The lost, unfinished, mythical albums

I Was thinkin that now that : the beach boys'Smile, my bloody valentine's mbv, guns n'roses' chinese democracy, the stone roses' second coming, prince's black album, dre's final album, etc. have all been released in a way or another, it seems all the mythical albums are available now.
Are there still any big/mythical albums to expect ? If not why ? Has history (of music) ended ? Is it the end of the world as we know it ?

Of course there's the handful of proposed Neil Young and Prince albums that got reconfigured, reduced or cannibalized for parts of other albums.

Yeah I suppose there would be Prince's original "Crystal ball" album...

brian wilson's adult child.

that alleged bowie follow up to outside with eno (that I don't really believe was ever recorded).

dre's 'detox' still hasn't been released and I don't think Compton has anything from it. He just said Detox was a mess and he hated it I think, doubt it will ever come out.

this is mythical only among the few who care enough to know about it, but right after pinkerton bombed/before he deliberately expunged himself of his instincts, rivers cuomo had a side project band in 1997 called homie. they played some widely bootlegged shows, made plenty of demos (one of which wound up on the alone 2 comp), then fizzled out as rivers delved deeper into his pop song formula mania. somewhere in there an entire album was recorded, though apparently he lost his copy and the only place it might still exist is in the boston studio where it was cut. in any event, the songs from that period are absolutely of his first two albums' standard, and in a very playful "alt country" style that would've been a nice reinvention for him. (the one officially released homie song, which is some kind of collaboration between rivers and members of i think soul coughing and maybe one other group like that, is not representative in terms of genre or quality.)

also, don't think it's fair to say compton is detox, especially since dre still talks about the latter as a distinct/abandoned album.

*i* don't think, btw – that wasn't an imperative >_<

The Jungle Brothers had one that was only partially released and both titles are currently slipping my mind.

Jenny Death

The Jungle Brothers had one that was only partially released and both titles are currently slipping my mind.

everything that was actually finished from Crazy Wisdom Masters has been sort of released by now

I've only heard J Beez with The Remedeez, where's the rest at?

There's a few mythical David Bowie records like Gauster (sp), the Arnold Corns sessions and the music that was written for The Man Who Fell To Earth, some of which was repurposed during the making of Low.

Beck supposedly cut a more Pavement sounding album between Mellow Gold and Odelay. There's also two follow up albums to Chinese Democracy that may or may not ever see the light of day.

The Sisters of Mercy

john fahey's nut house sessions would be the closest thing to a musical holy grail for me but the thought of robbing myself of such an enchanted item balances out my desire to hear it

The La's follow-up to their debut is, what, 25 years in the making?

The Avalanches still working on their second album?

Ice Cube and Dr. Dre- Heltah Skeltah

Don't know how much was actually recorded, but iirc Suge forced Dre to give "California Love" and other beats from the project to 2Pac.

also there was supposed to be an Ice Cube album on Aftermath

An MC5 studio lp for Elektra, wasn't there talk about some studio recordings having been done? At least around that time.

Would have loved a better recording from the 2 guitar Stooges, though the Easy Action set has some great stuff on it. Pretty muffled though but so much better than earlier releases.
Were any of the post Raw Power studio recordings supposed to be grouped together as an lp at any point? THough I do assume that most of them have appeared by now.

THe grateful Dead studio set that is represented by the new tracks on Europe '72 would have been great. The New Uncut has a different live representation based on some kind of proposed tracklisting.

this would be EPIC

http://ultimateclassicrock.com/jimmy-page-yes-xyz/

page, squire, white . . . and maybe plant laid down some vocals no one but those present heard? EPIC

^ That was one of the first I thought of. But supposedly all involved (and most who heard it) found it disappointing. Still want to hear it.

there are always more "lost albums". always! some of them are even good!

my favorite is the unreleased second comus album. comus always said they were working on this amazing song suite to follow up "first utterance", but every band says that about themselves. then somebody found an audience tape of a comus gig in their attic where they played the first part of it, and they're right- it's amazing! after the tour they went into rehearsal and fleshed the piece out into an entire album's worth of material, but their label wanted a hit single, so... nothing. nothing recorded. comus are still around these days, but none of them can remember how the rest of the song went, and besides with lindsay cooper (who was an essential part of the tune) dead there's not really any point. none of us will ever hear it unless they invent time travel. lost forever!

wait, wait, i have another one for you. urban verbs. they were a band fronted by chris frantz's brother, so when they went to record their album in '81 or so, eno said hey, you know what, i'll produce it for you. but for whatever reason, that version never came out. it was broadcast on the radio in boston once, and there's a song from it on youtube which is totally amazing. maybe one day somebody'll release it- and they should, they absolutely should- but until then: lost!

ok, those are both obscure. less obscure: nebraska with the e street band. the recording was made, it exists, but who's heard it?

as for xyz, there are some instrumental demos, the best of which formed the basis for "mind drive" by yes. but seriously, not good.

Arthur Lee and Jimi Hendrix apparently recorded an entire album's worth of material, but only "The Everlasting First" has been released (on False Start).

the Bill Dixon/Cecil Taylor duo studio recordings from 1992 have never been released, but there are rumors and rumblings afoot.

Green Day's original follow up to Warning?

After Nonsuch Andy Partridge pitched this idea that Virgin would have bought the back catalogue of some imaginary label and put out a comp of the best stuff, a bunch of dumb "bubblegum pop" songs that would of course really be Partridge/XTC. I think a few of the songs came out in some form but as a whole I don't know if anything ever happened with it

give it up to Wu Tang for intentionally making an unavailable mythical album, i guess.

all of the tapes and albums Sly Stone supposedly recorded over the last few decades?

Prefab Sprout has a whole page devoted to the various projects Paddy's mentioned over the years. Certain projects are gradually appearing from the mist, like Let's Change the World with Music.

Robin Gibb, abandoned 2nd album, recordings finally released this year

there's a dylan album from the early 90s recorded w/ david bromberg -- a few songs have surfaced on the bootleg series (and one or two more among collectors), but there are supposedly a bunch more.

would love to hear the fahey nut house 1977 stuff.

(Half of an) Album by Ralf-less Kraftwerk of Florian/Rother/Dinger.

good/relevant/obsessive stuff here: http://albumsthatneverwere.blogspot.com/

Godspeed You Black Emperor!'s supposed first release, the cassette "All Lights Fucked on the Hairy Amp Drooling" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Lights_Fucked_on_the_Hairy_Amp_Drooling) has never reliably surfaced as far as I know. There have been some claimed snippets, but I think they're dubious or even fully discredited. Happy to be corrected.

The Constellation label website used to have a page giving some details and images of the cassette, so I like to think it really did/does exist and that it simply never got out to anyone who would be willing to share it with the world as there were purportedly only 33 copies.

To correct myself now that I read up, the two tracks that surfaced via reddit in 2013 sound potentially genuine, but the trail went dead there.

I'm reading a biography of Dennis Wilson right now. I don't think it counts as mythical--maybe to the author of the bio; for him, everything Dennis did was mythical--and parts of it have surfaced (true of most of these records, no?), but Wilson's second solo album, Bamboo, has never been released.

Boards of Canada have quite a few: Acid Memories, Hooper Bay, Closes Vol. 1, Play By Numbers, etc. Will these ever see the light of day?

I haven't tried looking for it yet to see if it's floating about, but when I was working on my Psych Noir piece, I was reminded of the 20 minutes Jimmy Page made for Lucifer Rising. Anger said it wasn't good enough (or in the commentary on the DVD, simply said long enough) so he didn't use it.

If there were a lost Led Zep album from 1972, then I'd be more excited.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSfBaLBvGCg

It's pretty....ugh...

RZA used to talk about this mythical album called "The Cure"... but i haven't heard about it in ages now

parts of it have surfaced (true of most of these records, no?), but Wilson's second solo album, Bamboo, has never been released.

Bambu finally surfaced as the second disc of the Pacific Ocean Blue reissue awhile back.

One album I'm curious about is the re-recorded version of My Aim Is True that supposedly Elvis Costello did with the Attractions in '78-9 with the intent to replace the original in the catalog. Despite having reissued said catalog a million times with seemingly every possible outtake/alternate/live version/B-Side etc. added on, these things haven't surfaced.

I looked at a review of the reissue, and it indicated that some of Bamboo was tacked on, but not all of it:

So the tracks that make up the Bambu disc here are by no means meant to comprise the album as it was originally intended.

I don't know enough about it to know whether that's accurate or not--hadn't even heard of the album until I got to that part of the book yesterday.

the albini mix of in utero is still unreleased, apart from a couple singles on that massive 3cd reissue a while back

The Albini In Utero got released for Record Store Day a year or two ago.

I guess not "as originally recorded" but that's probably for the better.

There's definitely Dennis solo stuff from the 70s that didnt make the POB reissue, but i dont know what the definitive Bambu track listing is (or if there even was one)

Supergrass - Release The Drones

there's that recording of US Maple with Derek Bailey that someone is sitting on. i wonder how successful a collaboration that would be tho as maple'S "random factor" was well-rehearsed & DB would've doubtless tried to sabotage any revolting safety blanket of synergy between the two regardless of our tension release wet-dreams

The unreleased Chic produced Johnny Mathis album has only had a few of the tracks out on various comps.

I guess not many people are going to care about Zappa's last studio record that's coming out (come out?), as it appears to be Synclavier based classical.

The last remnant of the Who's aborted 1970 EP 7 ft. Wide Car, 6 ft. Wide Garage was finally released in 2004.

Their 1972 album was never completed. Some songs were released as singles, or on Odds and Sods; two were repurposed for Quadrophenia; and two have only surfaced in Pete solo demo form.

The Who probably have a few of these. There was also a pre-Tommy post-Sell Out album I think. All that stuff got released either on remasters or the Maximum R&B Box Set or various compilations.

The bootlegs of Townshend's solo demos from around the Lifehouse era are brilliant.

The original mix/full-length album version of the B-52's Mesopotamia.

Is this different to the European version? I know that has original mixes not on the US release, at least.

lol at like half of the suggestions itt being like "actually they put that out a couple of years ago but nobody gave a shit"

You have to expect that though in 2015. It's so easy to just get stuff out there (see: Aphex Twin's soundcloud dump), why not do it if your fans have interest?

What are some cases of a legendary delayed/shelved album coming out and being as cool as people thought it would be? The Basement Tapes? Black Bastards?

Can's Lost Tapes? Dunno if that counts but for years and years I'd been hearing that Can had tons of awesome unreleased material just sitting around, even if it wasn't really intended to be an album per se

Hearteningly this thread has already dealt with Cardiacs, so I can move onto Lapsus Linguae - This Is Puberty, an album that has been denied us twice now, once by the band breaking up before it could be recorded and more cruelly of late with its release promised by a former member - a date even hinted at - and then everything dropped without warning.

It is clearly an absolutely incredible album, too

LJ, I feel your pain.

I have a CD that was sent to me called the 'Super Nintendo Sessions', the LL album as midi piano and click track demos, I've had it for something like 9 years too, which is even worse than not hearing the finished article, in a way.

He even said that all he had to do was record the vocals! And now - silence. It is unbelievably frustrating

Bob Pollard has a bunch of these. Usually the songs get released eventually on EP's or singles etc.

For example, The Power of Suck, the aborted follow up to Alien Lanes...

XP - I'll give Calum a shove.

the spent poet's last album, "steve". no-one cares about them or that record though; I have it, it's not as good as the first one.

The original mix/full-length album version of the B-52's Mesopotamia.

Is this different to the European version? I know that has original mixes not on the US release, at least.

― Just noise and screaming and no musical value at all. (Colonel Poo), Wednesday, August 12, 2015 12:53 PM (52 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

From what I understand, the original mix was mistakenly very briefly released in the UK and then pulled. But also Mesopotamia was originally intended to be a 10-track LP. Most of the tracks that were dropped were later rerecorded for other albums, but I assume that there are original versions of the songs floating around out there somewhere.

Motley Crue cut a second album with John Corabi or at least several songs that I would love to hear. I really enjoy that self-titled album.

xp

I don't know how briefly the UK release was available, fwiw I found it cheap in a record store a few years ago - would be cool if it was reissued properly with the extra tracks though I agree.

I know very little about Jimi Hendrix but wasn't there a load of unreleased stuff supposed to come out a few years ago?

For years I wanted to hear Basement Tapes but after trawling through lots of reviews of Bootleg 11 in "complete" and "raw" versions I was discouraged. Didn't want to pay for the complete thing because I want it for The Band more than Dylan and I don't usually like hearing lots of alternate versions. Didn't want the "raw" highlights because so many people said the selections were poor.

Grace Jones was supposed to release two albums in the 90s, but neither one ever came out. The first one was to be called Black Marilyn, and one single was released, "Sex Drive". It's a really cool single, kinda like proto-electroclash, I'd love to hear the rest of the album if it's out there.

Another album was supposed to be a collaboration with Tricky. A couple of tracks were eventually released in the 00s, the title track of Hurricane is one of them.

As far as I know, no bootlegs out of these two albums have ever leaked, so I'm not sure if they were even finished to any degree. One can dream...

Top 10 Arthur Russell songs you will never hear

(though I think at least two of them are out there now)

And the Arthur Russell/Vin Diesel collab was another one I was always curious about but that turned up on Gary Lucas' Soundcloud a while back.

I would add to that list the song 'Time to go home now" that was covered by Mimi Goese.

On the Wild Combination documentary it comes in right after his death and you see a slow moving tracking shot of some cornfields, when I saw/heard that the first time it broke my heart so much I ended up messaging Mimi about the track and asked if she knew if Arthur had recorded it, she replied and relayed this message from her colleague Dick Connette, because she was sketchy on the details.

"Arthur Russell was a friend and musical colleague of mine going back to the late seventies. Mimi and I wrote and performed together for a while in the late eighties and early nineties. I asked Arthur if he had any songs that he would like us to do and he handed me lead sheets and home solo recordings of two - "Canvas House" and "Time To Go Home Now," both of which we played in public. It was only later, I think maybe even after Arthur died, that I discovered that, apparently, Arthur had written them both especially for us. I was retrospectively touched and honored."

So there y'go, beautiful song, hopefully it'll come out sometime.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bF3dNllTzIA

the kinks - four more respected gentlemen. everything intended for this apparently finished but never-issued 1968 album eventually came out on either the village green preservation society, the kink kronikles or the great lost kinks album, the latter of which eventually became so hard to find that it, too might as well be filed under lost and/or mythical. all tracks from THAT one can now be find scattered among the bonus tracks of various versions of the kinks' late-'60s catalog. but it's odd, considering how many times the kinks catalog has been packaged and repackaged, that no one (to my knowledge) has thought to issue four more respected gentlemen as originally intended.

eno's demos with television were a complete misfire, though- they're on the "fairland" bootleg and are the worst television recordings i've ever heard. not sure why it didn't work out!

as for jimi, the only thing really being held back is "black gold", a tape full of acoustic songs, most unheard elsewhere, from early 1970. not sure why the hendrix estate keeps holding back on it... last i heard they said they wanted to get to it "sometime this decade", which is at least refreshingly honest of them. so far only the first song, "suddenly november morning", has ever been released.

I really really want the new Avalanches to come out. Any day now...

eno's demos with television were a complete misfire, though- they're on the "fairland" bootleg and are the worst television recordings i've ever heard. not sure why it didn't work out!

I am confused, if you are referring to the tracks on was I know as the Double Exposure bootleg then you are insane, those are incredible, best version of Friction ever

xposts
Second coming : I mentioned it because it was highly anticipated for a long time and nobody knew if hey would be able to finish it since they were a mess following the debut.

Oh I thought of another one : Grimes follow up to Visions that she shelved because she thought it wasn't good enough. Not really in the mythical category though...
There doesn't seem to be many of these since the late 90's/00's...
Avalanches' is a good one !

Avalanches are up to three: the still-in-progress one with all the collabs that Chater is now doing solo, the one they turned in about 8 years ago that the label rejected for not being full of bangers, and the anniversary reissue / tribute version of SILY

Is it Sun, Moon & Herbs by Dr John that was supposed to be a double lp but came out as a single one?
There was an article in Mojo or Uncut that said it was coming out the next year with the missing tracks. I haven't heard anything since. Not sure how long ago that was.

was going to be a triple lp, supposedly.

there are those demos from '68 (i think) on the gene clark flying high comp from an album session that went nowhere. unfortunate, cos they are great.

also there was the john fahey/red krayola session that a manager or someone took possession of and hasn't been seen since.

Beatles "Carnival of Light"? not an album but the only un-released full, finished Beatles track.

Can't imagine the US Maple/Bailey thing as being any good, given that Maple had to rehearse within an inch of their lives to sound a little like Storm & Stress.

― Three Word Username, Wednesday, August 12, 2015 3:46 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

u shut yr mouth pal

also to chachi's point, Johnson and Shippy were doing Shorty probably what since the late 80s?

fuckin strom and stress gedda fuck outtaheah with that shit /joepesci

all those rza beats that he lost in a studio flood in the mid-90s, must have been a bunch of albums worth of stuff there? not sure how finished any of it was but i'm sure altered the trajectory of wu tang

Peter Gabriel was supposed to have an album called I/O culled from the same sessions that produced Up, but it never came out. He's apparently still working on an album of new material but it sounds like it probably won't be called I/O. He could call it Peter Gabriel, for old time's sake.

this thread reminds me that i still need to listen to the released version of 'Kamaal the Abstract' (Q-Tip's record that was shelved for eight years, i remember getting demos off Audiogalaxy).

Charli XCX's "punk" album, of course

And seconding Man Who Fell To Earth. I love that Bowie wrote that soundtrack just assuming Roeg wanted him to do it. Must have been an awkward conversation when he showed up with it.

Didn't Q Tip have another album after Kamaal the Abstract that still remain unreleased?

Aren't there rumours that Klaxons have an insane psych-prog album in the vaults that their label didn't come close to letting them release?

Oh, they released it as an EP. Carry on.

this is by no means mythical, but there was an original version of Heems' album with Bollywood samples that the label wouldn't clear, and Diplo & A-Trak beats that they wouldn't pay for.

the lost music i actually get worked up about is all the high-quality second line footage that stupid David Simon shot for Treme, and didn't do a thing with (except for like a 10 second clip in the show).

Green Day - Cigarettes and Valentines

granted it came out, thanks to Rhino, but it boggles my mind that there was a 1990's era Chicago album (Stone of Sisyphus) that completely fit this thread at one time, in that there were fans actually clamoring for it and posting threads about it and I think even circulating bootlegs. then they released it and most everybody else said it was typical boring mid-90s Chicago garbage.

The first US Maple album doesn't sound like the third one, does it?

And S&S were around for a few years before their first record.

and no incarnation of S&S sounded anything like any incarnation of US Maple. are you Ian Williams' mum or something?

The oft-mentioned single-LP version of Sandinista

was gonna say that more clash is not what we want, but actually you're calling for less clash so i'm ok with that

The only thing worse than US Maple are US Maple fans.

I keep not getting around to mentioning Ryan Adams.

Probably 2 albums' worth of really good Whiskeytown stuff, 3 or 4 unreleased solo albums, dozens and dozens of leftovers, sessions, demos and nonsense. Most of this stuff's floating around on the internets somewheres (although I haven't been able to find the pre- and post-"Heartbreaker" albums "Destroyer" and "The Suicide Handbook," supposedly two of the best).

i used to have those! they were great, sort of composite versions of gold and demolition