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Lavishly repackaged
Another massive (re-)release from Whitesnake — an 8-CD box set of live material, all of which has been previously released separately. Titled Access All Areas: Live, it is lavishly packaged in an imitation travel case, and is slated for release on April 25th, 2025, on Rhino. The material included was previously released in the following sets, all from this century:
- Live… In The Still Of The Night (Disc 1)
- Live… In The Shadow Of The Blues (Discs 2+3)
- Made In Japan (Discs 4+5)
- Made In Britain/The World Record (Discs 6+7)
- The Purple Tour (Disc 8)
The Music Universe has complete track listings, in case you wanna peruse further details.
Thanks to Blabbermouth for the info and to Uwe for the heads-up.
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing
Nick, can you please leave my name out of Coverdale-related news as long as SHE 👀 is watching? SHE said “curse you all, you’ll never learn …”. 😬
The release is completely remastered. And of course the more recent concerts have the keys dropped a half-step or two so you can treat yourself with Here I Go Again in several keys – as your mood strikes you!
Can we now please return to wholesome GRN (Gillan-related news)?
March 9th, 2025 at 01:31Yep, I can hear the sound of Uwe’s wallet opening up again… $$$
March 9th, 2025 at 01:44@1
Ahem, with SHE I guess you mean me!?
Yeah, Whitesnake or whatever they call them selves (not to confuse with the cute Danish band Big Fat Snake) are yesterdays news 😂
So yes, please let us get some more relevant Gillan news 🥰😘
@2
March 9th, 2025 at 12:24Maybe we ought to make Uwe a go-fund-me, on the other hand, I will only do that for decent music, all Ian’s projects! Even IGB!
John, after 50 years of painstakingly collecting the music of these guys, why stop now? 🤗
The WS stuff – I’ll give it that – is at least lovingly curated, varnished and repackaged. Compared to what DC does, even the new GILLAN set is strictly amateur hour (you show me a WS release where they forget to name the producer like they did with Double Trouble or where you have to dig around to find out who remastered the whole set). You can tell that DC has been a record/CD collector himself all his life. He has a sense for it. He is INVOLVED with the product. Gillan isn’t, he probably could care less and I severely doubt if he ever saw the new GILLAN set before it came out.
March 9th, 2025 at 16:25‘Ahem, with SHE I guess you mean me!?“
DISCLAIMER: All characters and events in the post — even those based on real people and their doings — are entirely fictional.
March 9th, 2025 at 16:31@3
March 9th, 2025 at 19:21I agree..who needs another release from already released live materials from bloody boring DC…
Let me release some Sunday evening spleen and grumpiness into the atmosphere. Okay, there’s one lavish Whitesnake cd boxset. Great. You can even pre-order it at Euro 95.99. Awesome. And I mean awesome. Not a bad price for an 8 cd set. Except it’s too late. The golden era of cds is gone. WS fans are old and way too busy paying their bills and making the ends meet. With the declining economies and inflation out of hand, the circle of people who would be willing to hand out about a 100 units in any cash is negligible small. This may be a nice item for a small group of completista collectors but the fans of music, even the WS hard-core fans will pass it.
March 9th, 2025 at 19:29@1:
leave me out of your love life 😉
March 9th, 2025 at 22:34🤭
https://youtu.be/-Are10Q0Ue8
[Note to self: Adrian had great hair and could also play electric guitar (whenever he was allowed to), but an organic-warm acoustic guitarist he sure wasn‘t. It sounds like he played it with chopsticks 🥢. Totally overcooked and lacking any semblance of groove. 🙄 It’s not THAT difficult, famous Dutch folk songs have done it https://youtu.be/0FqS_10arvc !!!]
March 10th, 2025 at 00:42@ 4 -and that is where that old saying springs to mind Uwe. “You cannot judge a book by its cover”. Something like that and ole Cov’s is all about the glam and everything else and we know that Ian Gillan isn’t. Plus Gillan as you stated most probably doesn’t have anything to do with all the bells and whistles, etc. He has other priorities and ole Cov’s probably doesn’t. It is all about the music anyway, whether good or bad. Cheers.
March 10th, 2025 at 02:47real shame that they didn’t take the opportunity to add the other Purple tracks they played live (and were bonus live audio on the DVD) namely You Keep On Moving, Lay Down Stay Down & Stormbringer plus Lotsanotes.
March 10th, 2025 at 08:118 CD – shame it didn’t include (recorded) “You keep on moving”. Great rock moment when Glenn Hughes joined David and the band at the Saban Theatre on 6/9/2015 and sang this wonderful ballad..DP classic one of three songs from the TOP 25 DP of all time that Blackmore didn’t co-write (Hush, Sometimes I feel like screaming)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOPgQc06oL0
March 10th, 2025 at 10:43@4. You’ve got that right Uwe. I’d also say that Purple have been awful in curating their own post reunion legacy (for whatever reason). And pre-break up was only curated decently because of Simon Robinson’s involvement.
March 10th, 2025 at 11:46To be fair, the culprit in worst treatment of own back catalog is … RAINBOW !!! Blackmore seems to be almost disdainful of anything he has done prior to BN. Think of it: Two BN albums exist meanwhile in even remixed form, Rainbow’s debut, Rising and Down To Earth however as only poorish and ancient remasters.
I totally agree that the treatment of the DP back catalog is shabby. Just think of Jethro Tull in comparison. No remixes or decent remasters of Perfect Strangers and Purpendicular as epoch-initiating works of Purple even forty or thirty years after their release? Laughable. Oh, the master tapes of Perfect Strangers are supposedly gone? Fucking heck, Coverdale used AI to extract the individual tracks from his obscure solo debut (where the masters were lost) to then have them remixed to stunning results.
*************************************************************
Georgivs, my favorite Sunday ranter & curmudgeon 💕, do you really think there is a significant market out there of people who want to have the ability of hearing DC do six different live versions of Here I Go Again in different tunings, yet miss adequate streaming possibilities to do so? 😂 I don’t. Completism and looking glass analysis of an artist’s particular body of work goes hand in hand with the availability and accessibility of physical storage media. Add to that how there is little financial incentive for DC to do that since the proceeds from streaming are – unless you are a mega-artist like Taylor Swift – irrelevantly low.
March 10th, 2025 at 15:21I guess a reissue of WS’s most recent album, Flesh & Blood, is up next 🙂 Writing new songs seems to be a closed chapter for DC.
March 10th, 2025 at 17:00I think we need a Van Helsing character to finally end DCs money sucking vampire ways.
March 10th, 2025 at 17:35I wish there was someone with DC’s curator zest for DP’s, Rainbow’s and Gillan’s back catalog!
Daniel, I don’t know about writing, but at this point it looks like he certainly will not be able to sing anymore, so taking care of his artistic legacy makes sense.
March 10th, 2025 at 18:30Terry the Fearsome Impaler:
DON’T STAKE MY HEART AGAIN !!!
https://images.app.goo.gl/YqCwUxxsf38NQFDy7
I have a hunch that DC’s new creative outlet is in any case writing books, in his alter ego as “Nicole”, you know the romantic vampire novella/bodice ripper ones with the embossed covers, regularly displayed before the supermarket cashiers …
https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/812FTiG+JKL._UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcT5LYjonlNiNHrTwzg01C3pZgimHvSh5HOFlQ&s
I hear that convenience literature like that has a fervent female following, but we would have to ask Nino, Andrea or Karin to really know more.
March 10th, 2025 at 19:35@ 18 -that werewolf creature about to strike looks eerily like ole Cov’s, or at least it did before he employed the ‘shapeshift’ mode. I did enjoy Terry @ 16 bringing the Van Helsing character into the picture, it would work. Cheers.
March 11th, 2025 at 05:36I am not reading that kind of literature, nor do I prefer that kind of motion pictures!
March 11th, 2025 at 06:06But ask me anything about, well anything else,and I’ll make up opinions 😆
@9
Could that guy please be silent for a while! (The whitesnake dude I mean)
Can’t you hear how difficult it is for him to breathe?
He sounds like a severe bronchitis sufferer who desperately needs some water! 😨 (or air!)
And the other link Uwe. Oh please!
Well bring on the hate and tell me I know nothing! Tell me I am an ignorant to music and are way too critical! Tell me I’m indifferent to great music! That’s ok, I’m getting used to that 😝
Why waste anyone’s time with bad sounds, when we in fact can listen to beautiful songs lige this:
https://youtu.be/LVEDRpGoIME?si=8yzEJUzlkOOl0YwE
I promise you – this voice makes flowers grow better 😍
Or this:
https://youtu.be/LyzFr6xL9cY?si=0LyKfBYRYixB85k4
See! It is not necessary to be rock’n’roll, as long as it is sung like this 😃
Some times I feel like an 1-army person, in a ‘friendly’ country, fighting for the right for the person we all ought to be pleasantly listening to, to be THE one singer who really can sing.
Or this one:
March 11th, 2025 at 07:11https://youtu.be/S53ptxVNt-4?si=seU0tNbW_x6EapWU
(Sigh!) ohhhhh woah! 😍😍😍
@14 Not sure about different versions of “Here I Go Again”. I think there might be a few people out there, who would like to hear the classic hard rock version of it, the butchered hair metal version, the obscure jazz-funk version, the overblown version with the Munich Rundfunk Orchestra featuring both Keith Emerson and Rick Wakeman (yes-yes), the secret version with MIB as a guest lute player, the 2026 single version with backing vocals by Beyoncé and many others.
What I do know for sure, though, is that the hordes of WS fans aged 16-160 surely wanna hear different versions of DC ad libbing ‘Ba-a-a-aybee, ba-a-a-aybee, ba-a-a-aybee, ba-a-a-aybee, ba-a-a-aybee!!!’ That’s what deserves to be put on a most lavish boxset and released. A gourmet treat and a platinum seller for sure.
March 11th, 2025 at 08:39I say one thing, that in the Bible as the eleventh commandment it should be written “do not use made in Japan as the title of any live album after 1972”.
even in parallel universes the Metal Gods should forbid this!
March 11th, 2025 at 10:36@23
😄
In Denmark the eleventh commandment is:
Thou shall not hollow out the cheese
And that is a very important commandment 😃
Could we agree on your commandment as the 12th?
March 11th, 2025 at 13:42#17: I don’t see the point in reissuing recently released live albums as a box set. If it would have been a Coverdale/Page set with unreleased material on it, then yes. DC has now surpassed Jimmy Page in terms of reissuing stuff. It gets silly. Write some new music instead 🙂
March 11th, 2025 at 16:34“Can’t you hear how difficult it is for him to breathe?”
Karin, you may or may not like it, but Coverdale’s breathing into the mic, enhanced by the way he wants his voice recorded and by his mic technique, is just as much his shtick as young Gillan’s was the falsetto screaming.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znW-P7lMKjU
It’s an age-old stylistic element of especially RnB singing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElN_4vUvTPs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tov22NtCMC4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_9hfHvQSNo
(oh man, those 80s shoulder pads, priceless!)
Commonplace in rock-pop too:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fF8GARU44iY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9Nd-edPh6A
It’s also used also as a percussive and dramatic effect, listen to John Lennon doing it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8l3ntDR_lI
So stop ribbing ole Coverdale about it or shall we dissect the many mannerisms Big Ian has in his vocal style (like all great singers)? Would you want him to drop them? 😈
Honororay mention, I for one never minded Serge’s & Jane’s breathing on this track here, but maybe it was outlawed in Denmark?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlpDf6XX_j0
Infinitely preferable to All Night Long btw.
March 11th, 2025 at 18:32@6
“I agree..who needs another release from already released live materials from bloody boring DC…“ – EXACTLY Wiktor!
You know stuff! Very bright and intelligent (young ?)man 🙌🏼
WS and DC apparently have some fans in here (go figure ☺️)
March 11th, 2025 at 22:42@7
“WS fans are old and way too busy paying their bills and making the ends meet.”
March 11th, 2025 at 22:47Georgivs, I have to say this:
First:WS music make people older for their time!
Second: of course they’re busy making ends meet with the price of that box-set 😱
I prefer eating now and then! Couldn’t happen if I accidentally liked DC’s voice ☠️
@10
“He has other priorities and ole Cov’s probably doesn’t. It is all about the music anyway, whether good or bad. Cheers.”
March 11th, 2025 at 22:53🤣🤣😆😆 – MacGregor, you are a true friend of us who are taunted, manipulated and confused by ‘those’ (insert name here if you need…) who claim DC actually can sing!
Ian’s priorities may be singing, or is actually! The man can sing – like a beautiful dream!
DC can’t!
Cheers right back at ya 🤗
“And the other link Uwe. Oh please!”
Which one exactly?
March 11th, 2025 at 23:16“Or this one:
https://youtu.be/S53ptxVNt-4?si=seU0tNbW_x6EapWU
(Sigh!) ohhhhh woah! 😍😍😍”
This song contains the all-time-best example for HOW TO NOT RECORD AN ACOUSTIC GUITAR in a studio. I don’t know what they did with it (or perhaps Bernie Tormé couldn’t really play acoustic, not all electric guitarists can), but it sounds absolutely horrible. I wince every time I (have to) hear it.
This is how it’s properly done:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTfL0mN_jdc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TtyEaEp0kZw
I’m calling out the emperor who has no clothes on, but as production values go, GILLAN’s standards were the pits and Future Shock was the worst of the batch – freakin’ ‘orrible. It amazes me, how Ian – owner of a studio himself (in which all GILLAN albums were recorded) – could tolerate such sonic shite that devalued his own music. There I said it. In 1981 (!) that was absolutely lofi quality. Six years earlier, QUEEN had already managed to have an acoustic guitar sound like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kE8kGMfXaFU
Let’s not even talk about how Americans did it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PTEqZURh4o
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIYgsqhwXzM
Even Ian knew what a well-produced acoustic guitar (not the easiest instrument to record well) is supposed to sound like:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJKrhPfu-bo
Rainbow and Whitesnake might have sounded bland at times, but at least they didn’t intentionally record their music to sound obnoxious. No wonder GILLAN saw no US airplay, “If I Sing Softly” via the airwaves would have automatically stopped cars on US Highways and roads as people would have frantically adjusted the dials on their car radios wondering why FM reception all of the sudden sounded like trash. 😂
Crap-recorded music is as wasteful as badly prepared food. I can’t believe how VIRGIN ever allowed this aural shite (I’m not talking about the music) to be released.
Rant over (for now).
March 12th, 2025 at 04:26@30
March 12th, 2025 at 18:39This one
famous Dutch folk songs have done it https://youtu.be/0FqS_10arvc !!!]
☺️
@31
Well you always pour links over me, and as you very well know it takes me ages to go through them all, so bare with me….
Meanwhile please listen to this 😍
https://youtu.be/fZrm9h3JRGs?si=8K3fHtdDtvytIdaE
(It ought to remind you of an Ocean film 😉)
But ohhh man this guy can play the piano!
Yeah, he might make a lot of mistakes, but I can’t hear them.
You claim Ian is making a lot of mistakes when he is singing, that might be, but I can’t hear them.
But Uwe, as a homeopath I’m dying a little bit inside every time I listen to DC!
I am not blind – I can easily see why the female part of the world might find him charming, but I can only hear how much he is suffering when singing.
In Denmark we have a political commentator, and right from the start I could hear he had severe health problems. And a bit later I learned he actually wasn’t well (nooooo I will not mention his name, you just have to believe me ☺️)
Please listen again to Lang Lang, and tell me if that isn’t adorable 🥰
March 12th, 2025 at 18:47@31
“This song contains the all-time-best example for HOW TO NOT RECORD AN ACOUSTIC GUITAR in a studio.”
Ok, once again: I’m not a musician but I’ll tell you what I hear:
March 12th, 2025 at 19:22Ian’s voice is PERFECT! (But I guess anyone who prefers DC’s voice will automatically not like Ian’s voice…☺️)
The acoustic guitar, well I don’t know what you mean, but in my head there is this sinister vibe, like if ‘he’ cannot get close to ‘her’ he will lose his mind. It has a dangerous feeling. I admit openly that I have no idea what so ever if it isn’t performed perfectly, but in my head it makes completely sense.
Unfulfilled love = danger or great sadness, and if you can’t detect that, well then pour more links over me 😆
@31
“No wonder GILLAN saw no US airplay, “If I Sing Softly” via the airwaves would have automatically stopped cars on US Highways and roads as people would have frantically adjusted the dials on their car radios wondering why FM reception all of the sudden sounded like trash. 😂”
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
And here I had the notion that the American population loved music (maybe they do, but they just haven’t told you 😅)
“(I’m not talking about the music)” – ok I’m baffled! I believed we talked about music.
“Rant over (for now).“ rant? Ok, let’s call it that for now 😉
March 12th, 2025 at 19:29The ‘Mississippi’ (by originally Dutch band Pussycat) cover is impeccably sung in intricate, layered harmony, what’s your issue with it, Karin?
And what is it that you believe denigrating Coverdale’s vocal style and capabilities elevates Ian’s? You can’t compare the two and I don’t. In 1973, the voice of an “unknown boutique salesman” at least impressed Ritchie, Jon, Little Ian and Glenn enough to hire him as a singer for one of the most successful bands of the then planet and put him on slimming pills as well as have his crossed eyes operated prior to the first publicity shots. But what do they know, according to you they fell for a fraud.
As regards treatment of their (DC & IG) respective back catalog, call me again when DC starts forgetting to name the people who produced his albums on his reissues (like Ian did – or at least did not prevent to happen – with Steve Smith on the new 7-CD-set, that is an unforgivable howler for me).
Lang Lang is very talented, no argument. I don’t think he’s quite a Glenn Gould (though he rates him very much and is inspired by him).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Klqjebjw8n4
March 12th, 2025 at 20:51@ 31- steady on there Uwe, poor old Gillan’s ears may be shot, think about it, even back then in 1981, he he he. That Gillan chestnut (thanks for a lovely memory, excepting the lyrics of course) and the Whitesnake “Give Me Love’ song are two totally opposite sides of the spectrum. A fine song also with a lovely little Jon Lord solo in it. I don’t hear anything wrong with Bernie Tormé’s acoustic guitar sound or his playing, it is different to Marsden & Moody’s in every way, however it still fits fine within the song. I don’t find that sound abrasive at all or too thin or shallow. Different instruments, studio, equipment, engineer, producer etc etc. Still ok though and the art of a decent acoustic guitar recorded sound is something that used to irk a few friends of mine back then. They were very good acoustic players with quality guitars who cringed at the superficial sounds that began to emanate throughout the 1980’s. That was the time when pickups were added to some acoustic guitars in recordings and it took many years for it to be sorted, at least for some musicians, producers and engineers. Also the quality of instruments changed dramatically and not for the better in many aspects. The old microphone in front of the guitar itself in a good sounding room and with good placement is what it is all about, or was all about. Pickups and guitars improved over time of course, but many acoustic players I have known still go for that old setup in a recording, older guitars and with no pickup at all. Horses for courses again. Does Ian Gillan spend a lot of time (if any) at the mixing console? How into it is he regarding the recorded sound of instruments etc. Does he leave all that to others? Anyway thanks again for the trip down memory lane and neither of those songs just played threatened to curd my coffee, so that is a good sign too. Cheers.
March 12th, 2025 at 21:38@36
“And what is it that you believe denigrating Coverdale’s vocal style and capabilities elevates Ian’s?”
AND
“But what do they know, according to you they fell for a fraud.”
Ohhh my!
I am NOT mocking DC’s singing capabilities! I do not like his voice, no, but that’s just me! What I do think is that his poor voice sounds tense and he sounds like a severe sore throat 😞
And listening to earlier recordings, his voice became more and more troubled.
I never called DC a fraud! If he believes he can sing, and if people listening to him believes he can sing, and he behaves like a singer (long hair, self tanner, VERY white teeth etc) then by all means he is a duck! Oh sorry, I meant a singer of course 😎
Please remember I never degrade anyone to lift up Ian. “And why is that”, you ask? Well, because Ian does not need anyone to do that 😊
Not just this dune-dweller (what is that exactly) (🤓) loves his voice, most people are amazed of what he has been able to do, and how wonderful his voice still is!
And I guess if I hadn’t picked the part where I openly admit my admiration for his career, then you would praise him even more than I do! (Also because your grasp on the English language is so much better than mine!)
“call me again when DC starts forgetting to name the people who produced his albums on his reissues (like Ian did…” – sadly I don’t have your number ☺️
March 12th, 2025 at 23:59I have listened to the Gillan band song ‘If I Sing Softly’ again, at a higher volume than earlier. The album as Uwe has frequently said is too high in its high end, lacking warmth indeed. More mids to lows on it would be nicer to the ears. Obviously a steel string acoustic guitar and played with a pick. What sort of guitar is it and even the most prestigious brands don’t necessarily record well at times. It could be a cheapy, who knows. How much time was spent getting a decent ‘warmer’ sound, for the whole record in fact? Well played by Bernie though, it is a wonderful song, one of my favourites which I had totally forgotten about since getting rid of all my vinyl 23 years ago. All this Gillan music still brings up a good song or three, nice memories too. Who was at the mixing desk. How much time was spent on all that. Judging on the info from the album, Gillan himself is nowhere to be seen with the album production etc. I wonder who K.R is? Cheers.
March 13th, 2025 at 01:01From the dreaded Wikipedia :
Production notes: ‘If I Sing Softly” written by Gillan, McCoy and Tormé
Album Recorded and mixed at Kingsway Recorders, London, January 1981
Produced by K.R.
Engineered by Paul Watkins
Mixed by Paul Watkins, John McCoy with contributions from Colin Towns, Bernie Tormé and Mick Underwood
“poor old Gillan’s ears may be shot, think about it, even back then in 1981”
Now that you mention it, Herr MacGregor, THAT IS EXACTLY how the production of some of the GILLAN albums sounds, as if done by someone hearing-impaired.
March 13th, 2025 at 02:12@31
This one:
March 13th, 2025 at 07:02“Even Ian knew what a well-produced acoustic guitar (not the easiest instrument to record well) is supposed to sound like:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJKrhPfu-bo”
actually happened in real life.
Ian was with Episode Six in another country (sorry can’t remember the name of the country) and this gypsy man was insanely in love with a cheating woman! And then one night he accused Ian of being together with her, at the same time when Ian was talking to him 😄
So they talked it over, and the gypsy guy would mix their blood!
Very interesting story, mentioned in his autobiography 😊
Don’t confuse the producer with the mixer and mastering engineer. It’s rarely the producer who is to blame for too much high end in a record.
March 13th, 2025 at 07:08@34 Dear Karin, it can be done, believe me! I managed to do so for about 45 years + now: I love both voices! Go figure.
March 13th, 2025 at 11:53True, Svante, but a good outside producer would hear if the engineer messes up and intervene.
I have no musical issues with GILLAN whatsoever, just the sound of their albums which was often lackadaisical. I hold the view that music deserves to be as well-recorded as possible at the given time, by that standard Clear Air Turbulence is an aural delight where you can hear each and every instrument plus the voice perfectly balanced and with no grating frequencies while many GILLAN recordings have the charm of rough mixes at best.
Whitesnake (Sunburst era) had more warmth in their sound and Rainbow at least a certain neatness in production at all times (I actually find LLRnR Rainbow’s best produced record and tend to favor Martin Birch over Roger Glover though BOOS sounded well too if already a bit on the clinical side).
Karin, I was aware of the background of Angel Manchenio, it makes the song all the more charming and profound. It is the perfect marriage of a great, intelligent musical composition with world music influences (in 1976!) with one of IG’s masterpiece story lyrics. Certainly moves and entertains me more than GILLAN romping at 200 mph through Lucille!
“And here I had the notion that the American population loved music (maybe they do, but they just haven’t told you 😅)”
In the 60s, 70s and 80s music via car radio was one of the most prevalent places where American youth would consume music. The US of A is plastered with 10.000s of FM radio stations that can deliver a good acoustic signal in comparatively small areas (so you have to change channels often when travelling). FM radio has certain characteristics favoring one type of frequency over the other which is why one album can sound great over radio and another one crap or – just as bad – unaccustomed to radio listener ears. The really good US recording studios in the 70s had equipment to emulate how any given studio recording would sound over FM or AM radio – they actually adjusted the production and the mastering to sound optimal on radio because that was they key media for market penetration.
Neither the early Rainbow albums nor the early Whitesnake ones – let’s not even talk about GILLAN’s sonically abrasive output – sounded good over US radio, not like for instance Loverboy did
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnHm4ro_l8s
which made you want to immediately turn up the radio if you heard it. Or something like Aldo Nova …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPQgfaB3S1c
or Touch (managed by Bruce Payne) …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KFu3JD1NOk
or Greg Kihn Band
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8ePSJ44Fiw
to name but three artists that weren’t European household names, but were all over US airwaves in the early 80s.
March 13th, 2025 at 12:00I love “If I Sing Softly”. I wish it was better recorded and I’m sure Future Shock is the reason Virgin insisted on outside producers but the production of Double Trouble and Magic wasn’t any better (IMO) and I Sing Softly is what it is – a great song. (Sorry Uwe – you and I agree on just about everything)
March 13th, 2025 at 18:28@43
Max, I am happy to hear that 😃
March 13th, 2025 at 20:38@44
“Certainly moves and entertains me more than GILLAN romping at 200 mph through Lucille!” – yeah, ok, but I do love the faster Lucille (ok that came out wrong 😆) and have you noticed the little laughter at the end?
https://youtu.be/6QQ0YUxEqws?si=Kxx3lAVjGLd-5NQf
Especially 2:33 and forward to the end (only a couple of secs)
“The US of A is plastered with 10.000s of FM radio stations that can deliver a good acoustic signal in comparatively small areas (so you have to change channels often when travelling).” – ohh now you mention it, I did know ☺️
“sounded good over US radio, not like for instance Loverboy did” – sorry maybe it’s because I’m sleepy, but do you actually like that band? Loverboy? In my head there is happening way too many things with this music for me to fully understand it 🤔 (I often feel it like this when I hear music I never have heard before)
By the way, you often accuse me of worshipping Ian blindfolded! BUT, when I have the hardest time understanding and appreciating The Ian Gillan Band I do believe my appreciation of Ian Gillan is actually quite healthy! Because if I was a brainless follower of every notion he had, I would be all over this band, which I am not! 😄
“to name but three artists that weren’t European household names,” – you have got that right! I have NEVER heard them before! Not any of them!
The sound is so strange to me, and well in my head – ohhhh whoa my brain is exploding 🤯
Maybe I’m just a plain country person (was starting to write ‘girl’ but I guess that period is over and done with 😂, and ‘woman’ sounds weird and strange when it comes to appreciate new music 😆)
Allow me to show you some music that actually calm my nerves (should I have any left 😂)
https://youtu.be/K7Fto30rB3o?si=60bQLuvFIOxYMVH-
Yes, I know it is some kind of disco, but Lindsey B is making his songs so interesting, they do not strike me as mainstream. And I’m not quite sure why, maybe it’s his way of using that voice, falsetto I mean.
This is not the only song of his that is so very strange compared to Fleetwood Mac, give this a listen:
https://youtu.be/Kcm3dbuV8Z4?si=sOWLIYhpUFTjLHeP
Again so comforting, like an old pair of shoes, but still fresh and interesting. The sound, the ‘air’ of this song reminds me of a walk in the forest when it’s raining! (Please don’t ask why 😄)
This one
https://youtu.be/RKcsqsOyRxQ?si=YzVmE9JkyY8IzX0q
is so infectious 🤩 it has so many surprising elements, I never get tired of listening to it ☺️ and then I have to say it’s NICE he doesn’t have to receive all those looks from Stevie Nicks, looks loaded with all that history between them that really is very uninteresting for us!
Finally this
https://youtu.be/Y1jLiw_Ih9U?si=Bjf7xg7XoHSfZgi9
(And then my Lindsey Buckingham tour is done 😉)
But I do have to mention this extraordinary woman, her voice is like melted caramel in my head 🥰
https://youtu.be/Xg1t-fqhbf8?si=0Wr4L6ppN_cT30xT
Again a plain pop-song, but she had a way, didn’t she? She made ordinary music intriguing 🤩
March 13th, 2025 at 21:42The IGB has very seasoned musicians involved with it. I am not suggesting that the Gillan band wasn’t serious at what they were doing. However, was there was a ‘gung ho’ approach taken to things? Were the Gillan band too much into partying etc, just a thought. I would doubt that the IGB took that approach to their ways, but who knows. Things did change it seems after the IGB. Did the failed business ventures leave their indelible mark? Most probably. Glory Road has a slightly different slant to the recording process compared to Future Shock.. K.R. is as listed below, Kingsway Recorders Ltd. Listed as a producer, well I suppose in some aspects it is. It seems, if this is correct that Ian Gillan was a little more involved with the earlier Gillan band albums. I am only having a quick look online here as I don’t own the albums anymore, therefore I am not privy to the printed album credits. I do note that the chap Paul Watkins was initially an assistant engineer on the second IGB album, to sole engineer on their third and he also went with Gillan and Towns across to the Gillan band as their engineer and sometimes co -producer and mixer. Note a totally different producer & engineer on the Magic album, with Mick Glossop. Cheers.
Glory Road:
Ian Gillan – vocals, harmonica
Bernie Tormé – guitar, lead vocals on “Come Tomorrow”
Colin Towns – keyboards, flute, lead vocals on “Egg Timer” (Vice Versa)
John McCoy – bass guitar, producer, mixing
Mick Underwood – drums
Production
Gillan – producer, arrangements
Paul “Chas” Watkins – producer, engineer, mixing
Kingsway Recorders Ltd. – executive producer
Cooke Key – sleeve design
IGB – Clear Air Turbulence album.
March 13th, 2025 at 23:05Produced by Ian Gillan Band
Recorded and mixed at Kingsway Recorders, London
Recording engineer – Brad Davis
Remix engineer – Louis Austin
Assistant engineers – Paul Watkins, Bob Broglia
Brass arrangements – Cy Payne on “Clear Air Turbulence”, “Money Lender” and “Goodhand Liza”[5]
Listen again, Karin, Loverboy is a band with simplistic ingredients employed to great effect. There is not at all “much going on” in their music (hence good for radio), it is sparser than DPs, they focus on a few things and leave a lot of space. Yeah, I appreciate them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnaHnRqUdzA
Lindsey Buckingham is a troubled genius and vastly underrated as a guitarist.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdd_fv0xrSo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwIrnBX1Cdo
I’m sure he is tasking and an occasional pain in the arse to have around, but without him Fleetwood Mac is just another pop band. I adore the man. He’s a driven & obsessive ADHDler like many great artists.
March 13th, 2025 at 23:11I did not say a word about If I Sing Softly as a piece of music, Bob Ezrin could have turned it into something grand,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDTwL15ZHZs
(I can’t help you if you can’t hear the difference to GILLAN’s sonic output!)
it is the recording and the production of the song that is plain bad.
The production/mix of Future Shock was so abysmal, German music mags scoffed about it and wondered how – in 1981! – it could have possibly passed the quality control of an ex-member of DP, a band that had bestowed on us eternal hifi moments such as Machine Head and Stormbringer. When I first heard it, I returned it to the record shop believing that there was something wrong with the pressing. Unfortunately, all other copies sounded the same. 🤣
March 13th, 2025 at 23:23@45
Thanks David for mentioning ‘If I sing softly’
I am CRAZY about that song!
It’s on repeat and has been the last few days!
His voice is so fantastic!
First he sings softly (yeah well he had to, thinking of the title of the song 😉) but then he uses the roar (well not 100%, not like in ‘Gypsy’s kiss’ at the end – the words are “John Wayne, the Alamo, Crazy horse, Geroniimooooooo”) but really nice anyway!
March 14th, 2025 at 00:01And the music has this kind of dangerous feel to it. You know like the poor guy could lose his mind if his love interest wasn’t returning the love.
It is quite ironic regarding Gillan and the poor recordings. After the demise of his band Ian Gillan then went into Black Sabbath and we know how appalling that album sounds. It seems that Ian was following or he was being followed by woefully recorded and produced albums at that time. Didn’t he throw Born Again out of the window when he heard it and glimpsed the cover? It is pretty hilarious if we look at that in that light. Cheers.
March 14th, 2025 at 08:34One might think that IGB were disciplined goody-goodies because their music was so intricate and well-played, but they weren’t. Especially John Gustafson was a real troublemaker with a penchant for going berserk in hotel rooms (throwing a huge mirror in Paris onto the street where it of course burst into a thousand splinters) and backstage in Germany, decorating walls with buffet food. He was also one of those people who could binge drink and withing minutes look neat and sober again.
What the IGB guys – especially Fenwick & Gustafson – certainly were was experienced session musicians, they knew their way around a studio and how to make their instruments sound good as well as get down accurate takes quickly. A studio environment was no threat to them, they felt at home with it.
March 14th, 2025 at 08:36@49
Now I have tried to take that band in, Loverboy that is, and the music is great but the vocalist reminds me so much of that Rush fella (shivers down my spine and not the nice kind 😱)
Yeah we have talked before about Lindsey Buckingham being some kind of adhd, (please Uwe, take a guess of who can help him and who have indeed helped a lot of adhd-sufferers! So much that they are completely in sync with the rest of the world now 😍 and they do not need any medication anymore from their psychiatrist )
I love his way of playing the guitar!
March 15th, 2025 at 12:07He is very charming, well handsome, but I like his ‘lucky-go-happy’ style (especially when SN isn’t around 😃) more than anything!
I think dear Lindsay is a borderline neurotic and obsessive compulsive controller plus has a serious depressive streak! No joke. But that all makes him the artist he is, I wouldn’t change a thing.
March 16th, 2025 at 01:49@55
March 16th, 2025 at 18:38Ohh Uwe, do you think he is depressive?🥺
But of course you’re right here (again, aren’t you almost always right – except when you rant about homeopathic 😉) I wouldn’t change a thing either!
But Uwe, aren’t the greatest artist often challenged mentally?
Maybe the way they hurt are the main reason for the wonderful things they can do!
No doubt, a lot of great artists in all fields are psychologically somewhat dysfunctional, their art is a safe haven and place of retreat for them.
I imagine being “absolutely normal” (whatever that is) and creating great art to be close to impossible.
March 16th, 2025 at 21:24@55. I tend to agree Uwe. To see SN’s comments about him, and taking into consideration that they were in a relationship, he comes across as a bigger ar*whole than Ritchie! Don’t get me wrong btw- imo Ritchie is a genius and funny but he must be an absolute nightmare
March 17th, 2025 at 15:57IMHO Stevie Nicks is a handful and an effing prima donna too though!
I’m sure the two of them made for a combustible relationship. 🤯 But it gave us some great songs.
March 18th, 2025 at 00:58@59
“IMHO Stevie Nicks is a handful and an effing prima donna too though!”
Nooo doubt about that Uwe, but what can you expect from a blonde?😉
Btw I have just found proof there is nothing that true love can’t cure, LB is indeed sane and put-together:
https://youtu.be/T_Tz84J890M?si=6LFXOHBCpcdgIpCt
See! The right woman does make wonders! ☺️
March 18th, 2025 at 15:47Cute song, Karin, in a ‘Don’t Worry, Be Happy’ vein. It also reminds me of this Enya number here:
https://youtu.be/EZ98IJ0usoE
As “our musical director” (as Mick Fleetwood once announced him at a gig I saw), LB was/is simply irreplaceable for Fleetwood Mac.
March 19th, 2025 at 15:10@61
Ok, to be completely sure I am not misunderstanding you – you Uwe, a brilliant legal mind, who never forgets anything, and can link us all out of here forever and ever, you Uwe actually find this tune with Enya somewhat close to Lindsey Buckingham’s love song to his wife ‘It was you’? 😳
REALLY??
I, well I don’t know how to response….
I mean – REALLY..?
You can’t be serious sweetie, you really can’t 🧐
I find Enya’s first couple of hundreds songs to be a lot alike (even if I have been filled up with this really good coffee I enjoy every single day I can’t tell them apart!) and to compare those whining songs, sung in a key only suitable for the canine population to really interpret, arrh man no you can’t be serious! I am actually speechless!
Of course I know you now will find a lot of people who are agreeing with you, as you always do, but well, no, I am speechless 😶
https://giphy.com/gifs/dog-pretty-Pn1gZzAY38kbm
March 20th, 2025 at 15:54What’s wrong with happy songs, Karin?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7Tcggo45TQ
I’m not in danger of defending Enya, I think I liked just one song by her and that was Anywhere Is which I posted. It was mind-numbingly catchy in its repetitive circularness – sort of like a children’s chant that just doesn’t leave your head.
She never toured because she thought that multi-layered vocal sound (wasn’t her brother the mastermind of that?) of dozens of vocal tracks of her stacked above each other could not be reproduced live. But man were her albums popular in the 90s, especially in US households.
ABBA were faced with the same problem (the voices you hear on ABBA albums are very often a careful studio mix of Frida’s mezzo-soprano and Agnetha’s soprano in a way to make them appear like a single human voice), but in the end did play live – to great effect because both singers were strong even though what you heard live wasn’t really the hybrid vocals from the studio recordings.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMNnGjTGdew
No matter, great band.
March 20th, 2025 at 23:07@63
NOTHING is wrong with happy songs, but I would not count Enya among happy songs.
I live happy songs, this one
https://youtu.be/XCnpOcxVvuA?si=XEv8ZINI22H_xdOM
And this
https://youtu.be/qNM6IuA87eM?si=u8G3oH3UCQ3TUoV0
Not to forget this beauty
https://youtu.be/SwYN7mTi6HM?si=_yfSf4UP1dvwfX5D
(Was my ringtone for years 😍)
And finally
https://youtu.be/vt_JOI19BCQ?si=jYUfc6nJjq2_L0jg
Oh forgot this
https://youtu.be/zi3lxg9SX28?si=HNa2CdXRtlpT2VHz
And this song for spring
https://youtu.be/8acJqJ4tbgs?si=VY91oD9l6uJNSt0O
But Enya makes the Prozac sold out everywhere 😖
March 21st, 2025 at 08:24Enya is sweetly melancholic at worst, not ever depressive. Not that I mind depressive, intense music, especially if it’s a little unsettling!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrxePKps87k
Enya was more music for people WHO ALREADY WERE ON PROZAC – shiny, happy people (that song is about Prozac).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYOKMUTTDdA
I hate to say it, Karin, but Go Your Own Way is a sad breakup song about someone finally giving up on a relationship:
Loving you
Isn’t the right thing to do
How can I ever change things
That I feel?
If I could
Baby, I’d give you my world
How can I
When you won’t take it from me?
You can go your own way
Go your own way
You can call it
Another lonely day
You can go your own way
Go your own way
Tell me why
Everything turned around
Packing up
Shacking up is all you want to do
It was about the breakup of the Lindsay/Stevie relationship – written from Lindsay’s view, Stevie probably had another say on the matter.
But people quite often understand a song other than it was intended: The Boomtown Rats’ I Don’t Like Mondays was about an early mass school shooting
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSK-zXebpVGKqdRG2maxv2psfIgiK_dR8owvtFljU672iLnvahfT0EDhl14VO1UAhcN3Zw&usqp=CAU
whose protagonist (she was 16 at the time) is still serving a life sentence today, 46 years later:
https://www.10news.com/news/local-news/brenda-spencer-who-shot-11-people-at-a-san-diego-school-in-79-denied-parole
And the Police’s Every Breath You Take is about an unpleasant and unwanted stalker, not about a romantic relationship.
March 21st, 2025 at 15:29@65
Arrhhh Uwe, I do know the story behind ‘Go your own way’, but I love the tune, and you can sing the words out very loud just as a relief when someone is bugging you ☺️
Stevie Nicks wrote several songs his way, Silver Springs is an example.
But I don’t think about those people when I listen to Fleetwood Mac, because they did have numerous problems in that band!
My own life is way more simple, but I still love the happy sentiment in ‘Go your own way’.
Now you mention Boomtown Rats, this song is rather cute
https://youtu.be/AOOk59kpMwA?si=cUHtTg1LYymA8wT4
Do you know what that is about 😄
At FB someone named ‘David Bowie’ just asked me to chat with him, I answered: “I would love to, but unfortunately you’re dead.”
The person didn’t give up, but asked me to send a request, and I answered: “well, are you in heaven or hell”, and then the person stopped 😄
And I’m here, sipping tea and having a nice time 😂
Hvad ville livet egentlig være værd hvis vi ikke kunne drille hinanden?
March 21st, 2025 at 19:26@65
“And the Police’s Every Breath You Take is about an unpleasant and unwanted stalker, not about a romantic relationship.”
Yeah! So it is a good thing that we can interpret the songs depending on the mood we’re in!
This one
https://youtu.be/vb31FkIL22Q?si=WZae0bg5NKliNtgP
is adorable, and now you may tell me that it’s about some sinister bloke who tries to manipulate young innocent women to accept an offer they can’t refuse!
Or – you can just enjoy the song and the happiness it brings 🤩
March 21st, 2025 at 19:31Naw, Status Quo can be joyfully dumb sexist, but they’re not sinister misogynists.
Even “Roll Over Lay Down”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wr3JO0MhFTY
weren’t (somewhat muddled as regards sequence, shouldn’t it have been “lay down, roll over and let me in”?) the risque carnal instructions everybody seems to think they were, but simply Alan Lancaster, the bassist, imploring his girlfriend to let him keyless back into the jointly inhabited apartment after she had locked him out after a quarrel, begging her to get over it (“roll over”), calm down (“lay down”) and let him back into the apartment (“let me in”).
So that is if not exactly a happy song, then at least one about getting back together again!
PS: I liked John Coghlan’s drumming, he wasn’t Mr Accurate, but had real swing in doing those telltale Quo shuffles. And never kept his hi-hat shut. 😁
March 22nd, 2025 at 06:03@68
Of course that is what “Roll over lay down” is all about!
I have never thought SQ were dumb sexist, but just happy lads playing joyful music, even in this:
https://youtu.be/YmWxcbexHqQ?si=2_-n5ib2WxRV3rWB
That might have this ‘dear John’ sad moment , but then again happy lads playing joyful music ☺️
So do you know what “Elephant graveyard” is all about?
March 22nd, 2025 at 12:20I have no idea. My knowledge of anything relating to the Boomtown Rats is scant. Even though I once sat one evening on the terrace of an Istanbul hotel with Edith and he sat alone at the table next to us. She recognized him.
March 22nd, 2025 at 15:31@70
Ohh you’re mingling with celebrities 😃
It’s actually about older women in USA, not very nice I guess 😊
March 22nd, 2025 at 16:35