#21

Sick of It All did a best-of which was all re-recorded. Good idea as their very early stuff sounded weak and thin in the studio but fat as fuck live or on the greatest hits.

#22

Neil Young does this on a bunch of his records - Tonight’s the Night and Freedom spring immediately to mind, which open and close with different versions of the same song.

Yo La Tengo do it a lot as well. This version of Tom Courtenay is as good as the original really

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#23

Just remembered one that really bugs me… Kate Bush re-recording Wuthering Heights for her first greatest hits. Why the hell would you do that?! It’s literally an album for folk who want the hits and who don’t want to invest in an album proper?!

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#24

Fugazi reworked provisional into reprovisional.

Im in a minority in much preferring the original.

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#25

My favourite ever ‘deluxe’ reissue is of Prefab Sprout’s Steve McQueen where Paddy McAloon recorded solo versions of the songs 25 years after the original. They are an absolute revelation and have become my favourite versions in most cases as well as illuminating an album I already knew like the back of my hand.

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#26

That sounds pretty good, although you’ve just reminded me that my girlfriend is possibly the only person in the world to prefer The Cure’s Acoustic Hits bonus disc over the Greatest Hits one.

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#27

The ‘sound’ of Cure Records is a big part of their appeal - with Prefab Sprout the dated production is the worst thing about them.

I’m sure your girlfriend has great taste in everything else though.

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#28

I prefer the Mixed Up versions to most of the originals…

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#29

At first I wondered if she didn’t own the rights to the song and had switched labels. But it is the same label as the single… And in any case it’s only the vocal that was re-recorded, right?

#30

nva 4get

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#31

The Residents do this A LOT.
Often multiple times
And then theyll have a different version from the latest recorded version when they play live.

#32

For example instead of a greatest hits they decided to rerecord songs by matching the lyrics of one of their hits with the music of another.

#34

I have mixed feelings about it. If it’s a decision made ahead of time, in some ways it feels like a “I can’t decide which version is best so I’m going to release them all” cop out or that it relieves the pressure to really work at it until it’s perfect, but at the same time it also opens up the floodgates and can result in some pretty amazing versions that you normally wouldn’t hear.

This happened a LOT during the Machina era for the Pumpkins. I’m not sure if the two versions of Here’s to the Atom Bomb count since they really do feel like different songs entirely, so here’s Blue Skies Bring Tears, probably the most notorious example in terms of quantity:
Machina Version
Machina II Version
Arising Version
Machina Acoustic Demo Version

I’m not sure how I’d feel about the new Car Seat Headrest album if I had heard the original first. I think there’s value in going back if you feel like you didn’t have the necessary resources at the time to make the album you truly wanted, but I don’t like the idea of an artist just redoing it because their production tastes have changed over the years (if you’re reading between the lines, I have zero interest in a synth-heavy new-voice Billy choir version of Siamese Dream).

#35

Morning Bell is a data point for the “I don’t like when they do this” column. It feels out of place and completely sinks Amnesiac for me as an album and makes it feel more like a collection (a very good collection, but still).

#36

I got caught out a few years ago when I bought The Wonderstuff’s 8 Legged Groove Machine deluxe CD.
Turns out they re-recorded the entire album.
Needless to say, a bunch of 40-somethings trying to replicate the angst and attitude of their younger selves (selfs??) doesn’t work. It’s pish!

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#37

I don’t rate it per say, but i do like that the shrill unpleasant soubding beginning is more in common with how an alarm makes you feel in the morning.

#38
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#39

They did the same thing with Play it Cool. The remastered version of Radiator has the far-better single version on it

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#40

Beck did two alternative versions of Jack-ass for no apparent reason, one sung entirely in Spanish


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#41

Also speaking of Beck, diff versions of ‘It’s All In Your Mind’ on One Foot in the Grave and Sea Change

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