Expanded LP box sets - e.g. Stooges Fun House 7 CD 15 LP

[Nail Soup]

I heard a track by The Stooges this morning on 6 Music. Apparently it comes from a new box set of the 1970 LP "Fun House".

It's released on 15 LPs or 7 CD's - prices range from £200 to £400 (from a quick web search).The original album can be got for less than a tenner.

Sounds like they are just releasing every take of every song etc. I can understand that a few outtakes might be of interest to a real enthusiast, but is there really any need for such an expansion?

Edited July 20, 2020 by Nail Soup

[Mykesbass]

There are some Jazz box sets out there that include everything - false starts, four or five takes, takes that get stopped - all in the name of completism. Crazy.

[Doctor J]

You have cash? They want it.

[BigRedX]

There's normally a very good reason why all those alternative versions and other songs weren't on the album in the first place.

[Merton]

I love box sets where you get maybe one demo version of some/all album tracks, B-sides, some live rarities and maybe demos of songs which didn't make the cut because it gives you a glimpse into the wider processes in the creation of the album. But that maybe means one or two extra CDs/LPs, no more than that...

[Doctor J]

The only box set I've ever gone for like that is for Pet Sounds, but you got isolated harmony vocal tracks, breakdowns of the orchestration, a great insight into a very complex and layered album. For a straightahead rock band, a power trio essentially, it seems a bit much. It's more like selling everything they could find related to it.

[Monkey Steve]

In general I'm with @BigRedX - there's usually a good reason why the takes didn't get used

The completist in me will want all the extra versions and I'm a sucker for a deluxe box set, but I very rarely listen to the demos and outtakes more than once, and often not even once.  So I have all of the Led Zep deluxe box sets, but the only bonus discs listened to more than once are the live show from Led Zep 1 and the extra disc of more outtakes and unfinished song ideas from Coda (which still needs a bit of sifting - does anybody really need a second version of Bonzo's Montreaux?)

Edited July 20, 2020 by Monkey Steve

[ahpook]

Sounds less like musical appreciation and more like Pokemon to me.

[rushbo]

With a lot of these "deep dive boxed sets, the pleasure is in the acquisition of the item, rather than playing it. 

[Earbrass]

19 minutes ago, rushbo said:

With a lot of these "deep dive boxed sets, the pleasure is in the acquisition of the item, rather than playing it. 

This. For some people, collecting stuff is more important than the music, as is often evident on this site with basses and other gear.

[Dankology]

I was a bit dubious about that Stooges box when it first came out (15 years ago?) but eventually picked one up - and it is phenomenal. 

I'm not sure every band or album would stand up to the scrutiny but hearing the Stooges drill those songs over and over, honing them into the familiar versions is thrilling, intoxicating stuff.

I have a fair few boxsets, most compiled along much more sensible lines but there aren't many I listen to more often than the Funhouse one.

Bit surprised to see the lack of enthusiasm for demos and outtakes here - the musician in me loves the insight into others bands' processes.

[BigRedX]

As a composer/songwriter, my opinion is that the version I have spent time crafting in the rehearsal room and studio is the only one I want the public to hear. Occasionally I might revisit a song a year or so later and rework it, but in those cases the result is so different to the original that they could almost be considered to be two different songs but with similar chord progressions and lyrics.

While I've been unable to gig, I've been working on a few projects from previous bands, either putting together complications of un-released recordings, or remote collaborating on new versions of old songs. With the unreleased recordings I have been thinking very carefully about the validity of doing this, and also considering whether or not to include multiple versions of songs or older versions of previously released songs and in almost every case have decided against it. In every other case I have picked what I consider to be the best version of the song only for inclusion.

[Monkey Steve]

trouble is, it's so very unrewarding (YMMV).  bands have been putting out bonus discs of demos and alternate takes for decades now, and for every diamond of a genuinely interesting and different version of a track, there's a ton of coal of badly recorded demos with identical arrangements to the finished version, maybe with a worse solo

I've far more patience for expanded live recordings and bonus live discs, even where they aren't much better than bootleg quality (Metallica's deluxe box sets suffer from them seeming to put on any live recordings they can find, especially for the first two albums, regardless of quality)

[Nail Soup]

Sometimes we hear that either the artist or the fans say they are not happy with the production on an LP, and that "the demos were better".

In that case it could be meaningful to release the demos.

[BigRedX]

1 minute ago, Nail Soup said:

Sometimes we hear that either the artist or the fans say they are not happy with the production on an LP, and that "the demos were better".

In that case it could be meaningful to release the demos.

The only time I have come across something like this, is for The Pretty Things album "Emotions" where the record company had apparently insisted on extra strings and horns being added to the band recordings. The band had always instead that it had been done without their permission and that they hated it. The original was released in 1967, I first heard the album in the late 70s, and by the time the original recordings without the additional instruments were released in 1998, I was so used to hearing them that without those strings and horns that without them recordings just sounded wrong. Also to me the embellishments were less extensive then than implied in the band interviews about the album. 

For me some of the tracks sound better with the extra instruments and a few don't but on the whole I could have quite happily carried on listening to the record company version of the album.