Future Moz releases...

IcarusEclipsed

New Member
I'm really excited to hear that Morrissey has plans to jump back into the studio after this tour completes. I'm sure this has been speculated about in other threads, but do you think it will all be brand new material, or do you think the 5 or so new tracks that he's debuted over the course of his US tour will end up on there (like he's been testing the waters with them, or trying them on for size)? Personally I'd rather see an album of all new material come next year and perhaps a live album in the interim. I think the live album is an excellent idea because if he places all the "new" tracks on it then it would be unique from let's say Beethoven Is Deaf or Live At Earls Court which both feature only previously released material. A live album with the new material from the tour would brings fans who attended fond memories, give the fans who couldn't attend a crash course in what they missed, and give us excellent quality versions of the new tracks. And with five (has there been more than 5 new songs?) songs assembled one live album, it would make the release stand on it's own legs as almost an album in it's own right. He's made such variation over the course of the tour in terms of set list -- not dramatically so, but there has been a definite evolution to which songs he plays if you compare the start of the tour with now -- that it would be great to have a DVD or 2CD (maybe 3?) set of one performance each of every song he's played on the tour. It won't happen, but it's a nice thought!

On to Smiths stuff, I hope the recent magazine article about The Smiths box and album rereleases isn't bunk. Out of most bands out there I think The Smiths deserves remastered releases more than most... after all, breaking up in 1987, there's been LIGHTYEARS of technological advancements in recording quality... I know most fans don't want just a remaster, but unreleased material as well, but if ALL we got were remasters, I'd still be thrilled (unlike many fans... If I have to see one more quote of "Reissue! Repackage! Repackage!" I might scream, haha). But if what we read is true, there will be BOTH a box and 2CD remasters, so it begs the question, what sort of stuff will be on either? Will the box feature rarities/unreleased tracks (the more rare Smiths material like The Draze Train and of course, the Troy Tate Sessions... maybe even the "lost" tracks from the Peel and Jensen sessions) and leave the more prominant b-sides to the second disc attached to the albums? Perhaps they will "phase out" The World Won't Listen, Hatful Of Hollow (and Louder Than Bombs) by placing all THOSE tracks as material on the 4 main album's second discs. Who knows.. I'd be happy with a live concert strapped onto each of the remastered albums (ala the recent Joy Division remasters). There's surprisingly little OFFICIAL Smiths/Moz live concerts (especially from The Smiths era... I'm shocked that there hasn't been more "official" bootlegs released -- meaning released by a small record company, probably overseas, that is higher quality than your typical bootleg, both in packaging and sound. Once again i reference Joy Divsion with the live albums released like "Preston" and "Les Baines Douches" which obviously didn't come from their record company, but are still sold commerically). I'd even buy the box if it was ALL live... just to hear variations of classics, and as a way to live vicariously through The Smiths' legacy... especially for me, since I was roughly 4 or 5 when they disbanded. The knowledge that I will never get to see The Smiths live is a big regret of mine (as lame and fanboyish as that sounds). There's no other artist I can say that about, except maybe Johnny Cash (although it's not like he was touring when he brought his BEST material, 1993-2004), and maybe Pink Floyd (not even with Gilmour at the helm... although I think I was almost going to go back in 94 with my mom and dad, but I was only 10, so I didn't know better... so I suppose that only leaves cheesy laser light shows!). Sorry, I digress. The other possibility is that the box will house the 2 disc rereleases, perhaps with a bonus disc you can only get there (like the upcoming David Bowie box which contains his last 5 albums, all with secondary discs... but each of those albums [with their second discs] have already been released individually in Japan... the box has no exclusive material). I figure such a box could be a good thing... casual fans could buy any or all of the remastered albums individually, while the more hardcore fan could get them all in the box, hopefully at a discounted rate... or if there's exclusive bonuses, that would be a nice trade for a price cut. I hope Rhino is the one responsible for ANY re-releases (they do handle Warner's stuff right?), because their releases are generally moderately priced (like the Joy Divsion Heart & Soul box, or New Order's Retro, which each only cost me about 50 bucks each... I'll be hurt and angry if The Smiths box comes out at anything over 100 dollars -- unless it's something ridiculously good like 10 discs with a wealth of unreleased tracks and alternate, demo, radio session and live versions).

Either way, I'm sure I'll love whatever comes out... Alas, here in America we've been looked over when it comes to alot of Moz material (for instance not having the two Morrissey Singles Boxes available here... over in the UK I'm sure you can still buy individual Morrissey/Smiths singles fairly easily, but here I NEVER see singles from either... save the ones from Quarry and Ringleader). They need more SMART, concise compilations here... I just do not understand things like World Of Morrissey or My Early Burglary Years, mainly because of the mix on both of commonly available album tracks mixed with rare b-sides or singles not released here in America. I'd rather just see a set of B-Sides OR a Greatest Hits (unlike The Best Of! in the US... it IS a good compilation in the sense that it was one of the first things I bought and so it was a good primer, but once again, a mix of album tracks, singles and b-sides). Mixing those types of tracks works on a multidisc anthology, but not as well on a single disc. I think I heard somewhere that they didn't put as many of Moz' early solo singles on The Best Of! because they didn't want to keep people frombuying Bona Drag. At least in the UK they had the far superior Suedehead - The Best Of album which pretty much stuck purely to singles (every single one up to about the Maladjusted era). Perhaps they can rerelease that worldwide with a second disc featuring the singles from Maladjusted, Quarry and Ringleader). So, yeah... in America our usual options are either A- be satisfied with just the albums (because that's all that's available here), B- buy expensive imported singles, etc., to enhance our collections, or C- download (which i'm neither supporting or damning, in case there are opinionated people about that sort of thing here). There's tons of stuff that aren't availble in the US that would be awesome... even DVD's: I'd love to see a DVD version of Live In Dallas or maybe a 2 Pack of Hulmerist/Malady Lingers On... or just get rid of those as well as Oye Esteban and bring out a DVD anthology with EVERYTHING that is contained on both plus the newer videos.

OK, that's the end of another rant. We've talked the upcoming album, how great it would be to have a new live cd (or DVD -- I'm shocked that there's no news of the Palladium or Hammerstein shows being filmed/recorded... usually when artists do multiple shows at a venue they have a recording in mind. I actually thought that was what his press conference back that beginning of the month was about). We've talked about The Smiths re-releases/box, and we've talked about what would be great for a US release (at least I think so!)
 
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Personally, I rather see an EP or a live CD with the new songs as studio bonus tracks. My reasoning is thus: I don't see the new material as consistently strong enough to be "album" worthy, and selfishly I don't want to have already heard half of the next album one full year before its release date. If these five songs will be on the next album, why on earth would it take a full year to cull together another 7-9 songs? Just a thought...

P.S. Nice rant, dude!
 
One small coda to my post...

One final thought... In wake of the industry shaking "In Rainbows" by Radiohead (which my only complaint with is it's only 160Kbps for the download... I feel anything less than 192 is noticeably lossy -- which is why I prefer FLAC!), even if our record companiless Morrissey doesn't take a an exact copycat tactic (releasing a full studio album direct), I think it would be a great strategy (downloading right from the artist at a decent price) for releasing rare, unreleased or live stuff. Even if Moz does EXACTLY as Radiohead did with the whole "pick your own price" thing, he'd still make a VERY pretty penny. Last I heard fans were paying an average of 8 bucks for Radiohead's album, and that's so much more than the band would get from get from a record company that it's staggering! It's the future... we ALL like liner notes, and box sets with pretty art and info and books, etc., but I think all artists who've been around long enough to have a fanbase should abandon the recording industry and strike out on their own... We'd probably see much more material released more quickly, and more experimental stuff too... Take Underworld's Riverrun sessions: each one is about a 30 minute mp3, (a mini album, if you) will made up of 5 or 6 tracks each. I was stunned at how much more eccentric (and interesting) the mp3 releases were than their commercially released albums. Fans will buy ANY material from an artist, but most record companies censor the material, cutting this and that to make a release more commerically viable. And it's not just established artists... not that many of them are really my style (as they're mainly Emo bands... as I say "long before there was Emo, there Was Morrissey!", haha), sites like MySpace and YouTube have made stars out of many artists. Yes, record companies can sue file sharing programs (and now torrent sites!) all they want, but they can't stop individual artists from directly releasing their material to the masses. Even Nine Inch Nails' Trent Reznor HIMSELF leaked tracks from his newest album Year Zero months early by sticking the tracks on flash drives and hiding them in the restrooms of venues he was playing in. He knew they would spread like wildfire online... far faster and better than radio. And when he recently heard that Year Zero is selling for 30 bucks in Europe, he directly told fans to illegally download it out of revenge. Now Reznor is also free of a record label, and ready to interact directly with the fans... the way it should be. After a career of being shot like a pinball from one record label to the next over the course of his solo career, I think the Mozzer should just release directly to his fans. It would be a huge benefit to all involved, and for us fans who want actual physical releases (instead of just downloads), i'm sure Morrissey could get a deal with a CD production company to release his own CD's (like Radiohead is doing... although I think 40 British Pounds is a little high... especially with the exchange rate). It would be more attractive to have the downloads at "set your price" (or have price tiers... ultra low price for mp3's, a little more expensive for FLAC... that way fans could burn perfect, lossless CD's if they chose), and a moderately priced physical CD (with or without bonus material that can't be downloaded, like In Rainbows has). Coil, those experimental artists from the UK have long had issues with their record label and had VERY FEW American releases. For years only a handful of their albums were in print ANYWHERE, and buying a UK import here in the US was outrageous - easily 40 bucks or more each. Well, in the past few years (tragically since one Coil's founders has died, RIP Jhonn Balance), selling their albums online has done VERY well for them, and to the fans, with remastered releases at decent prices... and they sell both digital files and physical CD's!. Trivia time: Coil was very close to Derek Jarman, scoring a few of his films, and in turn Jarman directed The Queen Is Dead mini movie!)

I guess my point is, the internet has always been a pretty big deal, but in terms of connecting people it's not only now ESSENTIAL, it shapes the world of art, technology, and many other things. Artists NEED the internet now to build/keep a fan base but where before it was pretty much a 33% spit (radio/tv airplay, live performances, and the internet), now adays you can skip the radio/tv thing altogether (A- cuz radio is so pop driven it's sad, and B- there's no such thing as music videos on tv anymore!), and focus purely on internet promotion, be it streaming tracks on your social networking site (like MySpace), sending your videos straight to YouTube, making music available to fans directly through your website, etc., and just pure forum/chatroom/etc WORD OF MOUTH!
 
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Re: One small coda to my post...

I feel anything less than 192 is noticeably lossy -- which is why I prefer FLAC!)

I prefer WAV. FLAC is just too much trouble, and I'm not completely convinced that there is absolutely no loss occurring in the process of converting a file into FLAC and back.

That being said, I'd never pay the same price for an MP3 album than I would for a CD or a WAV download. Especially when it's a safe bet that the album in question will eventually be released on CD anyway.
 
Re: One small coda to my post...

It's the future... we ALL like liner notes, and box sets with pretty art and info and books, etc., but I think all artists who've been around long enough to have a fanbase should abandon the recording industry and strike out on their own...

I guess my point is, the internet has always been a pretty big deal, but in terms of connecting people it's not only now ESSENTIAL, it shapes the world of art, technology, and many other things.

What I found interesting about the comments I excerpted above is that you admit to liking liner notes, box sets, books and so on, and distinguish between artists who have been around long enough to build a fanbase.

I'm curious to know your thoughts about fans who have not had the experience of buying box sets, albums or CDs with liner notes, etc-- i.e., fans for whom music is primarily a digital experience rather than one which requires some physical engagement beyond clicking a mouse-- as well as artists who have not built a fanbase but are starting out from scratch, online. Are we improving the experience of listening to music? I can't tell if your comments about the future are positive or not. Are you resigned to the changes or enthusiastic about them?

I agree the net is shaping the art world. I'm not certain it's for the better. I'm not certain it's for the worst, either. It's interesting to hear different perspectives on the subject. I find that most of the people who champion the digital age of music, in which the means of production are almost solely in the hands of the creators and their fans, tend to be older. They've seen both worlds and think downloading cures many of the traditional ills in the industry. I wonder what it will be like when the public knows nothing but downloads? Will they appreciate music as much as previous generations of listeners? Will they be able to continue the successoin of great bands?

I haven't really decided, myself, and would be curious to know what you and others think. My suspicion is that Radiohead's success in this venture will kill all future Radioheads before they are born.

In the future we may not even get this far:

It's all one big self-perpetuating cycle of bilge that seemed to reach its zenith the other night during a music awards ceremony I was watching on TV. A performance by The Enemy cut to Chris Moyles introducing Danny Dyer - who in turn presented an award to the landlord of The Hawley Arms (aka Amy Winehouse's local) at a Vodafone-sponsored event. Then James's roadie won an award. James the band! "Is this it?" I screamed like a banshee at no one, which in turn prompted the thought: what the f*** happened to The Strokes?

Industry insiders will say otherwise - that albums are selling, the live circuit is vibrant, guitar sales are up - but then they would. It's kind of their job.

2007 has been a stinker for indie rock [Ben Myers]

I submit that if you are asking "What the f*** happened to The Strokes", the end is nigh.

"The whole spectrum of pop is being laid to rest. It's obvious that ultimately pop will end: the ashes are already around us". Morrissey, 1987 (?).
 
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Re: One small coda to my post...

Umm...Can someone PLEASE summarize these diarrhea-like posts?
 
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