm not sure how much different/better this 2017 remaster sounds compared to previous editions, as this album always sounded great, but that legacy continues here.
The bonus CDs contain a wealth of content, including a solid live set from the 1987-88 tour featuring Adrian Vandenberg, Vivian Campbell, Rudy Sarzo, & Tommy Aldridge, which is not the band at their best but still highly enjoyable. Coverdale for the most part sounds good, but you can hear the cracks in his voice already starting to reveal themselves, and the band aren't as tight as you would expect, but it's still a fun listen. The real meat for plenty of fans will be the 87 Evolutions disc, which contains demos and rehearsal tracks from the band as they were recording the actual album, featuring John Sykes, Ansley Dunbar, and Neil Murray. While some of the material here is rough and of subpar quality, you can experience some of these songs in their infancy, and a few, such as "Looking For Love", "Crying in the Rain", and "Children of the Night" are truly monstrous, with Sykes and Dunbar killing it every step of the way. CD 4 contains various remixes and live tracks, while the DVD shows off the MTV videos, a few live snippets brief 'making of 1987' documentary.
David Bowie - A New Career In A New Town - 40th Anniversary
No period in David Bowie's career is more curious than the trilogy of albums he recorded in the late Seventies while living in Berlin's artsy Schöneberg district. They're defiantly uncommercial, stacking soundtrack-y, atmospheric soundscapes alongside pop songs, and they're bizarrely endearing – "The hin-ter-land, the hin-ter-land/We're gonna sail to the hinterland," goes one catchy-yet-strange passage in Lodger's "Red Sails." Stranger yet maybe, this era produced one of his most enduring hits, the anthemic "Heroes," which has been covered by everyone from Oasis to Peter Gabriel and Janelle Monáe. The period, defined by Bowie's collaborations with Brian Eno, was so far-out (even for the former spaceman) that it frustrated his record label and caused a slight dip in his popularity (all of his albums from this period have yet to be certified even gold), though the tales of Bowie's drug-and-alcohol-fueled romps with Iggy Pop and musical experimentation at the time have become the subject of multiple books.
Now a new box set, A New Career in a New Town (1977 – 1982), is offering a freshly polished look at the time. It contains 1977's brilliant and sprawling Low and "Heroes" LPs, 1978's live outing Stage, 1979's avant-rock experiment Lodger and 1980's only slightly poppier Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps), the last of which, recorded in New York, was intended as a return to commercialism, though it still reads like fractured pop. Additionally, the collection features an EP containing German and French versions of "Heroes," an expanded version of Stage, a new remix of Lodger by co-producer Tony Visconti and Re:Call 3, a compilation of single versions, non-album tracks and B-sides. It also includes a hardcover book with lively, insightful liner notes full of behind-the-scenes stories by Visconti, as well as images of handwritten lyrics, alternate album covers and rare and previously unpublished photos galore.
Fleetwood Mac - Tango In The Night - 40th Anniversary
The follow-up to Tusk, 1982’s Mirage, was a kind reflexive scaling back; both Warner Bros. and Buckingham wanted to regenerate the success and the coherent atmosphere of Rumours. It didn’t take. The band members had already drifted too far from each other: Nicks sang country-western and synth-pop songs; Buckingham quoted Pachelbel’s Canon; McVie’s formal romanticism began to take on a crystalline quality; the production flowed in the direction of their individual fascinations. After a brief tour, the band went on hiatus. Nicks released two successful solo albums; McVie and Buckingham put out one each. In 1985, Buckingham had begun work on an additional solo album, when Mick Fleetwood suggested Buckingham fold his new songs into the more monolithic, more lucrative idea of a Fleetwood Mac record.
The resulting album, Tango in the Night, is exactly that: a monolithic, lucrative idea of a Fleetwood Mac record. It was recorded over eighteen months between 1986 and 1987, mostly at Buckingham’s home studio in L.A. Buckingham devoted himself to the record, laboring intensely over its songs, its sounds, and the integrity of its design. Recording technology had advanced substantially since the early ’80s, and Buckingham found the methods by which he could determine the shape and temperature of a Fleetwood Mac song had expanded.
