The Greatest Music Never Sold: I need examples of lost albums and early demos from famous or famous-ish musicians

December 7, 2008 6:51 AM

The Greatest Music Never Sold: I'm looking for albums that were never released or just never left the demo phase from famous musicians.

I came across the book The Greatest Music Never Sold, I've put in my order and now I'm playing the waiting game. So to kill that time I was wondering if the hivemind could think of any almost made/nearly finished/barely demos by famous and not so famous artists. An example of what I'm looking for would be Weezer's never released "Songs From The Black Hole". I'm open to any genre of music as well. Thanks for your help and time.

posted by carefulmonkey to media & arts (31 comments total)

Sheryl Crow scrapped the first version of Tuesday Night Music Club. I had some bootleg mp3s years ago, I'm sure it's out there somewhere.
posted by yellowbinder at 7:10 AM on December 7, 2008

Nine Days and their going to be second major release So Happily Unsatisfied. They're offering it as a free download if you're interested in hearing it.

Powerman 5000 has sort of released Anyone For Doomsday?, if you want to count Zune and iTunes store as released. The thing that might not count this one for me is that it was available on their website.
posted by theichibun at 7:12 AM on December 7, 2008

Radiohead, when they were called On A Friday, had quite a lot of demos that never saw the light of day. MeMail if you want 'em.
posted by jhighmore at 7:18 AM on December 7, 2008

There's Jack and Faye, a 7-inch by the Mountain Goats.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 7:20 AM on December 7, 2008 [1 favorite]

KMD's Bl_ck B_st_rds and J-Live's The Best Part
posted by rachelpapers at 7:33 AM on December 7, 2008

The greatest of all is SMiLE by the Beach Boys which is available from a number of sources the best being Sea of Tunes. Brian Wilson released a crap re-recorded version a few years ago, but it didn't touch the original.

The Beatles recorded a number of things never released, the Get Back sessions particularly.

Nirvana's In Utero was mixed originally by Steve Albini, the label hated it and had it radically re-mixed, the original is fascinating listening.

Prince has recorded numerous unreleased albums Camille and Crystal Ball (a title he later used on an outtake set), he also claims to have several other recordings that have never even surfaced as bootlegs including a psychedelic The Time album.

TheTHe (Matt Johnson) recorded an album called Gun Sluts that has never seen the light of day. The title track was released by him as an online single.

There are whole collections of demos and acetates from the psychedelic era.

Hell this is just off the top of my head, there is a ton of stuff out there.
posted by Ponderance at 7:48 AM on December 7, 2008

While I guess you could debate if it counts as released or not (it hasn't had a commercial release), there's MACHINA II / The Friends & Enemies of Modern Music by The Smashing Pumpkins. Their record company didn't want to make a release, so they pressed 25 copies and gave to friends. Now you can download it from archive.org.
posted by bjrn at 8:05 AM on December 7, 2008

Van Morrison once cranked out 31 songs on-the-spot to fulfill his contract with Bang Records. The highlight of the "album" is the song, "Want a Danish," which, as you might guess, is where Van opines about how much he'd like a Danish. Quick story here.
posted by GamblingBlues at 8:15 AM on December 7, 2008

"Hail and Farewell, Gothenburg" is a full-length unreleased Mountain Goats record. I didn't know about Jack and Faye -- thanks, PhoB!
posted by escabeche at 8:20 AM on December 7, 2008

The original version of Fiona Apple's Extraordinary Machine was leaked onto the internet in 2005; she re-recorded the album and released it the same year.

Back to School, Pianosaurus' follow-up to Groovy Neighborhood, was recorded but never released.
posted by kirkaracha at 8:49 AM on December 7, 2008

OT

Back to School, Pianosaurus' follow-up to Groovy Neighborhood, was recorded but never released.

I remember having a copy of something called At The Thrift Store years ago and then never hearing of them again, so thanks for that.
posted by mandal at 9:14 AM on December 7, 2008

Phish's The Man Who Stepped Into Yesterday
posted by papayaninja at 9:15 AM on December 7, 2008

During a hiatus from the Grateful Dead in 1972-74, Mickey Hart recorded with some friends Area Code 415, Fire on the Mountain, and an early, unreleased version of Barry Melton's The Fish.
posted by Knappster at 9:17 AM on December 7, 2008

Shaquille O'Neal Presents His Superfriends, vol. 1
Chrome Dreams by Neil Young
The Hastily Cobbled Together for a Fast Buck Album by Monty Python
Country Mike's Greatest Hits by Mike D

Alright, I admit it; Wikipedia has a list.
posted by carsonb at 9:33 AM on December 7, 2008

Crustified Dibbs!
posted by box at 9:34 AM on December 7, 2008

Patty Griffin's Silver Bell has never been released, though she's re-recorded a few of the songs and included them on subsequent albums.
posted by des at 9:34 AM on December 7, 2008

A minor artist, but Harvey Danger gave out CDRs of unreleased tracks when you preordered one of their albums.
posted by tylermoody at 9:37 AM on December 7, 2008

Q-Tip's Kamaal the Abstract, which is a pretty great album.
posted by mynameisluka at 9:42 AM on December 7, 2008

Looking at carsonb's list, it would seem third time unlucky.
posted by mandal at 9:43 AM on December 7, 2008

Brian Eno's My Squelchy Life.
posted by rikschell at 9:44 AM on December 7, 2008

Dennis Wilson's Bamboo.
posted by box at 9:47 AM on December 7, 2008

Zurich - the still as-yet unreleased second Dark Star album (*sigh*)
posted by Chairboy at 9:53 AM on December 7, 2008

The Pulsars also had a second album that was never released due to their record label (Herb Alpert's Almo Sounds) was abosrbed by Interscope. It has some amazing songs on it.
posted by ktrey at 10:39 AM on December 7, 2008

Jimmy Eat World began working on their album Futures with longtime producer Mark Trombino. These demos were leaked on the internet and were basically rough versions of songs that ended up on the final version of Futures as well as the Stay on My Side Tonight EP. Can't say that these demos were better than the final versions, though, so not quite the "greatest" music never sold.
posted by puritycontrol at 11:11 AM on December 7, 2008

The Replacements have tons and tons of unreleased demos and alternate versions of tracks, most of which have been released in bootleg format as "Flowers in the Dark", "Boink" (not to be confused with the actual Boink EP), and "How Did the Vomit Get Up on the Ceiling". Supposedly Don't Tell a Soul was originally intended as an entirely different album (whose name I have forgotten) but the band eventually scrapped everything from that record.
posted by punchdrunkhistory at 11:38 AM on December 7, 2008

Prince, The Black Album (aka The Funk Bible).
posted by googly at 12:04 PM on December 7, 2008

Dave Matthews Lillywhite sessions?
posted by Large Marge at 12:37 PM on December 7, 2008

Country artist Rebecca Lynn Howard has had singles released to radio from at least 2 albums, only to have those albums shelved by the label. She subsequently lost rights to those albums when she left the labels.
posted by jferg at 1:11 PM on December 7, 2008

I know Elysian Fields recorded an album with Steve Albini, which due to legal/label reasons never made it out there, but as far as I know nothing from it has ever leaked out.

That said, if anyone has any of it, I'd be mighty interested to hear it!
posted by opsin at 2:18 PM on December 7, 2008

Box: Bambu was released as part of the Legacy Edition of Dennis' "Pacific Ocean Blue"
posted by softlord at 2:31 PM on December 7, 2008

Jethro Tull went to France to record what was to be a soundtrack to a movie. It never happened, and the music was never released as intended. The so-called Chateau Disaster tapes were however the basis of "A Passion Play" and "War Child". Most of the outtakes were later released on "Nightcap".

Genesis (All of the original members) did a one-off reunion concert to support Peter Gabriel's WoMad. It was never recorded.
posted by Gungho at 11:54 AM on December 8, 2008