On The Records

Sure most fans know the major albums by The Beatles, but some of the odder releases may have been forgotten.  Here are the American releases (including some rare ones), along with the major British releases that had different album covers (they’re not normally seen together, and photos can be clicked to enlarge).  Being a Beatles fan since “I Want To Hold Your Hand” was released in late 1963, I owned all but two of these albums, and there are a lot of them!

The Beatle’s first album in England was Please Please Me released in April of 1963.  The cover has a clever shot of The Beatles looking down from a landing.

In America, the nearly identical album was called Introducing The Beatles.  Capitol Records had turned down releasing The Beatles even though EMI/Parlophone in England was their parent company.  So Vee-Jay got the rights, and for some reason ended up with the most boring Beatles cover ever. The album was originally scheduled to be released in July of 1963, but Vee-Jay didn’t actually release the album until January 10th, 1964.  That was after the single “I Want To Hold Your Hand” was a huge hit for Capitol (which had come to their senses).  Introducing The Beatles was released just ten days before The Beatles’ first Capitol album.

The Beatles were already past their second album in England.  With The Beatles was released in the U.K. November of 1963.  In America, the album came out in January, 1964 and was called Meet The Beatles.  It included “I Want To Hold Your Hand”, “I Saw Her Standing There”, and “This Boy”, which were not on the British version.  If you want to know which singles were on which albums, you can read my article “The Beatles…Singles Left Off Albums”.  Here’s the link when you want to check it out:  https://ontherecords.net/2017/11/the-beatles-singles-left-off-albums/

The immense popularity of The Beatles caused more recordings to come out of the woodwork.  English singer Tony Sheridan had used The Beatles (billed as The Beat Brothers) to back him on a record he made in Germany in 1962.  Somehow in 1964 this became a Beatles album.  It actually has only two songs by The Beatles, an original instrumental, “Cry For A Shadow”, and a cover of “Ain’t She Sweet”.  I decided not to buy this one.

The third major Beatles album in America was curiously named The Beatles’ Second Album.  Capitol apparently didn’t want to admit Vee-Jay had released an album at all, even though it was a big hit.  The Beatles’ Second Album was put out in April of 1964.  The U.S. was catching up on all the songs The Beatles had recorded in 1963, and they completely dominated the charts.  During one week in April of 1964 they had the top two albums and the top five singles.

Just two months later, June of 1964 (early July in England), The Beatles released the album and movie A Hard Day’s Night.  In England, it was a full album with 13 songs written by John Lennon & Paul McCartney.  In America, the soundtrack was released by United Artists.  It only had seven of the same songs, plus instrumental music from the film.

Since Capitol didn’t have the rights to the movie soundtrack, they had to come up with something new.  So they “cleverly” named the album, Something New.  It was a mix of some non-soundtrack songs from the British A Hard Day’s Night album, a couple of American singles, and some of the songs from the movie.

Not to be outdone for coming up with ways to repackage The Beatles, Vee-Jay put together a two-record set with their other big act, The Four Seasons.  This was the second of the two albums I didn’t buy.  I already had all The Beatles’ songs, and the three big hits by The Four Seasons.

American “Capitolism” was on full display with an expensive two album set that told The Beatles’ Story.  I think I listened to it once.  Vee-Jay had also put out a similar interview album.

In November of 1964, the English album, Beatles For Sale, became Beatles ’65 in America.  That brought the total number of major Beatles albums released in the U.S. in 1964 to six.  Beatlemania indeed!

Capitol finally got the rights to The Beatles songs they had turned down in 1963, so they packaged them in their own version of the Please Please Me album, The Early Beatles, in March of 1965.

American albums had fewer songs than the British albums, so every once in a while, Capitol made their own albums.  In June of 1965, Beatles VI was mostly made up of leftover songs from Beatles For Sale, combined with songs from the upcoming Help album that were not on the American soundtrack.

In England, Help (August 1965) was a full 14 songs long.  In America, Capitol only used 7 Beatles songs, and filled it with instrumentals from the film.  That’s one way we got more Beatles albums in America.

Looking at the English and American covers of Rubber Soul (December 1965), it seems the only difference is the color of the title.  In reality, there’s a big six song difference between the records.  Capitol left off four songs, and added two that had been on Help in the U.K.

On the left is the original “butcher cover” for the American album Yesterday And Today.  Radio stations and retail stores complained about the cover, and Capitol changed it to the one on the right.  Yesterday And Today was released in June of 1966.  It consisted mainly of “leftover” songs from Help & Rubber Soul, plus tracks from the not-yet-released Revolver.

The U.S. and U.K. album covers for Revolver (August 1966) are basically identical.  The difference was that three John Lennon songs had been placed on Yesterday And Today instead.

Finally, by June of 1967, all Beatles albums would contain the same songs in England and America…starting with the amazing Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

Well, the idea of having all the albums the same lasted one album.  When the Magical Mystery Tour EP (extended play 2-disc 45) was released in the U.K. in November of 1967, Capitol turned it into a full album by putting 5 songs from singles on the other side.  This was actually a good idea, and it’s now the official album on both sides of the Atlantic.

After the psychedelic covers of Sgt. Pepper and Magical Mystery Tour, The Beatles (White Album) used a minimalistic cover in 1968.

Because animation takes a long time to complete, the Yellow Submarine movie gave The Beatles another psychedelic album cover in January of 1969.  There were only four new songs on the album, and side two was instrumental soundtrack music.  A much better version called a “Songtrack” was released in 1999.

Easily one of the most iconic album covers is Abbey Road in September of 1969.  It was actually the final album The Beatles recorded together.

What’s a record company to do when they have singles that never appeared on any of their albums.  Capitol’s last weird American album was Hey Jude in February of 1970.  It was also the last photo shoot of the four Beatles together.  The album was originally going to be named The Beatles Again, and my memory is that title was printed on the record label.

The final original Beatles album to be released, Let It Be (May 1970), was recorded before Abbey Road, but was delayed until Apple was satisfied with the final production, and it was timed to the release of the film.

The first official U.S. & U.K. Beatles hits collections were released in April of 1973.  The Red Album covered 1962-1966, and the Blue Album 1967-1970.  These were both double albums.  The cover shot for the Blue Album was a cool 1969 recreation of the photo on The Beatles’ first album.  It definitely shows how much The Beatles changed over a 6-year period, and their music changed at least as much.  The photo was originally going to be used on the Get Back/Let It Be project in 1969.

So, how could Capitol and Parlophone (Apple) release more Beatles albums?  Well, in June of 1976, they grouped together the most “Rock & Roll” Beatles songs (originals and covers) into a double album called Rock ‘N’ Roll Music.

In late 1962, The Beatles were making their final appearances in Hamburg Germany.  Somebody used a single microphone and a portable wire recorder to capture a performance at the Star-Club.  Of course it’s historic, but the sound was bad on this 1977 release.  I’m sure I only listened to it once.

In May of 1977 came the first official release of a Beatles live album The Beatles At The Hollywood Bowl.  It’s an example of the band’s short concerts from the mid-sixties.  With all the screaming, the sound quality is not great.  It was upgraded in 2016 for the documentary Eight Days A Week.

A collection named Love Songs was released in October of 1977.  It was another double album featuring some beautiful ballads, and the softer side of the Fab Four.

Ten years after The Beatles split, two albums of Rarities were released.  One was a U.K. version, and the other U.S.  They had different tracks, because what constituted rarities varied by what had been released in each country.  My favorite rarity was “Penny Lane” with that cool trumpet ending that was originally on the single, but was ultimately left off when it was released.

A reader reminded me about this Reel Music album from March of 1982.  The cover was a poorly drawn conglomeration of Beatles movie images, and the album, although it had some great songs, was mostly unnecessary.  It ended up in the cutout bins, because fans already had the songs.  I do have the single of the “Movie Medley” Capitol edited together.  The picture sleeve is next to the album above..

Who could even limit Beatles songs to 20 Greatest Hits?  Apple tried to do it in October of 1982.  The songs chosen were slightly different in the U.S and the U.K., because of which songs were #1 in each country.  One detail that stood out to me was that “Hey Jude” had about 2-minutes less of “Na Na’s at the end.  It was shortened because of the time limitations of vinyl records.

When Beatles albums came out on CD’s in 1987 (using the U.K. versions), they found a way to handle the songs that were not on those British albums.  Originally, Past Masters had two volumes, but they soon put all the songs on one CD.

When The Beatles appeared on BBC radio programs in the early ‘60’s, they made original recordings at the BBC’s studios.  Mostly they used the opportunity to record songs they liked that weren’t their own.  In November 1994, a two CD collection of these recordings was released, Live At The BBC.  A second volume was released in 2013.

Three double albums of alternate takes and rarities, Anthology 1, 2 & 3 were a treasure trove for Beatles fans.  They were released from November of 1995 to October of 1996.  Beatles friend/artist/musician Klaus Voormann created the three covers that were part of a large art piece.

The Yellow Submarine Songtrack was released in September of 1999.  It featured a much larger number of songs than were on the original movie soundtrack.  It was the first major project of remixing well known Beatles songs.

In November of 2000, a Greatest Hits package was released that only The Beatles could make.  It has 27 songs that all hit #1 on the charts in England or America.  The Beatles 1 is one of the best-selling albums of all time.  In 2015, the album was remixed, and the colors on the cover of the CD/DVD version were reversed.

Paul McCartney was never satisfied with the overproduction by Phil Spector on the Let It Be album.  So, in November of 2003, McCartney (with Ringo & George’s approval) released Let It Be…Naked.  It took the album back to the original intent of the band, which was to present the songs as played by just The Beatles and Billy Preston, with no overdubs.

We got another version of Let It Be in October of 2021, when the remixed box set was released, shortly before the documentary film The Beatles: Get Back.  The remix release of Revolver was October 28th, 2022, and Rubber Soul is expected in 2024.

Having been enjoyed for over half-a-century, Beatles songs are likely to maintain their popularity for many decades to come.

How did the old Classic Rock Albums perform in the Top 200 album sales in 2020?  I wasn’t positive there’d be any Classic albums on the list.  Don’t most fans already have them?  Rolling Stone magazine released the sales figures for the year, which is a combination of actual sales and equivalent sales by streaming.  It turns out Classic albums made the list…starting at #46.

What Classic Rock album did the best?  If you knew it was an album by the Eagles, you might guess Eagles Greatest Hits (the biggest selling album of all time), or Hotel California (the 3rd best selling album of all time).  The surprise is that it’s Eagles, their very first album!

The album features “Take It Easy”, “Witchy Woman”, and “Peaceful Easy Feeling”, but those are on on the hits album too, so people must want to hear the other tracks on that first album (unless Rolling Stone listed the wrong album).  The number to the right side of the ranking is the number of equivalent sales from a combination of actual sales and streaming.

The second highest Classic album is a little more predictable, because Queen has had a major surge in popularity since their big biographic movie.

A Beatles album made the list, and it’s the one that younger Beatles fans seem to favor.  The 50th Anniversary remix of Abbey Road was released in the fall of 2019.

If I would have guessed which Classic album did best, it would have been Rumours by Fleetwood Mac.  That’s because of the “Dreams” viral skateboard video.  Fleetwood Mac didn’t get the top Classic album, but they were one of only two Classic Rock acts to place two albums on the list.

And here are the rest of the Classic albums in the Top 200 list of equivalent album sales in 2020.

The top album of 2020 was by the only artist whose album actually sold over one-million hard & digital units, Taylor Swift.  The next highest album sold less than half as much.  Add in the streaming, and it’s still Taylor Swift’s folklore at #1.

Taylor Swift had a total of five albums in the Top 200 for 2020.  Extra trivia:  Of her first 8 albums, 5 of them have been the biggest selling albums in the year they were released (a record).  Swift’s 9th album, evermore, was released very late in 2020, so it could at least have a slight chance to be the biggest seller in 2021.  However, the smart money would be on a new release by Adele.  Her last two albums led sales for a total of two years each.

It’s right that new albums in 2020 are the biggest sellers, but it’s impressive that some Classic albums are still selling and streaming as much as 50 years after they were released!

So, after I wrote the above article…

I checked how Billboard  ranked the top selling albums of 2020.  The only real agreement between Rolling Stone and Billboard is that Taylor Swift’s folklore is the top album.

Here’s the ranking of the Classic albums and four new albums by Classic artists (James Taylor, The Who, Bruce Springsteen & Bob Dylan) in the Billboard 2020 sales chart. This ranking of the Top 100 albums is based on real sales, and do not include streaming (that’s the big difference).

It looks like the Billboard chart makes a little more sense, or at least it shows which albums people were actually willing to buy.  By the way, 2020 was the first year since 1986 that vinyl records outsold CD’s, and the most vinyl albums sold since 1991.  Pretty amazing popularity for a technology (vinyl albums & turntable cartridges) introduced in 1948.

What both lists show is that some great Classic Rock albums are still being purchased and streamed, with one of them, Abbey Road, being the 12th best-selling album 51 years after it was released!

The first rivals for The Beatles were Gerry & The Pacemakers.

Both groups were from Liverpool, and were regular performers at The Cavern Club.  The two bands also played in the clubs of Hamburg, Germany, and both had Brian Epstein for a manager & George Martin as their producer.

You can see that Gerry Marsden performed with his guitar held unusually high.

Gerry & The Pacemakers won the race to #1 on the English charts in 1963 with the song “How Do You Do It?”.  George Martin first presented the song to The Beatles, and they recorded it, but they convinced Martin to release their own song, “Love Me Do”, instead.  It made it to #17.  Gerry & The Pacemakers’ “How Do You Do It?” went all the way to the top.  They followed that with two more #1 songs, “I Like It” and “You’ll Never Walk Alone”, also in 1963.  That last one is a ballad from the 1950’s musical/movie Carousel.

Gerry Marsden’s vocal on “You’ll Never Walk Alone” was so popular that the recording was played at the games of the Liverpool Football Club, and the song has remained their official anthem ever since.

Gerry & The Pacemakers and The Beatles were friends, and toured together in 1963 with Roy Orbison.  Here’s a posed photo from the tour, as the groups pretend to be fighting over singer Louise Cordet.

After The Beatles broke big in America, the “British Invasion” began, and bands like Gerry & The Pacemakers became popular here too.  Their first American hit was “Don’t Let The Sun Catch You Crying”, which was also the band’s first self-written hit.  It went to #4 in 1964, and was followed successfully by their previous English releases…”How Do You Do It?” #9, and “I Like It” #17.

I bought all the singles by Gerry & The Pacemakers.  They were on the Laurie label, because Capitol Records in the U.S. had turned them down, just like they did the early recordings by The Beatles.

Gerry & The Pacemakers had three hits in 1965…”I’ll Be There” #14, “Ferry Cross The Mersey” #6, and “It’s Gonna Be Alright” #23.  They also made a movie named after their second biggest hit.

Unfortunately, like most of the British Invasion bands, Gerry & The Pacemakers hit-making only lasted a short time.  Their final hit was “Girl On A Swing” #28 in 1966.  I even bought that one.  After that, it was just the release of multiple “Best Of” albums.

The band officially split up in 1969, and Gerry Marsden had a short, but successful acting career.  He later did some touring with various musicians in the role of “Pacemakers”.  After that, I would see him from time to time being interviewed for a number of documentaries about The Beatles.  He was always upbeat, interesting, and very likable.  He obviously had enjoyed his time as a part of the British revival of Rock & Roll in the sixties.

In an interview, Marsden said…”The main thing is to enjoy what you’re doing.  All the pressure crap you hear, people bring that on themselves.”

On January 3rd, 2021 it was announced that Gerry Marsden had died after a short illness from a heart infection.  He was 78.  Among the many musicians paying tribute was Paul McCartney.

McCartney is right about remembering Gerry Marsden with a smile.  Gerry wrote and recorded uplifting songs that are still fun to hear.

Paul McCartney is an amazing musician.  He seems to be a musical savant who can play guitar, bass, keyboards, drums, and nearly any instrument he picks up.  McCartney III is the third album in his 50 year solo career that he made with almost no help from anyone else…writing all the songs, playing all the instruments, and singing all the vocal parts.

The above album cover and the photos used in this article were taken by Mary McCartney.  The photos are really good, and you can click to enlarge them.  You may remember Mary from this photo her mom, Linda, took for the first McCartney album in 1970:

That’s Mary peeking out from Paul’s coat.

That first album featured the songs “Maybe I’m Amazed”, “Junk”, and “Every Night”, which were the tracks worthy of being on a Beatles album.  McCartney II came out in 1980, and featured “Coming Up” (#1), “Waterfalls”, “Summer’s Day Song”, and the some-like-it-some-don’t “Temporary Secretary”.  Now 30-years later, at the age of 78, Paul McCartney has done it again.

Paul says the pandemic forced him away from live performances and into his own studio.  The result was released yesterday, December 18th, 2020.  McCartney III has received almost all positive reviews.

I love so many of Paul McCartney’s songs that I own nearly everything he’s released.  My collecting began when The Beatles first broke in America.  So, the next sentence is hard to write.  I have to be honest and say that on McCartney III his voice shows it’s age, and I don’t hear any songs that compare with the best tracks on his previous albums.  “When Winter Comes” and “Seize The Day” probably come closest.   But if you’re a fan, you’ll still want to stream the new album, and decide for yourself, maybe you’ll agree with all those positive reviews.

McCartney has made the album available on vinyl, and it comes in various colors, including red, green, and yellow.

It’s mostly just McCartney’s three one-man albums that cause people to talk about his multi-instrument musicianship, but his best album, Band On The Run, is nearly the same.  Paul had basically lost his band, Wings, prior to the album.  Only Linda McCartney and guitarist Denny Laine remained.  Except for some of the guitar parts, Paul played all the instruments on the basic album.  Later, orchestral overdubs were added.  McCartney sometimes played multiple instruments on Beatles recordings too.

Paul McCartney long ago secured his position as one of the greatest songwriters, singers, and musicians of all time.  Many of us have been fortunate to enjoy his music for six decades.

Update:  The first week sales of McCartney III placed it at #1 on the Album Sales chart, and #2 on Billboard’s Top 200 albums.  Paul McCartney is the only artist to place albums in the top two for six straight decades!

After many years of promising, Neil Young finally released his Archives Vol. II. That’s eleven years after Archives Vol. I was released in 2009.  This second volume covers 1972 through 1976.  Neil will have to speed things up if he wants to release archives from the other 44 years of his career.

It’s great to get some unreleased songs and alternate versions of songs we’d only heard about, or maybe found on bootlegs.  Of the 131 songs on Archives Vol. 2, there are 12 that were not previously released, 51 songs that are unreleased alternate versions (many of them live), and 68 tracks that were previously released on Neil’s albums.

The songs are mostly from Time Fades Away, On The Beach, Tonight’s The Night, and Zuma.  The original recordings from those albums are almost all included.  There are also versions of songs from Comes A Time, American Stars ‘n Bars, Rust Never Sleeps, and Hawks & Doves.  If you have those eight albums, you already own over half of the recordings in the box set.

I started collecting Neil Young songs in 1969 with Retrospective: The Best Of Buffalo Springfield.  Then I bought almost all of his studio albums up to 2005.  After that, I’ve purchased individual tracks from many of his albums.  I bought the recently released album  Homegrown, which was actually recorded in ‘74-‘75 and is in this box set.

The $250 Deluxe box set sold out (3000 units) as soon as it went on sale on Neil Young’s site in November, 2020.  More sets were made available March 5th, 2021.  There is also a $160 set (lower-priced on Amazon, $116 in March 2021) with exactly the same 10 CD’s, but without a hard-cover book.  That set is sold in stores and online retail sites, and is in iTunes for $100.  All of the tracks were also added to streaming sites on March 5th, 2021.

So, how is Archives Vol. II?  There are some gems.  The 1976 Crosby Stills Nash & Young version of “Human Highway” sounds great (the 1973 version is here too, but the harmonies are not as good).  It was going to be the title song of their album to follow-up Deja Vu and their solo work of the early ’70’s.  This version of the song was recorded during the Long May You Run sessions.  The other really good recording from that session is “Midnight On The Bay”.  If you want to know more about the lost Human Highway album, here’s the link to the article on this site, when you’re ready to check it out (it includes the audio of the songs):  https://ontherecords.net/2018/06/csny-human-highway-the-lost-album/

Homegrown, which is on it’s own disc, had been another “lost album” that was originally supposed to be released in 1975.  It includes seven good songs that weren’t already available.

The box set has three recordings of “Love/Art Blues”, a song which was worked on during the Homegrown sessions. A solo version, and a trio version (on Disc-6 of the box set) are both very good.  The third version has a poor ending.  An impressive recording of the song can be found on the CSNY 1974 live album.  You can’t beat CSN&Y harmonies.  Proof of that is a solo version of “Through My Sails” which screams out for the harmonies of CSN (if you’re used to the Zuma version).

Other previously unreleased standouts include the first studio version of “The Bridge”, “Homefires” & “Daughters” (those two from the Homegrown sessions), and “Come Along And Say You Will” (from 1972, the same year as Harvest).  Plus, there are nice live versions of “Stringman” and “Midnight On The Bay”.  These two are on a disc separate from the three concert discs.

How valuable Archives II is to you is probably based on how many of the songs you already own.  Or, you can obviously stream the whole thing, since it’s been added to streaming services.

Now, we wait for Neil Young Archives III.  Neil says it won’t be long this time.  We’ve heard that before, but maybe at age 75 he feels a greater urgency.  We look forward to more treasures.  Update:  Neil says he hopes to have Volume III out before the end of 2023 (Yeah, that didn’t happen.).

Extra:  This playlist helps point out (in order of recording dates) some of the best studio recordings of previously unreleased songs and alternate versions.  Only four of these songs/versions were *previously available.

1. The Bridge (11/15/72)
2. Come Along And Say You Will (12/15/72)
3. Homefires (6/16/74)
4. Love Is A Rose* (6/16/74)
5. White Line (Acoustic) [9/12/74]
6. Frozen Man (11/4/74)
7. Changing Highways (12/4/74)
8. Love/Art Blues (Trio Version) [12/10/74]
9. Try (12/11/74)
10. Daughters (12/11/74)
11. Deep Forbidden Lake* (12/13/74)
12. Star Of Bethlehem* (12/13/74)
13. Homegrown (12/13/74)
14. We Don’t Smoke It (12/31/74)
15. Vacancy (1/4/75)
16. Little Wing* (1/21/75)
17. Kansas (1/21/75)
18. Lookin’ For Love (8/29/75)
19. No One Seems To Know (9/11/75)
20. Midnight On The Bay (w/CSN) [4/14/76]
21. Human Highway (w/CSN) [4/15/76]

Fifteen of these songs…#3 though #17…were recorded during the Homegrown album sessions from mid 1974 to early 1975.  Neil Young could easily have put together another album similar in quality to After The Gold Rush, Harvest, or Comes A Time.  Instead, he released Tonight’s The Night (which he had recorded in 1973).  When he recently released Homegrown, he didn’t include some really good songs… “Homefires”, “Frozen Man”, “Love/Art Blues”, “Daughters”, and “Deep Forbidden Lake”…even though some were recorded on the same days as other songs on the album.  Fortunately, we can put the songs together in a very strong playlist like this.

Neil Young waited about 45 years to release most of these recordings.  It’s so enjoyable getting to know his “new” old songs.

Wildflowers is Tom Petty’s best album…and that’s according to Tom Petty.  After he said that, he qualified it a bit by saying Full Moon Fever & Damn The Torpedoes were right there too.  Tom had wanted Wildflowers to be a 25-song double album in 1994, but his record company convinced him to make it a 15-song single album.

In 2017, Tom was looking forward to releasing the full double album, or at least the All The Rest album he had originally planned.  He also hoped to do a special tour to promote the release.  Sadly, on October 2nd, 2017, Tom Petty passed away from an accidental overdose of pain killers he was taking for a broken hip.

(My 4 CD Deluxe edition which includes a built-in 48 page book with background info on each recording, plus photos & artwork.)

Three years later, we have an extensive box set that includes the original 25 Wildflowers songs as well as demos, live versions, and alternate takes.  So, is Wildflowers & All The Rest as good as fans hoped?  We’ll look at the discs, beginning with the original album.

Wildflowers (Disc 1)

1. Wildflowers
2. You Don’t Know How It Feels
3. Time To Move On
4. You Wreck Me
5. It’s Good To Be King
6. Only A Broken Heart
7. Honey Bee
8. Don’t Fade On Me
9. Hard On Me
10. Cabin Down Below
11. To Find A Friend
12. A Higher Place
13. House In the Woods
14. Crawling Back To You
15. Wake Up Time

Like most great albums, it starts extremely strong.  The first six songs are of such high quality, they would be considered a “perfect album side” for a regular 12-song album.  Besides the excellent title song, there are three singles:  “You Don’t Know How It Feels”, “You Wreck Me” and “It’s Good To Be King”, one of Tom Petty’s favorites.  The song’s lyrics are meaningful, while still being humorous, and the arrangement with orchestration is perfection.

The song quality is high on the rest of the album too.  “Honey Bee”, “Cabin Down Below”, and “A Higher Place” are rocking single-sounding songs The Heartbreakers often played in concerts.  “Don’t Fade On Me” and “Crawling Back To You” showcase Petty’s more sensitive side.

Tom Petty believed Wildflowers represents when he was at the height of his songwriting powers.  He said in an interview that the song “Wildflowers” flowed through him in its completed form.  Unlike most artists whose careers start strong and fade, Petty’s personal peak came mid-career (18-years after his first album).  The rest of his 40-year career shows his talent never faded, and his songwriting remained strong.

Producer Rick Rubin says that despite spending nearly two years recording Wildflowers, it still has an organic feel.

All The Rest (Disc 2)

1. Something Could Happen
2. Leave Virginia Alone
3. Climb That Hill Blues
4. Confusion Wheel
5. California (released on She’s The One soundtrack)
6. Harry Green
7. Hope You Never (on She’s The One soundtrack)
8. Somewhere Under Heaven
9. Climb That Hill (on She’s The One soundtrack)
10. Hung Up And Overdue (on She’s The One soundtrack)

Tom Petty had previously selected these songs and put them in this order.  The thought was to possibly release the songs as a single album.

Three songs on the All The Rest disc were available for streaming prior to the album release.  Both “Leave Virginia Alone” and “Confusion Wheel” were released recently, and are very welcome additions to the Tom Petty catalog. “Somewhere Under Heaven” was put out five years ago near the 20th anniversary of Wildflowers.  It has a “jangly” guitar like the Byrds, but with a harder edge.  “Something Could Happen” has a classic Tom Petty sound that would have been welcome on the original album.

“Climb That Hill Blues” is an acoustic blues arrangement of “Climb That Hill”.  It’s actually one of Tom’s home recordings, and I prefer it to the more produced rock version.  “Harry Green” is believed to be about a real friend Tom knew in High School.  This one is also a home recording (with just a bit of overdubbing), and the sparse arrangement is the right touch for such a personal song.

“California”, “Hope You Never”, “Climb That Hill”, and “Hung Up And Overdue” were on the She’s The One movie soundtrack in 1996.  The tracks here are alternate versions that are very similar to the ones on the soundtrack.  These songs plus “Walls” and “Angel Dream” were the best songs on the soundtrack..

(This excellent photo, released with the set, would have made a cool cover.)

Home Recordings (Disc 3)

1. There Goes Angela (Dream Away)
2. You Don’t Know How It Feels
3. California
4. A Feeling Of Peace
5. Leave Virginia Alone
6. Crawling Back To You
7. Don’t Fade On Me
8. Confusion Wheel
9. A Higher Place
10. There’s A Break In The Rain (Have Love Will Travel)
11. To Find A Friend
12. Only A Broken Heart
13. Wake Up Time
14. Hung Up And Overdue
15. Wildflowers

The third disc has Tom Petty’s home-recorded demos for Wildflowers.  It’s a real treat.  Mostly it sounds like a Tom Petty Folk album, in a good way.  It starts with a really nice new song, “There Goes Angela (Dream Away)”.  Once fans get to know this cool little song, I think we’ll all be able to agree that Tom might have changed the name to “Have A Dream On Me”, before he put it on an album.  The song was not taken to the main Wildflowers sessions, but was recorded by Tom Petty in his home eight-track studio, as were all the other songs on this disc.  Here’s the song:

Other highlight tracks:  ”California” is probably the best version of the song, and even has an extra verse.  “To Find A Friend” seems better in this simpler version.  “Confusion Wheel” also sounds good in a stripped-down version.  “Don’t Fade On Me” and “Only A Broken Heart” have interesting vocal/melody choices that are different from the versions we know, and “Crawling Back To You” is “Comin’ Back To You”.

Tom’s demos show how much thought he put into arrangements before he took the songs to other musicians for the final album versions.  He played multiple instruments, and added vocal harmonies.  If you ever wished you could spend a little time with him in the studio, this is as close as it gets.  This disc has quickly become one of my favorite Tom Petty albums.

Wildflowers Live (Disc 4) [From 1995-2017]

1. You Don’t Know How It Feels
2. Honey Bee
3. To Find A Friend
4. Walls
5. Crawling Back To You
6. Cabin Down Below
7. Driving Down To Georgia
8. House In The Woods
9. Girl On LSD
10. Time To Move On
11. Wake Up Time
12. It’s Good To Be King
13. You Wreck Me
14. Wildflowers

Everyone knows Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers were one of the world’s best live bands, so naturally these tracks are high quality.  Eleven of the fourteen songs are from the Wildflowers album, and the other three are from around that same time.  It’s a solid disc, but the unreleased studio & home recordings are the real reason for the box set.

 Finding Wildflowers (Disc 5) [Alternate Versions]

1. A Higher Place
2. Hard On Me
3. Cabin Down Below
4. Crawling Back To You
5. Only A Broken Heart
6. Drivin’ Down To Georgia
7. You Wreck Me
8. It’s Good To Be King
9. House In The Woods
10. Honey Bee
11. Girl On LSD
12. Cabin Down Below (Acoustic)
13. Wildflowers
14. Don’t Fade On Me
15. Wake Up Time
16. You Saw Me Comin’                                                                                            
    I passed on spending another $100 to get the 5th disc, because even though alternate versions are interesting, the versions chosen for an album are almost invariably the best.  Update:  This disc was released as a single album on April 16th, 2021.  The price was $14.98 on Amazon.  Now that’s reasonable.  There’s a review of the disc on this site (there are some good tracks on it).  Here’s the link when you want to check it out:

https://ontherecords.net/2021/04/tom-petty-finding-wildflowers-angel-dream/

Summary:  Tom Petty fans will enjoy the expanded view of this time in his life.  Disc 1 is a killer album.  Disc 2 adds some songs we wouldn’t want to be without.  Disc 3 is an intimate look at a great songwriter & musician.  And, Disc 4 is a solid live album.  Fans should be happy with the collection Tom’s family put together with the help of Heartbreakers Mike Campbell and Benmont Tench.

(Photos of Mike, Benmont & Tom from the 1994 CD booklet)

Update:  Wildflowers & All The Rest went to #1 on the Rock Album chart, and #5 in the overall Top 200 chart.  That beats the original album’s ranking of #8.  Of course that’s with only 44,000 equivalent sales (38,000 actual).  It’s a good total for these days of streaming services, but very low compared with the 3-million+ sales of Wildflowers when it was first released in 1994.

Update (November, 2021):  A documentary, Tom Petty, Somewhere You Feel Free is being shown on YouTube, as of November 11th, 2021.  The film features footage shot during the making of Wildflowers, and that’s augmented by more recent interviews with those involved.

Bonus Story:  The single “You Don’t Know How It Feels” was Tom’s last Top 20 hit single (on the main Top 100 chart), but that wouldn’t have happened without a one word change to get it played on CHR (Contemporary Hit Radio) stations.  I had been working at KFRX-FM in Lincoln, which was a popular Top 40 station that reported for the national charts.  Most people don’t realize that Radio stations have to follow FCC rules about drug references on stations that have large teens-and-younger audiences, like CHR stations always do.  Program Director Sonny Valentine had previously approved “Mary Jane’s Last Dance” for airplay, but this time she was concerned about the line “Let’s roll another joint.”.

Fortunately, Tom Petty recorded a special “radio edit” of the song for CHR stations.  It changed the word “roll” to “hit”.  By singing “Let’s hit another joint”, the interpretation could be they were going to another bar, instead of rolling a joint.  The song would not have reached #13, and been heard by millions more music fans, without that change.

I have that “radio edit” recording, and the funny thing is, it sounds really good.  “Let’s get to the point.  Let’s hit another joint” makes a nice rhythmic rhyme scheme.  After this, Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers had songs that made the Mainstream Rock chart, but because of the changes in radio formats (Rock gave way to Hip-Hop & Pop), they had no more big hits on the major singles chart, the Hot 100.

We all know John Lennon’s songs from his solo career, but we’ve never heard them sounding this good.  In honor of what would have been his 80th Birthday (October 9th, 2020), 36 of his songs have been completely remixed from the master tapes.  The collection is called Gimme Some Truth.

The result is that we hear John Lennon’s voice more fully.  John tended to have producers process his voice with effects.  The new collection remixes the songs to better reflect John Lennon’s natural voice.  The instrumentation also benefits from the new mixes.  The recordings simply sound warmer and clearer.  Even though I’ve purchased these songs in multiple ways before, the improvement is worth the expense to me.  The main presentation is the deluxe 2-disc set.  There is also a one-disc 19-song version with selected songs from both discs (which are shown below).

(Click lists separately or zoom to enlarge.)

The collection was curated by Yoko Ono and Sean Lennon, and skillfully remixed by engineer Paul Hicks.  One could quibble with some of the song selections, and wish that the title wasn’t Gimme Some Truth, which had already been used for a John Lennon collection.  They could have just gone with the collection’s subtitle:  The Ultimate Remixes.

(My CD’s)

It’s always interesting to see what songs are most popular as they sell on iTunes.  “Instant Karma”, “Imagine” and “Watching The Wheels” are the top three.  “Instant Karma”, “Stand By Me”, and “Mind Games” were especially improved by the remixes, and really, all the songs are better.

The change in the quality of the audio will help John Lennon’s  songs be better received by future listeners.

Songwriting is an amazing process.  It creates some of the greatest art in the world, seemingly out of thin air.  The new documentary It All Begins With A Song lets us hear directly from some of the world’s most successful songwriters who work in Nashville, and it’s fascinating.

The accent is on country songs, but Nashville songwriters have written some of the biggest Rock and Pop hits too, like “Don’t Stop Believin’”.  The basics of songwriting are universal, even though individuals may incorporate various approaches.  Some start with an idea for a title or a topic.  Others start with various chord changes or riffs.  And sometimes, songwriters just wake up with a song in their heads.

That’s what happened to songwriter Michael Busbee, who wrote the song “Try” for Pink.  Busbee said the song was 95-percent from his “dream”, and then he worked with Ben West on developing it into a hit.  “Try” sold over 2-million copies.  It was a common theme in the film that songwriters often feel like they are able to “tap into something” that delivers a song through them.

It All Begins With A Song introduces us to successful songwriters like Brett James, shown above.  James has earned songwriting credits on 25 #1 country hits, including “Jesus Take The Wheel”, which was a hit for Carrie Underwood.  James sang the song to great effect in the film.  You’ll see that all these successful songwriters are talented instrumentalists, as well as good singers.

Still, it was telling when the film went from Jon Randell, one of the songwriters of “Whiskey Lullaby”, to the hit’s performers, Brad Paisley and Alison Krauss.  There’s a whole other talent level with singers like that.  “Whiskey Lullaby” was another 2-million seller, and the Country Song of the Year in 2005.

The documentary is filled with stories that will draw you in.  It includes references to some of Nashville’s legendary writers, like Kris Kristofferson and Harlan Howard.  Although not as famous to the public, Howard wrote a long list of country hits, including “I Fall To Pieces” for Patsy Cline.  He’s an inspiration to other songwriters, and he famously said…”Country Music is three chords and the truth.”

And the truth is, you’re going to be very moved when you see the story of a song written by Jessi Alexander (shown above), Connie Harrington, and Jimmy Yeary.  It’s called “I Drive Your Truck”.  Despite what could be the title of a light country song, it packs an emotional wallop.  It won the Country Music Association and Academy of Country Music 2013 “Song Of the Year” awards.

Besides being an extremely interesting 90-minutes about all that goes into songwriting, It All Begins With A Song is also high quality in all aspects of production.  The film is now showing on Amazon Prime, and is available for rent or purchase.

Even though Nashville songwriters have to compete with each other to get their songs recorded, they’re willing to share their expertise and work together.  A lesson for the world.

It was a good try in 2003, but the new list is a failure and a farce.

Rolling Stone magazine released its updated “500 Greatest Albums” list. They originally published the list in 2003, and in 2012 they updated it slightly.  This time, they blew it up.

(Some Classic Rock CD’s)

The wild movement of albums up & down from the previous list proves there is no such thing as a definitive list of the best albums.  Let’s look at the Top 10 of 2003/2012 compared with the new Top 10.  Only two albums from the old top ten survived in the new one.

2003/2012:  (New rank in parenthesis)

1. Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band…The Beatles (#24, dropped 23!)
2. Pet Sounds…The Beach Boys (#2)
3. Revolver…The Beatles (#11)
4. Highway 61 Revisited…Bob Dylan (#16)
5. Rubber Soul…The Beatles (#35, dropped 30!)
6. What’s Going On…Marvin Gaye (#1)
7. Exile On Main St….The Rolling Stones (#14)
8. London Calling…The Clash (#16)
9. Blonde On Blonde…Bob Dylan (#38, dropped 29!)
10. The Beatles (White Album)…The Beatles (#29, dropped 19!)

2020:  (Former rank in parenthesis)

1. What’s Going On…Marvin Gaye (#6)
2. Pet Sounds…The Beach Boys (#2)
3. Blue…Joni Mitchell (#30, up 27!)
4. Songs In The Key Of Life…Stevie Wonder (#56, up 52!)
5. Abbey Road…The Beatles (#14)
6. Nevermind…Nirvana (#17)
7. Rumours…Fleetwood Mac (#25)
8. Purple Rain…Prince (#72, up 64!)
9. Blood On The Tracks…Bob Dylan (#16)
10. The Miseducation Of Lauryn Hill…Lauryn Hill (#312, up 302!)

The original 2003 ranking at least seemed to reflect the thinking over the decades, because The Beatles’ albums, along with the Pet Sounds album, were so highly regarded.  I could go along with ranking Sgt. Pepper #1, Pet Sounds #2, Revolver #3, Highway 61 Revisited #4, and Rubber Soul #5.  For the rest of the old Top 500, I agreed with some of the order of rankings, and of course there were some genres and albums I knew nothing about.

The 2003 list was sometimes criticized for featuring “too many white guys”.  Of the Top 50 then, 24% of the albums were by black artists (blacks make up 13% of the population).  The real slight was women.  There were only 3 women in the Top 50 (women make up 51% of the population).  The new 2020 Top 50 has doubled the number of black artists to about 50%, but only 7 women are ranked (14%).  Okay, so using percentages will never work out.

What about common sense?  I love Pet Sounds, which I bought when it was released in 1966.  It’s well known that Brian Wilson was inspired to make Pet Sounds when he heard the quality of Rubber Soul.  In turn, The Beatles admired Pet Sounds and were inspired to get even more creative with Sgt. Pepper.  Brian had been working on his follow-up album, Smile, but when he heard Sgt. Pepper, he knew it had passed Pet Sounds, and exceeded what he thought he could do with Smile (which he stopped working on for decades).  He later said “Sgt. Pepper would have kicked Smile’s butt.”  The world had already lived with Sgt. Pepper and Pet Sounds for decades when they were ranked #1 & #2 in 2003/2012.  Now, we’re expected to believe that a mere 8 years later,  Pet Sounds is still #2, but Sgt. Pepper is only the 24th best album.  It makes no sense!

It’s impossible to understand how in the world an album previously at 312 could now magically be better than 302 other albums and be ranked 10th.  What they’re ludicrously saying is that the album by Lauryn Hill is better than Sgt. Pepper, Revolver, Rubber Soul, and better than all of the albums by Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Eagles, James Taylor, Carole King, Tom Petty, The Rolling Stones, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Crosby Stills Nash & Young, Bruce Springsteen, U2, Elton John, CCR, Billy Joel, R.E.M. and so many more!

There are many more big jumps and big drops that defy logic.  Over half of the albums were moved by 50 places or more.  Of those, 90 albums moved over 200 places, and 22 of those moved over 300 places!  The list has no continuity and no credibility.  The shame is that this list will be referenced in articles, and it’s simply an inaccurate revision of history.

Here’s another example.  Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours was placed in the Top 10.  It may have been moved up 18 spots, because it was a way to get another two females there, but it deserves the ranking.  The Eagles’ Hotel California should have been right next to it, but it was dropped 81 places to 118th.  These two albums both came out in 1977.  Rumours edged out Hotel California for the Album Of The Year Grammy, but the Eagles’ album edged out Fleetwood Mac with the public by becoming the 3rd best-selling album of all time.  The point is, from an historical/quality perspective, these two albums should be ranked very close to each other.  Any list that puts them 111 places apart has failed history.  By the way, Pink Floyd’s Dark Side Of The Moon was only at #55.  That’s a Top 10 album.

Looking at the full list of 500 albums, it’s obvious no one could be intimately familiar with all of them.  Also, it’s hard to compare art that is so wide-ranging in styles.  There’s no real comparison between a 2015 Hip-Hop/Rap album, and a 1967 Rock album.  Rolling Stone had artists submit lists of their choices.  Someone who’s a Rock expert or a Rock artist should not be ranking Hip-Hop, and vice versa.  Trying to find even one expert in all forms and decades of music is like looking for a unicorn.

Here’s a solution.  Rolling Stone could still call it the 500 Greatest Albums, but divide the 500 into multiple lists based on genres of music, or maybe by decades.  Then use appropriate music historians and experts to rank the categories.  They should do it soon, and then forget they ever did a 2020 list.

Epilogue:  After writing the article, I continued to research how Rolling Stone approached this list.  They wanted to downplay the opinions of the writers who originally selected which albums were best in 2003/2012.  It was felt they had too much reverence for Classic Rock.  That meant adding more black artists and moving them up the list (often by giant leaps).  To make room, there was a downward trend of classic (older) albums by white artists.  That’s why there was a net loss of 5 of those from the Top 10.  They did their best to move female artists into more prominent positions.  That’s why Joni Mitchell was moved from 30 to 3, and why Lauryn Hill was moved from 312 to 10.  It also explains why the white male rock band Eagles (who have the #1 & #3 best-selling albums of all time) was dropped to 118.  It’s a shame they couldn’t have updated the list while still keeping some semblance of reason for the moves.

One of the people selected to submit a list for the project admitted he didn’t even try to actually chose the best albums.  He said he wanted to improve the rankings of black artists and women, and didn’t include any Beatles albums, because “others would do that”.  People trying strategies to manipulate the list makes it inaccurate.

Rolling Stone accomplished their stated goal of “inclusion”, and in their opinion “made it more reflective of today”.   So, basically they’re saying it’s not the 500 Greatest Albums Of All Time, but rather it’s 500 albums placed in an order more pleasing to today’s younger people.   Old Classic Rock albums are mostly important to old Classic Rock fans.  They’re a dying breed, and no longer Rolling Stone’s target audience.

Extra:  Rolling Stone wasn’t content screwing up this list, they also tried to pick The Greatest Singers Of All Time.  You can read about it with this link:   https://ontherecords.net/2023/01/best-singers/

It was 1986 when Compact Discs first outsold vinyl record albums.  Now, 34-years later, the sale of vinyl albums has passed the money spent on CD’s.

(Our son, Paul, has collected some classic albums recently.)

The Record Industry Association of America reports that during the first half of 2020, vinyl record sales were about $232-million, and sales of CD’s totaled about $130-million.  (Update: Vinyl sales in 2021 make up about two-thirds of physical sales, with one-third being CD’s, but physical sales only make up 10% of the money spent.  Most of the money for music goes to streaming services.)

The vinyl album was developed in 1948, and soon became the standard of the industry.  Thirty-eight years later, 1986, CD’s passed vinyl in sales, and held that position for thirty-four years, until 2020.  Update:  (Feb. 2022)  CD sales actually went up slightly in 2021, for the first time in many years.

Of course, the new figures just represent physical sales.  Digital downloads of music has been declining fast.  As of 2021, they make up just 5% of music sales.  The real power of music sales is now subscription streaming, such as Apple Music, Spotify, and Amazon Music.  Streaming accounts for 85% of all money spent on recorded music.

In the 70’s & 80’s, I listened to music & recorded with this stereo console I built in 1973 with my friend Dan Hryhorcoff.

Today, we just ask for a song or a playlist.

Even though overall physical sales are declining, Vinyl fans are enjoying the resurgence of their beloved records.  So what are they buying?  The biggest sellers are The Beatles, followed by other classic artists like Fleetwood Mac and Pink Floyd.  Every once in a while, a current artist like Billie Eilish or Taylor Swift will make a splash on vinyl.  Interestingly, Taylor Swift sold her album, Folklore, on Vinyl, CD, and Cassette.  Then in 2021, Swift sold over 100,000 vinyl copies of Evermore in one week, which is the most in the last 30 years.

(Listening to Crosby & Nash in 1972.)

So, physically owning a music collection is mostly a thing of the past, but at least a segment of music lovers are still “dropping the needle” on records of their favorite artists.