Blur Catalogue Currently Being Remastered At Abbey Road

Price seems to have risen on Amazon UK (at least for the vinyl box)...

 

Yes it has by around 16 pounds...glad I got my pre-order in with the price guarantee.

 

Well, 13 and Think Tank were all-digital recordings, weren't they?
Certainly all the cutting-and-pasting of 13 couldn't be done with analog tape.

So they might simply be running the older analog masters through more recent D-to-A converters? I dunno, I hope that's what it is.

Or maybe Stephen Street didn't want to mess with records he didn't produce.

 

FYI: the vinyl set is about $175 on pre-order:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007SAKY42/ref=ox_ya_os_product

 

That's not bad actually.

 

I ordered the titles individually and they've dropped to $169 - may switch out to the box at that price.

 

In preparation for the box I've been revisiting the old catalog.

Am I right in thinking that the version of "Chemical World" on the US version of "Modern Life Is Rubbish" remains exclusive to that disc? (It's a slightly different mix of the reworked version).

Also, why did it take me so long to notice the Bowie sample in "Girls & Boys"?

 

LP box set pre-order price watch update (not including shipping):

Amazon.ca - $194.40 CDN

Amazon.com - $175.67 U.S.

Amazon.co.uk - £136.87 before VAT removal - £114.06 after VAT removal - $179.50 U.S.

Amazon.de - € 132,99 / $169.05 U.S.

 

Two new songs, "Under the Westway" and "The Puritan," which will both be on the new box, I think.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/jul/02/blur-under-westway-puritan?intcmp=ILCMUSIMG9382

They've stil got it. So sad that Think Tank was their last album.

 

Too bad there's two active threads, I've already posted in the other. There's a link to Alex James's announcement there as well.

Alex James has teased that this might not be the end, for what it's worth.

 

i really love these new songs!!

 

Absolutely!

 

They've been teasing that it's not the end since Think Tank. At this point, I feel like Charlie Brown after the football has been pulled away one too many times. What's even more frustrating is that the new songs show what we've been missing for the past ten years while Damon was farting around with Gorillaz and his Chinese opera.

 

I enjoy the Gorillaz output..but not so keen on any of the other output from Albarn.

Is there any news on how the Blur re-issues sound?

 

Five-star review of the box in Mojo. No comments on the remastering though.

Can anyone confirm if the vinyl box includes a download code for the bonus material on the CDs? The "official" Blur store doesn't mention one, but some sites (Quietus, etc.) say there is one.

 

Wowza, Amazon UK is up to £195.00 now before VAT removal. I got in when it was 120 (100.31 after removal) - I'll just keep my pre-order, I like the idea of the box.

 

Amazon France has the best price for the vinyl set

http://www.amazon.fr/Blur-21-The-Vi...=sr_1_2?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1340125738&sr=1-2

 

Maybe currently, but I'm locked in with Amazon UK at the pre-order price of 100 pounds plus 3 pounds shipping. I added in the new 180g 2LP release of Charlatans "Tellin' Stories" and my total order shipped to NA is £121.05.

Blur - £100.31
Tellin' Stories - £16.67
Shipping - £4.07

Love it!

 

...which comes to about $178 USD. Amazon.com is still $175, so depending on shipping options available, it's still close.

 

I don't think it does. The blur website is pretty specific about what's in the boxes and nowhere does it mention a download code for the vinyl box, as you say. According to the official site, there IS one in the cd box, presumably to save time from ripping 18 discs onto your computer, but given how detailed the descriptions are, the absence of a mention seems like a pretty good indication to me. I hope I'm wrong, of course...

I've preordered both at amazon uk, at their lowest prices (£100 after vat removal), but at this point I'm not sure I'll be able to swing both at the same time. In which case I'll default to just the cd/dvd set for all the exclusives, but maybe I'll be able to pick up the vinyl a little later. So I hope it doesn't sell out/rise too dramatically in price.

I'm really looking forward to this set! I've got all their albums, the 10th anniversary singles box and a couple of other bits & pieces, but this is still around 100 new (to me) Blur songs! Plus two concerts, a bunch of other video stuff (the '13 Live' video on dvd3 is something I'm looking forward to), plus a convenient way to listen to all the relevant bsides together. (Even if there are some missing tracks - I guess they couldn't include everything even in a box this size.)

 

In the aftermath of Think Tank, there was some talk of entire second album's worth of material from those sessions - at point they were talking about releasing this material as an album, at another point, as an EP, if I recall correctly. But that's the missing material I'd most like to hear.

 

Looks like im gonna cancel my UK amazon order and order it from canada amazon, it works out with shipping just under 100 quid!

http://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B007SAKSF2/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?ie=UTF8&m=A3DWYIK6Y9EEQB

 

in my personal experience, Amazon UK is more dependable than Amazon CA. Amazon CA will give you some great deals, but sometimes the deals are literally too good to be true, and they run out of stock and you don't get anything. Again, just my experience with them in regard to pre-ordering mega box sets like this.

 

Since I bothered to make this list a couple of weeks ago, I may as well share it in case anyone else is interested. Here are the songs that ARE in the 10th anniversary singles box but are NOT in Blur21:

"She's So High (Edit)" – 3:49
"I Know" – 3:31
"Bang" – 3:34
"For Tomorrow (Single Version)" – 4:20
"For Tomorrow (Acoustic Version)" – 4:41
"Chemical World (Single Edit)" – 3:54
"Never Clever (Live)" – 2:28
"Pressure On Julian (Live)" – 5:00
"Come Together (Live)" – 3:30
"Fried" – 2:34
"Shimmer" – 4:40
"Long Legged" – 2:23
"Tell Me Tell Me" – 3:37
"Girls & Boys (Edit)" – 4:20
"To the End (Edit)" – 3:52
"Girls & Boys" (Pet Shop Boys 7" Mix)" – 4:04
"The Universal (Live at the BBC)" – 4:11
"Mr Robinson's Quango (Live at the BBC)" – 4:17
"It Could Be You (Live at the BBC)" – 3:17
"Stereotypes (Live at the BBC)" – 3:12
"Beetlebum (Mario Caldato Jr. Mix)" – 5:04
"Chinese Bombs (Live at Peel Acres)" – 1:14
"Movin' On (Live at Peel Acres)" – 3:20
"M.O.R. (Live at Peel Acres)" – 2:59
"Popscene (Live at Peel Acres)" – 3:04
"Song 2 (Live at Peel Acres)" – 1:50
"On Your Own" (Live at Peel Acres)" – 4:46
"Movin' On (William Orbit Remix)" – 8:00
"Beetlebum (Moby's Minimal House Mix)" – 6:16
"Coffee & TV (Radio Edit)" – 5:19


So, a fair few omissions. Most notably, the Seymour-era tracks (released as bsides on Sunday Sunday, mainly), everything released on the 'Bustin' & Dronin'' ep ('Blur' remixes & the Peel session), and the 'Live at the Beeb' tracks off the 'Universal' single. Plus, of course, various edits etc.

On the upside, it means the 10th anniversary box is worth hanging on to. As are 'Bustin' & Dronin'' (if you have it; I don't, so am missing most of the remixes on disc one of that), the Japanese import 'Live at the Budokan' (although 'Charmless Man' & 'Chemical World' are in this box, for some reason) and the little ep they gave away with 'The Observer' newspaper to promote 'Think Tank'.

And this is ignoring the known-but-officially-unreleased stuff that's floating around.

 

Thanks for the list. These mega-boxes are never quite complete. But I think that 21 discs of Blur will be enough to occupy me for the rest of the year, and that I can live without most of the missing tracks.