MADE AGAIN

I've had this one in my collection for a few years now. I was listening it again today and contemplating a review, but now I'm beginning to wonder why I have this thing taking space up in my collection, other than I've never parted with a single CD title by anyone that I've collected, except for the unremasters I've replaced.

Now don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with the quality of the music, but the versions offered here are almost exactly like the studio versions. There's the audience noise and maybe Steve sings a little more enthusiastically, but not too much so. Joe Jackson, if I can invoke his name here, illustrates what's missing here on his Live 80/86. There's three different versions of Is She Really Going Out With Him?, each radically different from the studio version and better, too. This is one of the things that led me to respect him as a musician and take interest in his music.

Made Again would have been a more interesting album if they did more material from the Fish era, because at least for having a different vocalist, it would be a lot harder to sound just like the studio versions. Kayleigh on here illustrates that. Maybe the only reason for hanging on to this is I do get some material from the early Rotherty period that come from those albums. I've heard them but have no interest in adding them to my collection. Unfortunately, those are some of the most commercial tracks they have done. So this might be a good pick for those who want a little Marillion in their collection, but not a lot. This would have been much better though as a DVD, where if the music is too similar to the studio stuff, but at least you'd get to see them in action. I'd recommend the Marbles live DVD or Brave music video DVD before this one.