Rolling Stones - Exile on Main St. box set with unreleased songs

This is my hope - I know that Exile is widely perceived as the jewel in the crown, but maybe if this deluxe edition does well, we will see other Stones albums receive the deluxe treatment.

 

Id love to hear a finished version of "travellin man"--one outtake from the Exile sessions I really dig.

 

One thing about Exile is surely its status as an iconic album. But could it be that there's also the most stuff in the vaults for it that is of interest to more than the most hardcore fans? I'm not a Stones expert, but from what I know, it seems like Beggars Banquet is the only other "big" Stones album whose sessions produced some really good stuff that wasn't finished up later on. (Or, in the case of "Blood Red Wine", contains only elements of later songs and is good enough to stand on its own.) I think most of the best outtakes or rough drafts from the Let It Bleed sessions wound up on Sticky Fingers and Exile; same for Sticky Fingers/Exile. And outside of those four albums, it'd be a tough sell. I can't see a Black and Blue or Emotional Rescue DE happening.

 

I'd really like to hear the version of "Rip This Joint" with Keith singing...

 

In the case of an album such as Black and Blue, outtake highlights such as "Slave" have already been cherry-picked for Tattoo You - we saw the same thing happen with Led Zeppelin; the reason that Coda is so weak is that all the good outtakes were already used on Physical Grafitti.

I'd personally love an Emotional Rescue DE, for "Claudine" alone. And, if I'm not mistaken, there are a bunch of other finished outtakes from that period. The notion that deluxe editions of the non-Exile albums would be a tough sell doesn't ring true to me - we are talking about the second-biggest band of all time here. There are deluxe editions of every Who album - if that can happen, I'm not sure why Stones fans wouldn't support deluxe editions of the entire Stones catalog as well.

 

You have a good point. I was thinking of the sorts of Deluxe Editions that the Stones seem to be doing—lavish, $50-60 affairs. When that's the price point, it's probably safe to say they'd want to start with DEs of albums that are well-loved (or at least, well-known) by a lot of people…if they were to do a 2CD set for about 20-25 bucks, on the other hand, I could see lesser-known albums getting the treatment, as well.

 

No, they do - this thread is just becoming Demanding Nit-Picker's Central. The damned tracklist hasn't even been announced yet and people are criticizing it!

 

I hope I'm not derailing the thread too far, but I could very easily see a Black and Blue: Deluxe Edition. Why? If there's worthy tapes from the guitar auditions that went on after Taylor left the band and unheard demos, unheard noddlings of Keith interacting with Harvey Mandel and Wayne Perkins, etc, then I could see it happening. How do we know that there aren't tapes of Wood from when he first joined up for the sessions that we've never heard before?
All of you know what a huge Taylor nut I am, so it goes without saying that Deluxe Editions of Sticky Fingers, Goats Head Soup and It's Only Rock N' Roll would be givens for me-the lifeblood of my being a Stones fan if you will.
As far as possibly being a big seller, a Some Girls: Deluxe Edition would seem to be the logical candidate for something big as far as studio session stuff goes. My preference would be to cover the Taylor Era material first as that hits my sweet spot.

 

We saw the same thing happen when the Beatles remasters were announced, but most people seemed to enjoy them once they were actually released. I'm betting that the same thing happens here. I've already budgeted this set into my 2010 music wishlist.

 

I'd buy this thing if only a burp was added as a bonus track.

 

If the band and label is going to enhance the original album with outtake material, I would prefer to hear it in its natural (even incomplete) form versus having it loaded with modern-day overdubs. It is a much more revealing and educational experience to hear historically accurate outtakes to get a glimpse into what the band was doing during the sessions for a particular album.

I love FTD's deluxe version of Elvis Country because I get to hear a ton of outtakes in their natural form and it allows me to gain an even greater understanding of the Elvis Country sessions -- it would not be the same if Ernst Jorgensen had the original musicians come in and overdub new parts to complete tracks.

 

Is there a website or forum post that some kind sir/madame could point me to that has a breakdown of which tracks on which Rolling Stones LPs were actually outtakes from previous sessions? The Beach Boys were notorious for using this approach in the 70s too. Hey, why waste a good song? Thanks in advance.

 

If you feel like trying to piece it together, I highly recommend these two sites:

http://aeppli.ch/tug.htm

http://www.nzentgraf.de/books/tcw/works1.htm

Even with the help of these sites, it's still a bit of a mystery. For example, even though a song may have been started in, say, 1973 and appeared on an album in 1981, you really can't be sure if it's the same perfomance, whether guitar/drums/bass/vocals/etc. have been redone, if there's been overdubs or whether the entire performance was scrapped and they started from scratch as this hasn't been documented officially.

Too bad there's no Rolling Stones equivalent to Lewisohn's The Beatles: Recording Sessions.

 

Woah, that looks like some heavy duty reading! I'm gonna dig into those sites tomorrow morning. It'll probably send me off on another Stones kick, which is never a bad thing. Thanks Shawn!

 

I wonder if the new contract with Universal would include this ? Notice they re-released "At the Max" on DVD and Blu-ray through Universal, and that had been out years ago through another video distributor. A Blu-ray of "Ladies and Gentlemen" would be heaven, I could finally retire my unofficial DVD

 

Good point. Universal gave them a large sum for the rights to sell their stuff. They are going to want some product to sell. The albums don't move anymore, so they'll need something a bit different.

 

Can you imagine Mick Jagger reading this thread and getting disgusted and feeling like nobody will ever agree and be happy with this, thinking he should have never done it, and has a chat with Keith about it, and they both decide to cancel the whole thing and just issue a newer louder CD (on two discs just like the original album yet) with a unipack style gatefold CD cover (just like the original album), throw in some post cards and call it done.

Mick then says in interviews "I have never done anything that I didn't feel good about" and I ain't going to start now. But we have a new 4cd box set of hits and album tracks coming, and we are going to toss in one unissued track on that. The fans will like this set!

 

I just remembered that Jagger has said over the years that Exile is the one Stones album that he'd like to remix... maybe we'll get that with this set? It'd be an interesting listen.

I still just can't understand all of the complaining going on in this thread. If you don't like what's being released, don't buy it. If you don't like that they're finishing up old songs, go listen to the originals on boots. Simple enough.

No one complained when the Beatles reissues didn't contain any sort of bonus material.

 

Never in a million, billion years.

 

I don't think there's been too much complaining for re-recording or finishing material with new vocals and that. The main complain, and it's not a complain, it's more a worry about, it's about the disappointing quality of the re-re-re-re....releases

It's not true no one complained about Beatles reissues. Check the 20+ threads about, one of the first complains were the lack of bonus material, the stereo & mono being issued on separated discs, etc

And all that "if you don't like it, don't buy it" is harsh and unwelcomed. I don't see the point in treating like that other people's opinions. The RS catalog has been re-issued to death, and EVERY TIME with no bonus, nothing new, just the same repackaging for the bucks. And when we finally had the chance to get something right (Ya-ya's) it was a rip-off

Exile is one of the very finest albums of all times, and it deserves a BOX SET release. If they're following U2 trend by finishing unreleased tracks (JT & UF super deluxe editions) they should add a DVD as well, so that the box set would be 2 CD + DVD

 

Good point!

I really hope they'll make it with Ladies and Gentlemen. Few years ago NOBODY thought that they were going to release At The Max on DVD and Blu-ray

keep fingers crossed

 

Once the tracklist and whatnot are official, complaints are fine. I'm just annoyed that people are getting their panties in a bunch for a tracklist that's unannounced.

Bitch and moan all you like when we know more about the set's contents...

 

Sure there is. It's that guy named Luke who posts here all the time (wild laughter)

 

Like you say, that is your opinion. I'm sorry that ABKCO didn't consult with you before releasing Ya-Ya's, so that it conformed with whatever your standard of a "rip-off" is, but I was perfectly happy and couldn't be more pleased with my copy

Evryone has thier own idea of how a release should be. I was just happy to get the full set list from the 69 shows, even if it didn't include 3 songs that they only played at a few shows. I also didn't care to get a full concert from MSG - I wanted an expanded Ya-Ya's and not a completely new release. I was happy also witht he Ike and Tina and BB King sets, and of course I would have preferred that the bonus songs be on the same disc as the original album, but I understand that there were legal issues preventing this from happening.

Buying albums is simply a matter of microeconomics - If you want something bad enough, you will pay more for it, and if you don't want it that bad, you won't. For me, the remastered set, with the LPs was worth it. For you, maybe it wasn't worth it. So the idea that if you don't like it, don't buy it, is actually very true. They don't have to give us anything at all, so if you don't like it, that's fine, but there are others who do, and don't need people to pee in our cheerios

Cheers,