This year again, it is an understatement to say that we will have been spoiled in terms of invitations to delve into the past. Choosing only ten reissues was particularly difficult!
Find this ranking of the best reissues of the year in our n°168, available on newsstands and via our online store.
David Bowie – Rock 'n' Roll Star! Deluxe Edition
We will not teach anyone anything by stating here that The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust was a major step in the career of David Bowie who nevertheless did not miss it. Such a milestone deserved its genesis to be highlighted and that is exactly what this exciting box set offers from start to finish. Drafts of songs, demos, rehearsals, radio sessions: or how to dissect a work under construction…
Bob Dylan – 1974 – The Live Recordings
The absolute orgy to mark what was then Dylan's return to the stage after having been away for eight years and with The Band in full force in the rearguard! 27 CDs for as many different concerts, 417 unreleased tracks in addition to the thirteen already known from the live album Before the Flood. Enough to spend the winter warm and beyond…
Joni Mitchell – Archives – Volume 4 The Asylum Years 1976-1980
Each of the three previous installments left us with the impression that it would be very difficult to do better the next time. Failed again! If this fourth volume returns to the sessions for the Hejira or Mingus albums, it is from a multitude and diversity of live takes – including Dame Joni's participation in the Rolling Thunder Revue of 1976 – that it will primarily draw time . Gripping all the way!
Neil Young – Archive Vol. 3
And one more piece to… digest for Loner aficionados! And consistent with that to cover a period of his activity (1976-1987) more often clashed than in turn, notably the Geffen part and the tensions that they will have generated between the boss of the label and his “employee” at the time . 17 CDs and five DVDs or Blu-rays later, dizziness is guaranteed!
Paul McCartney & Wings – One Hand Clapping
Initially a documentary which would not see the light of day – except much later (2010) on a reissue of Band on the Run – this “one-handed applause” remained unpublished… without the images. Error repaired and the opportunity to discover a live session from August 1974 at Abbey Road of incredible density, as if “boosted” by the recent arrival of Jimmy McCulloch (guitar) and Geoff Burton (drums).
Queen – Queen 1 Super Deluxe Edition
According to Brian Lay and Roger Taylor, its active survivors, the idea here was to do justice to the sound that Queen would have liked to establish at the time, which they were not allowed to do. Completed by a succession of live captures (notably on the radio), this opulent reissue of a first album already more than a harbinger of the group's singularity draws all its justification from it.
Rory Gallagher – The BBC Collection
If one needed to be convinced how much the ancient British broadcaster had sustainably supported the career of the Irish guitarist, this sum provides the most impressive illustration. 18 CDs and two Blu-rays, as well as participations in various broadcasts of the English consortium (John Peel included) or recordings of concerts between 1971 and 1986. Absolute happiness.
Faces – Faces at the BBC
History has it that many of its sessions were considered lost before (miraculously?) resurfacing in the personal archives of the band members as well as in private collections. It doesn't matter anyway as the result is there, scathing: 8 CDs and a Blu-ray, 88 tracks where Rod Stewart, Ron Wood and others snort at their leisure.
Sister Rosetta Tharpe – Live in France: The 1966 Concert in Limoges
November 11, 1966 was therefore not only a day of “commemoration” in the land of porcelain! A historical document, this live recording is in more than one way, restored and remastered for the occasion on two CDs to remind us that, with guitar in hand, Sister Rosetta Tharpe had not usurped her nickname of godmother (or mother). ) rock'n'roll.
Jimi Hendrix – Electric Lady Studios: A Jimi Hendrix Vision
A little over two months: that's the time Hendrix was able to take advantage of this studio built for him (as a priority) and let a swarm of ideas or refinements of pieces already well advanced speak for themselves. In addition to the documentary retracing the stages of the birth of the studio, it is on this all-out “construction site” that the three CDs in the box set focus. Exciting, again and again.
