It is easy on t’internet to find out about total UK, US or World sales of ‘product’ released on vinyl and CD.
However, what I would like to know is how many albums have never been released on CD and, indeed, how many albums have never been released/re-released on vinyl?
Examples of albums that have never been released in one format or another would be most welcome.
I can’t e.g. locate an official CD release of Soft Machine’s “Land of Cockayne” or Kevin Coyne’s “Beautiful Extremes etc”, originally on Cherry Red.
Unavailable albums (not a RSD post)
by 74 Comments
I don’t know about never issued but trying to find any copies of the Bee Gees older back catalogue on CD is pretty impossible these days apart from a few old badly mastered 80’s CDs
After the Odessa proper reissue they dried up and even that one costs a bomb now
Some fantastic albums in there so a crying shame Bazza is not up for it
I had their first 3 (UK) albums with bonus tracks in a box set. Was excellent. Think my ex got custody of it though 🙁
The same applies for most Stevie Wonder albums released before Music of my Mind.
He’s better served on iTunes though. There’s a Mono Singles collection there which is excellent.
The last time this topic came up I said Wizz Jones’ debut from ’69, but it has now seen the light of day, and having been so vexed about it, and subsequently buying it, I’m not too sure I’ve actually listened to it yet! Ain’t that always the way?
I’ve got one… ‘Music from Mathematics’ – Various Artists – Decca 1962 – much beloved by The Beatles (mainly Paul, the ultra cool one) and featured on that jaw-droppingly brilliant Mojo CD a year or two ago.
Re: The Bee Gees… I’ve definitely got the debut (2-cd, mono/stereo job) but my fave of theirs was a comp. called ‘Maybe Someone Is Digging Underground’ with an array of bizarre artists (Adam Faith, Oscar – actually Paul Nicholas, Paul Jones, Billy J., and Gerry Marsden) all trying to score a late 60s hit with the brothers’ wonderful, and very strange, material of the time.
I have said this before, but Lal and Mike Waterson’s fugitive album Bright Phoebus was briefly reissued on CD (by Domino) then withdrawn again under legal pressure from a former record label.
Bob Last will not reissue any of his Fast Products roster ( such as the debuts by Gang of Four, Human League, Scars) in any format.
Bob Last won’t, but EMI did (albeit 30 years ago). I have this on CD (and vinyl) if you need ‘help’:
https://www.discogs.com/release/1488211-Various-Fast-Product-Rigour-Discipline-And-Disgust
To the best of my knowledge, Gift by The Sisterhood has never been released on CD. I notice it appeared on ITunes a couple of years back. It’s the album that Andrew Eldeitxh put out to stop members of the Mission using the Sisterhood name. Long story. Good album, certainly better than the last Sisters of Mercy one.
You’re in luck: it was reissued on CD last year. I really like it, and would rank it close to Vision Thing in terms of quality (although it doesn’t have a tune that matches the mighty and thumping More).
The one that comes immediately to mind is the Buckingham Nicks album from before they joined Fleetwood Mac.
It obviously came out very briefly on vinyl when it was released, but I don’t think it has ever been officially released on CD. There was some talk about it coming out about 10 years ago, but I guess the relations between Mr Nicks and Miss Buckingham are now soured and so unlikely to see the light of day.
It did come out on a Korean label a number of years ago (with bonus tracks as well) and rumours were that it was “unofficially” leaked by the original producer – the sound quality is pretty decent and its not a vinyl rip (I remember my first copy was a cassette taped vinyl rip from the record shop on Oxford Road, Manchester where the owner had loads of rare vinyl that was unavailable for sale but a copy could be provided for a fee)
Some of the vinyl rips are of respectable quality. I have a couple of CD copies, one of which features a pretty authentic looking Polydor label on the printed side, multiple extra tracks and liner notes. The sound quality is as good as many CDs. Just a shame I had to sell a kidney to get it.
It’s high time Stevie and Lindsey kissed and made up. I can’t be the only one who thinks it’s a bit unseemly for two people in their 70s to be squabbling like a couple of teenage prima donnas.
I’ve got that Buckingham/Nicks CD re-issue from 2016; it’s on a label called BIG PINK MUSIC, which as you say is from Korea. There are 11 bonus tracks! There are few other CD or CD-R releases listed on Discogs, both before and after the BIG PINK version, but it seems to have dropped off the radar again now.
Van M and Linda Gail Lewis You Win Again
I think that there is a couple of Scott Walker 70s albums that he refused to sanction for cd release.
They snook out once, fairly easy to find I think
https://www.discogs.com/release/1150770-Scott-Walker-Stretch-We-Had-It-All
Very helpful thanks.
https://i.pinimg.com/564x/e2/1f/47/e21f47c66cb5524abc3510a89894d445.jpg
I have always wanted the soundtrack to Michael Mann’s ace film Manhunter on CD. I had it on cassette years ago, and loved the combination of none-more-80s synth tracks and Iron Butterfly’s In a Gadda da Vida.
It was reissued on vinly a couple of years ago, but that’s useless to me. I demand a CD version, or preferably a 5.1 bells’n’whistles edition.
The unreleased first versions of albums that are each seen as classics in their second (or, in the latter case, third) productions, namely the “Rafferty’s Folly” version of Shoot Out The Lights, and the Gurf Morlix iteration of Cat Wheels On A Gravel Drive. Both were “available” on t’web, as digital files, hence my cdrs, but I am sure folk would snap ‘em both up in any semi-legitimate hard copy.
And then there is the cupboard full of largely folkie fare, locked up in the ongoing CM music of Harrogate kerfuffle. This includes the Bright Phoebus set, mentioned above. A long article by the erstwhile FROOTS editor, Ian A. Anderson explains:
https://www.ianaanderson.com/1970s-deleted/
Apparently Gerry R is busy reimagining his take on SOTL as I write
I’ve been searching for Cat Wheels On A Gravel Drive for ages, too.
I read somewhere that if cats had opposable thumbs we would be sh*tting in the litter tray, so the phrase “cat wheels” – implying, as it does, a feline technological breakthrough – brings on a cold sweat..
I was thinking of Judge Dread’s 70s gym workout album,
Cartwheels on a Gavel Road
It does appear that there is a large number of 1960s/1970s folk albums that never had a CD release.
But does anyone have a vague idea of how many albums have never been released on CD or how many albums have never been released/re-released on vinyl?
If one goes for the left-hand path, file downloading sites, or apps that rip the music from YouTube clips are your friend. Allegedly.
There used to be a number of British jazz albums that were never likely to make it to CD and there probably are still some yet to make it. However, thanks to Gilles Peterson and other enthusiasts most of them have been reissued even if some may now be out of print. In the 90s I remember being convinced that the Rendell/Carr Quintet LPs were unlikely to be reissued on CD so I ponied up a lot of moolah to buy a few of them only to find that they were reissued on CD not long afterwards. Even more galling was the fact that I had all the original LPs back in the 60s and sold them due to straitened circumstances.
Pretty sure Bowie Rare has never been reissued on CD.
I have the EMI Sound and Vision Bowie studio albums on CD from ‘Man who sold.,’ through to ‘Scary Monsters’. The bonus tracks on these CDs make up most of the ‘Bowie Rare’ compilation album.
Loudon Wainwright and Richard Thompson did a tour together a number of years ago. It went under the name Loud and Rich.
I have a bootleg of one of the gigs.
i would really like this to see the light of day as an official release.
Come to think if it, I am pretty sure The Desperate Bicycles album “Remorse Code” has never been reissued since 1979, and nor have their 45s; even Bob Stanley couldn’t include anything for his recent anthology of post-punk.
A brief glance at my Amazon ‘wishlist’ reminds me that I am still waiting (years after first wanting to find one) for the appearance of the following:
The Steely Dan Sessions: Interpretations Of Unrealized Classics (A Tribute To Walter Becker And Donald Fagen) by Anthony Robustelli
Diamond Jack And The Queen Of Pain by Kevin Ayers
Grooving Out On Life by Hopeton Lewis
Rainy Sundays…Windy Dreams by Andy Irvine
The Olde World by Michael Head & The Strands
Somewhere by Mike Hugg
Stress & Strain by Mike Hugg
Neon Dream by Hug (Mike Hugg again)
Harking Back – Live in Dublin by Shirley & Dolly Collins
A few of these may have come out on CD very briefly at some point, usually in Japan or Korea, but have subsequently been unavailable for at least a decade in that format or any other for that matter. Luckily I have very good vinyl copies of the two Mike Hugg solo LPs, but I’d still like to own the rare-as-old-heck excellent far-eastern CD reissues at some point. A few may be still had for small fortunes in second hand form. @Twang kindly gave me a very good digital copy of the Dan tribute a few years back, but all of the others have eluded me to date, as I am unwilling to part with enough moolah to procure a very good lunch – with wine – for any of them second hand.
Hi Foxy
I would greatly appreciate a copy. My cassette copy has had it and they the CDs on discogs are a bit pricey. Please let me know if there are any jazz, Americana or singer/songwriter CDs that you can’t get hold of. Can I assume you already have the alternative ‘Gaucho’ album/outtakes?
Furniture only have one of their four albums currently in print.
The Wrong People only sold about 1000 copies when it was initially released in 1986, because their label (Stiff) went bust later in the week. 2010’s CD release on Cherry Red was also OOP for years but it did get a repress a couple of years ago.
Their final album, Food, Sex & Paranoia, only had a run of 5000 units, in 1990. Everyone at the label (Arista) had been sacked by the time it came out. Sourcing a copy now is like finding rocking horse poo.
The Wrong People is still on sale at Cherry Red with oodles of bonus tracks/single sides.
Yes, it is now, but it wasn’t for years, and it then got a repress in 2021. I worked on the 2010 first-time-on-CD issue with the bloke who is now head of back catalogue at Chrysalis Music.
The deal was, if The Wrong People sold well, then Cherry Red would do FS&P, and possibly look at the earlier albums. As it took TWP 11 years to get repressed, I’m guessing sales were on the low side…
I’ve got FS&P bought around the time it came out because I loved the Slow Motion Kisses single. Great album. I’ve got pretty much all the vinyl only stuff on disc that I bought from a guy in Turkey years ago. They vinyl rips vary in quality but all fairly listenable
I can ‘help’ with those, too.
One of the b-sides on the CR TWP CD is a vinyl rip.
@myoldman check your PMs for ‘help’
Following the release of the remarkable ‘Summer of Soul’, I determined – not wildly successfully as there are NO record shops – to get the original 60s releases on CD of many of the participants.
I was amazed how poorly Hugh Masekela is served in this respect, even going to one of those more soul/funk/world focused music shops in Soho, and coming out with the square root of Diddly Squat.
So, if any enterprising record label (Ace?) could get those ten or so 60s albums out on CD – NOT on vinly for £30 a pop, thanks – you are guaranteed ten or so sales from me.
It only sold about 10 copies, but can I find Satellite Head Gone Soft by Last Of The Teenage Idols anywhere? Discogs does suggest a CD release, but never found one.
But … if you know where to look (taps noise) you too could have a copy sitting on your shelf.
And then there are those catalogues that a crying out for a re-issue so the (official release) CD can be obtained for less than the price of a kidney … are you listening That Petrol Emotion?
And then there is the modern day “unavailable on CD” – download only … grrr! I want physical product
That Petrol Emotion did a box set, Every Beginning Has a Future – An Anthology 1984 – 1994, last year. 6 CDs stuffed with extra tracks for 60 quid.
I’m a TPE completist, more or less, and there are only a handful of tracks not on there.
Missed that – I will go on a search.
Thanks for the pointer Mr F
A lot of digital only in the cottage industry of folk music, for financial reasons. It seems a national disgrace that Eliza Carthy can’t afford to make cds (let alone vinyl): her last two are only available as Bandcamp downloads , and are both superb.
Indeed the Rheingans Sisters are at the moment crowdfunding to produce their 5th studio album.
https://www.rheinganssisters.co.uk/
There are a few Virgin albums awaiting appearance on CD, Holly & the Italians, The Right to be Italian, Jane Aire & the Belvederes and all the Fingerprintz albums. I know these may be rather niche and low selling but looking at some of the stuff Cherry Red put out….
I can do you a Jane Aire & The Belvederes needle-drop if you like.
Both albums by Norfolk’s finest, the fARmER’s bOys. After a few singles on Norwich indie label Backs Records, Baz, Frog, Mark and Stan recorded two albums for EMI.
The first one came out on CD in 2009 on Cherry Red (never to be repressed) and the other on CD in 2001, but only in Japan.
I’d love to own a copy of The FB’s second album. I’ve got the Cherry Red re-release of the first album, as well as the Once Upon A Time In The East comp of early singles etc but I need to own the album which has the mighty Phew Wow on it. I’ve even got the album by The Great Outdoors, and the Avons album. You could say I’m a bit of a fan…
‘Help’ will arrive in your PMs soonish.
In terms of Phew Wow!, I have the 12″ still with the “win Stan’s Mini” compettion entry form. Entries closed in 1984.
That’s really very kind of you @fentonsteve and very much appreciated!
@Nick-L check your PMs for ‘help’
Talking of Cherry Red, who pump out retrospective boxes and reissues willy nilly, in expensive packaging and lavish sleeve notes/essays. Given the niche nature of many of these, how much profit do they turn?
I’ve often read through the CR ‘new releases this month’ email and thought “who in their right mind is going to buy that?” But people evidently do. This is why I don’t run a record label.
I’ve worked on two CR releases and received nothing in return, apart from my name in the credits. I even had to buy my own CDs. So costs are low…
I played on a track which was included on a CR comp of Northern Irish punk (Shellshock Rock), and the writer of the song contacted me as he wanted to give me my share of the money he’d been paid by CR. I think it was £75 in total (so my cut was to be £17 odd). I told him to give it to a charity. That set has 74 tracks, so if every track incurs a £75 royalty fee, they are into £5.5k before even looking at mastering, manufacturing costs etc.
It’s nice to know that someone is being paid, at least!
Cheery Red, my name for them, are certainly doing something right. I have reviewed a fair few of their boxset re-releases, and they are unusual in always providing hard copy, rather than just a download and a press release(or, worse still, a fecking soundcloud stream) And, unlike new releases, the cost of that seems unlikely to come from the performers advance.
It would appear that, in general, there are a lot of records that barely sold any copies when originally issued that have subsequently never been released on CD for some reason.
I’ve just had to buy a second hand copy of Super Ape by Lee Perry and the Upsettters on CD from the U.S. Vinyl? Forget it. As it’s supposedly the definitive dub album, I was surprised how hard it is to get hold of.
Loads of mint/near mint CD copies are for sale on Discogs from UK sellers for sensible prices – you should be looking there first!
I’m not brilliant with the old interweb, so didn’t think of this. Thanks for the advice!
@trypf
You just HAD to…?
As in ‘felt it was the only way to get hold of a copy’. But, as you can see above, I was dead wrong…
Has anyone seen, or better still got, a copy of ‘A Different Kind Of Love Song’ by Dick Gaughan?
@craig42blue
As above, the second hand market via Discogs is your place to go.
Copies available in better than reasonable condition for around twenty quid from European sellers – some are on the original Folk Freak label, some other labels – Wundertute, Appleseed Recordings.
If you’re quick, your best bet is probably this one:
https://www.discogs.com/sell/item/2633547450
@craig42blue
Did you find a copy of that Dick Gaughan album? If not, I can drop you a CD rip via WeTransfer if you like.
Hi Foxy
I would greatly appreciate a copy. My cassette copy has had it and the CDs on discogs are a bit pricey. Please let me know if there are any jazz, Americana or singer/songwriter CDs that you can’t get hold of.
I assume you have already got a copy of the ‘Gaucho’ sessions?
@craig42blue
Thanks, yes, I have that one.
I’ve just DM’d a link to you for the Dick Gaughan, er, ‘backup copy’ in zip format.
PS if you’re tempted to buy a physical copy from Discogs, beware that some of the releases under the name ‘A Different Kind Of Love Song’ are not the original album – there are some with alternative tracks, and a few with a couple of extra tracks. The East German ones are an entirely different set of songs, being actually a re-release of an earlier album using the name of a later one. Those crazy communists!
I’d purchase “Brian Jones… at Joujouka” on CD.
I think it’s only been available as a Japanese import or with different packaging, and all I’ve got is a cassette which I can’t play.
I’d even buy it if it had one of those awful tongue logos on it.
https://www.discogs.com/sell/item/2986975487
That’s the one with the wrong artwork.
Dunno about ‘wrong’ – it’s the artwork for one of the re-issues.
Personally, if I want to hear the music I don’t give much of a stuff about the version of the artwork on the cover, I’m only concerned about the quality of the sound. Having said you’d buy it even if it was embellished with that stupid Stones tongue, I’d have thought this version would have perfectly well met your listening requirements. But please yourself, I won’t bother to suggest any other options except to say you should buy a cassette deck.
Hmm… cheers… wrong to want to have the original artwork? For sure, if chanced upon in a chazzer for £2. £20+ online? Less likely to secure a sale.
A cassette deck for four cassettes?
If you remember, I’m the one who is ‘not’ a mug punter. The RSD thread is, however, still available for those who are.
@deramdaze
Well, that’s the CD reissue that I bought, ‘wrong’ cover art and all – I’d previously only briefly had an ex-library copy of the original vinyl (rather too buggered to keep, sadly). I subsequently paid about a tenner for my CD copy, which I considered a good price for a well looked after disc.
FWIW, I’ve never bought anything from RSD, and am extemely unlikely ever to do so.