A Personal Rant - (20th Anniversary Collectors Edition)

Seeing the announcement of the Whitesnake ‘1987′ 20th Anniversary Collectors Edition details on yesterdays Classic Rock Newswire really riled me. I went to work last night a little angrier, more than a little disappointed and a bit more cynical than normal. Let me try to explain…

20 years or so back, when I was an impressionable 16 year old discovering music that I liked, three of what have become my seminal albums were released. Namely :-

• Def Leppard - Hysteria
• Whitesnake - ‘1987′
• Bon Jovi - Slippery When Wet

They’re all bonafide 5 out of 5 albums in my book and over the years I’ve owned them on LP, picture disc, cassette, CD and had the accompanying VHS video with the promos for each. I love ‘em! I still love ‘em and each get regular plays even these days and most probably always will. They hold special memories and capture a great time in my life.

Now my beef is with these ‘Anniversary Editions’ that are so popular especially with the record companies. A chance to give the loyal fan a little more, a chance to bring a classic album to a new audience or simply a ruse to screw the people that have already bought it once just a little more? To be fair it can be done quite well; reference those Deep Purple reissues that add alternate takes, remasters, outtakes and unused tracks and excellent, detailed sleeve notes. So sadly, I’ve gotten quite excited recently about ‘my’ albums getting the anniversary treatment.

Def Leppard go first with Hysteria and they add a bonus CD full of b-sides and alternate mixes that appeared on the 12″ single releases back in the day. Now I bought this lot in the first place! Hell I was even able to lay out the 12″ single covers on the floor and with the aid of the extra cards in the Love Bites Limited Edition 12″ collectors box set was about to reproduce the cover as a 36″ square picture. In short I earned a bloody bonus CD of these B-sides but where the interesting stuff, the real collectors stuff if you will? I want the unused tracks, the different takes with alternate solo - hey! I want to hear what was so bad about the Jim Steinman mixes before Mutt Lange cameback. I’d settle for a live CD of a Hysteria era show or how about a live DVD of that tour? In The Round was from the new tour wasn’t it so doesn’t cater for this era as well as it might. But no… they say “have a bonus CD of the stuff you already bought once…”

Onto Whitesnake then. Now this is my number one album of all time okay. I had this on LP (embossed sleeve), LP (regular sleeve), US issue vinyl as well (different track listing), the Dutch issue LP (I was on holiday there and bought it - same as the US issue but it said Made In Holland in the small print), the CD, the cassette for in the car and multiple copies of the singles with the 7″, 12″, coloured vinyl and picture disc variations. I played the VHS video of the Tawny featuring promos to death (hey I was a 16 year old lad what do you expect!!!). So what have you got for my special collectors edition then David Doverdale?

It looks like its a CD/DVD double pack with bonus features!! Okay what are the bonus features then… well on the CD its remastered sound… okay but I can’t hear anything wrong with the original sound, and its also live tracks from the album as released on the Live In The Shadow Of The Blues collection… er, didn’t I buy that a few months back? Arn’t DC and Tommy Aldridge the only ones that even played on the 1987 tour? I know I can’t expect to hear Sykes and Murray play these live with DC but the current line up! What about that ’stunning’ band he put together back then??? Hang on, calm down…. take a look at the DVD details. The 4 promos - good, the old VHS is a bit worn, and the same four songs played live…. taken from the even more recent Live In The Still Of The Night release… last bloody years release!!!! Aaaaarrrrgggghhhhhh. Are you telling me there’s no soundboard tapes from that era? Are you telling me that in the studio Sykes nailed the solo first time and never changed an arrangement, that Coverdale didn’t try different words on the odd take? For the DVD did nothing ever get filmed on that huge world tour? Hang on wasn’t Give Me All Your Love a live performance on the promo? Did the cameras just film that song or did they do the whole show - or is it just a studio mock up? Didn’t Vivian Campbell record a new solo for that promo as well. Why isn’t that on the CD as a bonus track. Didn’t a couple of tracks not live up to expectations and stay in the can? Help me out here guys - I’m feeling unappreciated.

So onto good ol’ Bon Jovi. Friends of the fans, man of the people or hard nosed business man? Slippery When Wet - ‘the’ pop metal album of all time. Okay we’ve already had a remaster of this adding a CD video of Wanted Dead Or Alive but that was a few years back now. We’ve had a whole box set from them as well chock full of unreleased and rare stuff - but sadly Slippery era was pretty much overlooked save for a couple of tracks across the 4 CD and 1 DVD. So what will Bon Jovi give the loyal fan 20 years on, an official bootleg of the ‘pizza party jury tapes’ ?, a live DVD of a show from this era? a live double album with concurrent vinyl release in gatefold sleeve with picture inner sleeves (dreaming here I know!) or maybe even the whole album redone acoustically? a ‘new’ DVD of promos to replace the ol’ VHS tape even? Let me check the web-site….. a t-shirt for him or some knickers for her. Cheers!

Next time they’re up on stage giving it “We love you guys” I’ll remember why. Next time the record companies moan about illegal downloads I’ll also remember this… give me some value, something I’ve not bought before and I’ll buy it! I bought everything then - if I’m gonna buy it again at least give me something new, …. please….

Rant over…

“Shot through the heart……………”