EXTENDED VERSIONS: THE ENCORE COLLECTION

Inventive marketing

"Extended versions" is a rather misleading title for a series of record label cash in CDs by various bands. The CDs released under this title contain previously released live versions of tracks, which may or may not be longer than the originals. A quick glance at the track timings will reveal that a number of the tracks are in fact shorter than their studio counterparts.

In the case of this release dedicated to ELP, the material is extracted from their "King Biscuit Flower Hour" live album. Not all the tracks from that collection are here though, and many of those which are sound far better on the "Work's live" album.

The track titles will already be familiar to ELP fans, but don't expect to hear some lost gems or extended versions in the usual sense, i.e. with extra verses, extended instrumental breaks, dub remixes(!) etc.

The way these tracks have been gathered together is rather haphazard. They represent neither ELP's best tracks, not their most accessible, in many ways I would suggest a better title would have been "Works live volume 2", reflecting its similarities to the disappointing "Works volume 2" compilation.

For ELP completionists only.

Nothing new under the sun....A mishmash of live tracks that represent neither the "best" of Emerson, Lake, and Palmer, nor anything rare or essential. About what you would expect from the company that gives us these Extended Version releases...low budget cost for a low budget release. And at only about 40 minutes, you don't really get anything extended at all. I have seen these albums from bands as diverse as ELP, Iggy Pop, Foghat, The Monkees, Molly Hatchet, Mountain, Styx, Kansas, and probably about a million more I can't recall at the moment. FOr collectors and anybody looking to aquire anything and everything with the ELP title on it. 1 star (at most). Stick with WORKS or the regular ELP releases.

Obviously, I missed a couple of tricks when I was a record label manager.

Or rather; I was not as cynical, morally depraved and money grabbing as the label owner who released this album. The "art" here is to grab a live album from the nearest record shop from a popular artist, dismantle it and then paste the songs together as a new and exlusive live album. I have seen this done on Gentle Giant and on Rennaissance albums. The King Biscuit live albums is popular items for shoplifters, make that record label managers like this.

This piece of of live album suffers from a bad pair of scissors and some dodgy glue. In short; the editing is abysmal bad. My guess is that the label manager sniffed the glue during the editing. That explains the punctuated live performance and total lack of dynamics here. Unfortunate for this label manager; this band has released some really superb live album. Comparing those with this shoddy offering is like comparing a sunny day with a black night.

This is a criminally shoddy live album which gives both the band and the music industry a bad name. Period.

1 star