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Liam Carey reviews

IS THIS STILL ALOUD? Some six months ago, the debut album from last year's winners of Pop Idol: The Rivals was released. Sound Of The Underground featured 15 songs, including a pair of those "UK Edition" exclusives which characterise CDs from the Universal Music Group these days. It did reasonably well, but clearly not well enough for the record label who are now seeking to maximise some of the unfulfilled potential. An all-new edition is out this week, replete with a different sleeve and a staggering five alterations to the CD's contents. Third hit Life Got Cold features in its Radio Mix, its B-side Girls On Film (yes, the early 80s Duran Duran classic) is also added, while the original album version of Some Kind Of Miracle is replaced by its single mix, the track's chances of being a hit having been dashed at the eleventh hour by the baffling decision to go with Life Got Cold instead. Their current movie tie-in Jump (For My Love), from the latest cynically contrived Richard Curtis concoction Love Actually, has given them some momentum again; a trashily enjoyable exhumation of the Pointer Sisters' 1984 nugget, and it's included on the repackaged album. Those aforementioned UK-only bonus songs are among the trio ditched, however, with You Freak Me Out - taken from the soundtrack of another movie, the remake of teen flick Freaky Friday - joining Jump and Girls On Film as the completely new additions. For good measure, there are CD-ROM videos for the first three singles in an enhanced section. The ethics of this practice remains dubious at best, exploitative at worst but as long as the Official Charts Company (formerly CIN) and the industry regulators allow it the record companies can't be blamed for trying to squeeze some valuable extra Christmas sales from a slightly under-performing album.

RELEASE ROUND-UP: December is not traditionally noted for new high-profile studio albums, and to all intents and purposes this week is the last one of note for 2003. Compilations are typically out-gunning and out-numbering fresh material at the moment, with even the big pop names failing to prevail over some admittedly strong Best Of/Greatest Hits packages. Two female artists who emerged in 2001 have chosen December 1st to issue their difficult second albums; Nelly Furtado and Alicia Keys release Folklore and The Diary Of... respectively. Expect them to take off in the New Year, when the post-Christmas lull comes into play. Elsewhere it's yet more retrospectives; some less inspired than others. Tori Amos takes a, well, Tori-esque route to Greatest Hitsdom with her oddball collection Tales From A Librarian. Notable singles are overlooked (Pretty Good Year, Caught A Lite Sneeze, Raspberry Swirl), so this is a clearly a very personal overview of her catalogue rather than a trawl through her best-known songs. Many of those which make the cut are remixed or reworked, and a handful of new recordings make this anything but a sleepwalking money-for-old-rope exercise. The almost obligatory Bonus DVD edition is also costly for what it is, compared to the Red Hot Chili Peppers' similar Greatest Hits CD + DVD set. The RHCP have been chronicled before, way back in 1992 when former label EMI America cashed in on the slow-burning success of their Warner debut Blood Sugar Sex Magik with the cheekily-titled What Hits?. Then, only Under The Bridge could have been considered anything of the sort, but just over a decade on and the band are arguably one of the biggest on the planet. 1999's Californication finally built on the breakthrough made with Blood Sugar, followed by the majestic By The Way which did more than merely consolidate their reputation. Now is the perfect time, therefore, to round up this second phase of the Chili's career. Just a solitary 80s track appears on Greatest Hits, their cover of Stevie Wonder's Higher Ground, as the Warner years take deserved precedence. That said, 16 selections is a touch miserly in light of current trends; One Hot Minute (1995) has only one representative while even By The Way gets a mere two (Zephyr Song and Can’t Stop miss out). The doublepack version is more comprehensive since the DVD offers all the videos to their singles from Higher Ground onwards, so Aeroplane and Around The World also get a look in. Throughout the past year or so, Sony Music's marketing division has been on overtime, raiding their illustrious archives for the Essential series; uniformly presented (often 2CD) anthologies of acts from every genre. Bob Dylan, Miles Davis, Sly Stone, Janis Joplin, Neil Diamond, Heart, Barbara Streisand, Leonard Cohen, Paul Young, Cyndi Lauper; just about anyone who ever recorded a decent run of albums for Columbia, Epic or their tributary labels has been afforded the honour. Even Shaun Mullins. To round off 2003, the range turns its attentions to Bruce Springsteen (last compiled: 1995) and Simon & Garfunkel (already compiled at least three times since 1991). The limited edition 3-disc Springsteen release is admirably extensive, if not always satisfying or convincing in its selections (no Secret Garden, no I'm On Fire). Yet another Simon & Garfunkel Best Of is, for all the undisputed and enduring quality of the music, one too many in such a short space of time. Likewise The Very Best Of Cher; the third Cher collection in 11 years, offering nothing bar 2001's Music's No Good Without You that wasn't on The Greatest Hits in 1999.

FUTURE SOUNDS The best music on the horizon: JOHNNY CASH - UNEARTHED: The late, great Man In Black made four towering albums for Rick Rubin's American imprint, with Rubin himself in the producer's chair. He stripped down Cash's sound, allowing that imperious voice to rightly take centre-stage. American Recordings, Unchained, Solitary Man and The Man Comes Around brought Cash back into the spotlight, while the AA-side Hurt/Personal Jesus finally sneaked into the UK Top 40 at the second, posthumous, time of asking. Now, the long-rumoured box-set of outtakes from the American era finally appears; 3 CDs of previously unreleased tracks, plus a fourth disc comprising the pick of what did make it onto the albums.

Page Content copyright © Liam Carey, 2003.

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The following is a list of Liam's Liner Notes online :

Volume 22: December 17th 2003
Volume 21: December 3rd 2003
Volume 20: November 5th 2003
Volume 19: October 22nd 2003
Volume 18: October 8th 2003
Volume 17: September 24th 2003
Volume 16: September 10th 2003
Volume 15: August 27th 2003
Volume 14: August 13th 2003
Volume 13: July 30th 2003
Volume 12: July 9th 2003
Volume 11: June 25th 2003
Volume 10: June 11th 2003
Volume 9: May 28th 2003
Volume 8: May 14th 2003
Volume 7: April 30th 2003
Volume 6: April 16th 2003
Volume 5: April 2nd 2003
Volume 4: March 19th 2003
Volume 3: March 5th 2003
Volume 2: February 19th 2003
Volume 1: February 5th 2003

As of April 2009, Blu-rays and DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TH-37PX80B 37" Plasma TV with a Sony BDP-1500 Blu-ray player and played through a Yamaha DSP-AX820 amplifier.

PC games reviewed by the editor are on: