|
Forever Changes: Collector's Edition/Remastered & Expanded | 
 enlarge | Artist: Love
Label: Rhino
Category: Music
List Price: £14.99
Buy New: £9.80
You Save: £5.19 (35%)
New (38) Used (3) from £9.80
Avg. Customer Rating:  2 reviews
Sales Rank: 2563
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 2
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 5.5 x 5.1 x 0.6
MPN: 428796
UPC: 081227993849
EAN: 0081227993849
ASIN: B0015D3YX6
Release Date: April 28, 2008
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Ships from U.S.A., to anywhere in the United Kingdom! Orders only take 7-10 days! We specialise in service to the U.K. and only ship airmail.
|
| Tracks:
Disc 1
| » | Alone Again Or | | » | House Is Not A Motel | | » | Andmoreagain | | » | Daily Planet | | » | Old Man | | » | Red Telephone | | » | Maybe The People Would Be The Times | | » | Live And Let Live | | » | Good Humor Man He Sees Everything Like This | | » | Bummer In The Summer | | » | You Set The Scene |
Disc 2
| » | Alone Again Or | | » | House Is Not A Motel | | » | Andmoreagain | | » | Daily Planet | | » | Old Man | | » | Red Telephone | | » | Maybe The People Would Be The Times | | » | Live And Let Live | | » | Good Humor Man He Sees Everything Like This | | » | Bummer In The Summer | | » | You Set The Scene | | » | Wonder People (I Do Wonder) | | » | Hummingbirds | | » | House Is Not A Motel | | » | Andmoreagain | | » | Red Telephone | | » | Woolly Bully | | » | Alone Again Or | | » | Your Mind And We Belong Together | | » | Your Mind And We Belong Together | | » | Laughing Stock |
|
| Similar Items:
|
| Customer Reviews:
the best LOVE album in the world... ever! May 25, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
This superb 2CD Collectors Edition is long overdue for a work the stature of FOREVER CHANGES.
Previously reissued in 2001, we were offered the album properly remastered, with the single: "Your Mind And We Belong Together"/"Laughing Stock", plus a few nice outtakes & a demo. But we always knew there was more, thanks to THE LAST WALL OF THE CASTLE, also released in 2001, which boasted alternate mixes of "A House Is Not A Motel" and a short snippet of "The Red Telephone".
Well now it seems we've got the lot!
On CD 1 the original album is again remastered, a marginal upgrade on 2001, but very welcome nonetheless. It's also good that it alone occupies the first disc (a more authentic listening experience for those of us who remember a time when the last song was also the last track).
Of greater interest here however is CD 2, which is choc-a-bloc full of different mixes, outtakes, demos, etc, and opens with a complete alternate mix of the album. Since 1968, I have been listening regularly to FOREVER CHANGES (with an adoring and awed ear) and can confirm that there are a multitude of differences in these alternate mixes, all of which are inferior to the original, though no less interesting for that. Quite the opposite in fact. Many of the songs are counted in by Lee. Most noticeably different are the manic guitar parts on "A House Is Not A Motel" and "Live And Let Live". There are also various vocal and production variations on tracks like "You Set The Scene" (previously released) and "The Red Telephone".
Incidentally, the aforementioned track is often misquoted as containing the line: "We're all normal AND we want our freedom". In fact Lee says: "We're all normal WHEN we want our freedom". Whether Lee himself is deliberately misquoting from Peter Brook's "Marat/Sade" play or not doesn't really matter, but read this way it adds an even creepier slant to the sinister atmosphere surrounding this wonderful piece of music. The quote can be heard even more clearly on the alternate mix.
However, it remains a mystery as to when the alternate mix of the album was done. Could be an early working version, possibly? My instincts say not - it would be nice if someone reading this could clear the matter up in a future review.
A further ten bonus tracks follow, five of which appeared on the 2001 release, including "Your Mind And We Belong Together" & "Laughing Stock". New to this edition are backing tracks for "A House Is Not A Motel" (minus guitar solo), "Andmoreagain" (electric), tracking sessions highlights for "The Red Telephone", plus two outtakes, "Wonder People" (original mix) and "Wooly Bully"
All, apart from "Wooly Bully" (a bona-fide barrel scraper!), are more than worthy of inclusion.
New liner notes by Andrew Sandoval are both informative and well written, containing previously unpublished interview material with Michael Stuart and John Echols, who shed further light on the making of the album and the myth of its oft rumoured follow up, "Gethsemane" .
All we need now to complete the cycle is the original mono mix (start saving up for the 3CD box, due for release in 2015, ho-ho). Meanwhile this will do very nicely, thank you.
Forever Changes: Collector's Edition. And more "Andmoreagain"? Well, you set the scene! May 1, 2008
30 out of 30 found this review helpful
No music lover with some interest in the late sixties' US West Coast musical scene can ignore "Forever Changes" (1968.) Love's third LP is - as critics and fans agree - one of the most beautiful and truly defining albums of that era.
Although the early CD issues were sonically flawed, the 1995 "Love Story" compilation on Rhino included all the album tracks in pretty good sound.
The Rhino 2001 remaster, with its extended dynamic range, sounded better still than "Love Story." The original LP (I still own a "gold label" US Elektra copy) always sounded compressed. Indeed, the 42+ minutes playing time compromised the dynamic range due to the limitations inherent in the vinyl format.)
Now, Rhino releases a 2-CD Deluxe Digipak "Collector's Edition" of "Forever Changes.
The first disc from the Digipak is solely dedicated to the latest remastering of the original LP mix. Sonically, however, I hear little - if any - improvement here over the 2001 master. Anyway, the sound is truly outstanding.
The second disc includes six of the seven 2001 bonus tracks and adds fifteen "previously unreleased tracks. The missing 2001 track - Bryan McLean's "Alone Again Or" - is featured in a slightly longer version (3'15" here instead of 2'55" on the 2001 edition.) It also includes fifteen "previously unreleased tracks."
Tracks from the 2001 "Deluxe" edition are:
- Both sides of the excellent last single released by the original line-up of the band ("Your Mind and Me Belong Together" / "Laughing Stock".) A long excerpt from early takes of the former track seems to vindicate Arthur Lee's assertions that he was the one calling the shots in the studio (hear him admonishing the guitarist and even humming to him the part that he should play!)
- A very nice, interesting demo of "Hummingbirds" (aka " The Good Humor Man He Sees Everything like This")
- An outtake of "Wonder People (I Do Wonder") [that later appeared as "I Still Wonder" on the "Out Here" album.] Time permitting, I find that this track would have nicely fitted somewhere in the original "Forever Changes" LP. A most worthwhile addition to the set.
- "Alternate mixes" of "Alone Again Or" and "You Set The Scene." which already raised more questions than answers. These alternate mixes will be discussed below.
Additional tracks exclusive to the second disc are:
- A heavier sounding version of "A House Is Not a Motel" (track 25)
- A rather disposable "alternate electric backing track" of "Andmoreagain" (track 26)
- A good, sweet, short, early take of "The Red Telephone" (track 27)
- A goofy, disjointed "cover" of "Wooly Bully" (obviously some studio joke, never intended for release despite being labeled as an "outtake" (track 28.)
- A remixed version of the mono single release of "And More Again" (track 29.)
Tracks 12 through 22 open disc two with an "alternate studio versions" of "Forever Changes". The 2001 alternate mix version of "You Set the Scene" is used here.
To my ears, these alternate mixes are not different enough from the well-know originals to bring any real new insight into the creative process that produced the finished masters.
The Digipak features a 20-page booklet with excellent new liner notes by Andrew Sandoval as well as many pictures.
There are, however, two things that really bug me regarding these "alternate mixes": when were they mixed, and who did the mix? There was surely enough space in the booklet to address this important question. The issue remains unaddressed however!
Rightly or wrongly, this lack of information puts me under the impression that the new "alternate mixes" were conceived quite recently, in the same way that those featured on - say - the second volume of "The Beatles Anthology" were (I nevertheless bought the Beatles 2-CD set as it featured vastly superior sound quality compared to the 1988 George Martin digital transfers!)
The recording and production budgets (especially at Elektra) were tightly controlled in those days. So why in the world would original producer and engineer Bruce Botnick have spent valuable studio time on alternative sets of stereo mixes which would not be released?
The true mixing/editing exercise was restricted - once all the "master" takes had been approved upon - to the completion of a mono mix of the LP and, sometimes, to any track selected to be issued as a single.
Be it is as it may, one cannot accuse Rhino of deceiving the buyer regarding the contents of this 2-CD set. As the title implies, it is aimed squarely at the die-hard collectors.
Another fact that one can also infer is that there now probably remains no usable, unreleased studio material from the "Forever Changes" sessions.
As such, this "Collector's Edition" will please all the John Toblers among us. Should your own "quest for Arthur Lee" be less extreme, you can safely stick to your 2001 remaster which contains the cream of the bonus material anyway. For the rest of us, there is little choice: we need to buy this Digipak because "We're all normal and we want our freedom... - although - "we're going round and round"... [trying] to fix [our] brain..."
|
|
|
| |
