Bonus tracks/B-Sides replacing actual album tracks

richardh wrote: ^ just need something to replace Battle Of Epping Forest

I personally don't have a problem with "The Battle of Epping Forest" in spite of its silly middle section. Yet there was almost an option for a replacement song from this album's sessions. Steve Hackett resurrected a song called "Deja Vu" for his Genesis Revisited album in 1996. He said he wrote it with Peter Gabriel, but that it was never finished because "More Fool Me" was included to give Phil Collins a vocal number. "Deja Vu" was also performed on Hackett's 2019 tour.

richardh wrote: ^ just need something to replace Battle Of Epping Forest

Or all of the shorter songs (minus "Aisle of Plenty"), although "I Know What I Like" and "After the Ordeal" would have been missed.

I feel if these bonus tracks really had replaced actual album tracks, we'd be complaining about the actual album tracks being left out if said tracks were still released in some form.

Sean Trane wrote: richardh wrote: ^ just need something to replace Battle Of Epping Forest Epping Forest & Ordeal are the best thing on SEBTP

Saperlipopette! wrote: ^I have a stronger dislike of Epping Forest than More Fool Me. It grates my ears. It's a complete mystery to me how an album containg those two mentioned songs is considered one of the greatest Prog albums of all time.

Agreed, and with "Epping Forest" in particular. Like a bad guest, it wears out it's welcome after 3 or 4 minutes, but stays long after everyone else has gone home and you want to go to bed.

I have previously reviewed Wishbone Ash's No Smoke Without Fire on this site and commented that the CD had two bonus tracks which are really good and could have been on the main album if not for the constraints of vinyl.

The main album has one track which I don't much care for (Ships In The Sky) and another (Stand and Deliver) which is good musically but has dodgy lyrics. So I would replace those two songs with Time and Space and Firesign.

Another Wishbone Ash album that I feel could be improved is Pilgrimage. The 10 minute live track brings the album down for me, given that it's 25% of the running time. Also the song "Alone" was originally recorded as a longer song with vocals and the producer turned it into a short instrumental because of the running time constraints. Finally, the band had a really good song which later surfaced on the First Light album which was never used on any of their albums (Roads of Day To Day). So my alternative Pilgrimage would be

Side 1

Vas Dis
Alone (with vocals)
Jail Bait
Lullaby

Side 2

The Pilgrim
Valediction
Roads of Day to Day

My god we could be here all day. I'm sure there's something on time and a word that can be replaced with "dear father." Also, what about Jethro Tull? I think they have quite a few of these. Then again most prog bands do.

dr prog wrote: Tull have several songs from every album year that are better than album songs

For me Aqualung works well with the five tracks from the 'Life Is a Long Song' E.P. tacked onto the end of the album

Sean Trane wrote: The Dark Elf wrote: Saperlipopette! wrote: ^I have a stronger dislike of Epping Forest than More Fool Me. It grates my ears. It's a complete mystery to me how an album containg those two mentioned songs is considered one of the greatest Prog albums of all time. Agreed, and with "Epping Forest" in particular. Like a bad guest, it wears out it's welcome after 3 or 4 minutes, but stays long after everyone else has gone home and you want to go to bed. Epping Forest has got to be their funniest track of the 70's. The lyrics are awesome and the music fits them perfectly, though it's clear more instrumental time might've done it more good. I think this track should've needed another three or four minutes more. Furthermore Epping Forest fits perfectly as the centrepiece the album's concept (Britain's decline), something MFM isn't at all. A reworked Twilight Alehouse might've been worked in as well, but since it existed since Nursery Cryme... dr prog wrote: Tull have several songs from every album year that are better than album songs That may be rather true for the later 70's albums (and later on as well), but for the pre-TAAB albums, I don't think it was often the case. Sure a couple of singles (Christmas Day, Living In The Past, Singing All Day, etc...) might've sat well with This Was or Benefit, but not at the expense of another track. And certainly not on Aqualung or Stand Up (or Brick, FTM)

Edited by Sean Trane - Yesterday at 06:08

Hi,

The WHITE ALBUM was more about all four of the guys doing their own thing, and as such a lot of things in there were different, which was a nice touch compared to what they had done before. I think (I think!!!) that the fact that it really did not have a "hit" that the radio waves could attach itself to, like they did before, was the part that many of us, AT THE TIME, could not exactly enjoy or appreciate. As time went by, the album got "better and better" and much more interesting.

The idea/comment about "Revolution #9" is a bit weird, and it shows how we often are not capable of making sense of the simplest things ... don't worry, I've had my share of those, too!!! ... but all in all, the only thing you gotta do is walk down the street with a recording something, and do it non stop for several minutes ... and while there are no "lyrics", the whole thing is sort of A DAY IN THE LIFE on a different level, and not exactly like a song that we were more used to and expected. But, it spoke volumes. The Beatles were not just about songs, and they were PEOPLE that also heard, and saw the same things we did, day in and out, and us being disappointed with that is a bit weird as if we were deaf and not able to hear anything like it.

NOTE: CAN did this on Tago Mago, and we thought it was excellent. So, why did we think that The Beatles could not do something like it?

I think that we need to stop with the idea of "filler", since this is how an artist expresses himself/herself, and how it is done is very different in many places, but the advent of "SOUND" creating a story, is not a foreign idea, and had been around for a long time in the European history of music and the experimentations with it.

If this were you, or I, I think we would probably laugh at folks not liking something, because you or I did not understand it, or didn't even try to make any sense of it. Again, this is A DAY IN THE LIFE ... walking down the street, and I'm not sure that we can say that it happening is not a valid expression of the public and everything around us or them.

That it was included in an album that is supposed to have just hits for radio ... that's really something silly in my book, and I'm not sure that even as a fan, I have the right to say that the Beatles, or any other band, do not have the right to interpret their own work as they see fit and developed.

It's what makes it an art ... instead of just a song for radio. We, as "progressive" folks should be able to get past that idea of everything having to be a song that has to be played on radio. Specially these days in the 21st Century.

Edited by moshkito - 4 hours 4 minutes ago at 07:56