Albums That Never Were Released

Here's a subject that has entertained me for the past week: Albums That Never Were Released.

In the course of many bands' histories they have attempted to do an album, but it fell apart for various reasons -- band tensions, dissatisfaction with the results, label reticence to release it. Many times the ideas for that album are recycled, the tracks for that album get released later on different albums, often over a span of years (think The Beach Boys "Smile" and "Smiley Smile").

What this guy has done -- with great scholarship and serious digging -- is re-assemble the ghost albums from the remains available, putting them in their original intended running order and context and making them as cohesive as they should have been. And he does a REALLY GOOD JOB of it!

He also uses the same technique to explore some "what if" scenarios. What if The Beatles hadn't broken up in 1970? He creates new Beatle albums for 1970, 1971, 1972 using the solo material each of the members released in those years, sequenced and mixed to sound like a group album. What if Syd Barrett hadn't been kicked out of Pink Floyd? He creates three Pink Floyd albums that MIGHT have been released in the years following Syd's departure. Again, unbelievably, he creates really good, coherent group albums using disparate solo material and has valid, reasonable explanations for each of his choices.

Even if you don't download the music and hear the CD-Rs, the text explanations are fascinating.