Since the late 90s it has become tradition for Marillion to give their fan club members an exclusive CD. These releases are mixed bag affairs always containing unreleased material, sometimes demo recordings or live recordings. Over the years, these fun items have become treasured by fans.
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EDITORIAL COMMENT: Incomplete (or rambling thoughts on collecting from an obsessive music fan)
Right up to the 1980s, things were fairly simple as a music fan. Your favourite bands released singles and albums and, as a loyal fan, you bought them knowing you’d kept to your end of the bargain. Sometimes singles weren’t part of albums and in that case you got something extra. Things started to change in the 1980s when the picture disc started to make regular appearances, thus meaning an occasional extra purchase. Labels like ZTT (run by business-minded Trevor Horn and Paul Morley) were quick to capitalise on marketing strategies – with bands like Frankie Goes To Hollywood, they made sure that different formats had different mixes and different edits. In the case of the fledgling cassette single, they even went an extra step by including unreleased bits and pieces from the cutting room floor, often to fans’ bemusement and eventual delight.
Not everyone was as keen to play the game. Towards the end of the decade, Morrissey – in a spiteful lyrical snide against his then record company’s repackaging of Smiths material – gave us the lyrical legend “reissue, reissue, repackage…re-evaluate the songs, extra track and a tacky badge”. Some bands stuck rigidly to the old model of single release followed by album…and then a couple more singles (often with something extra on the b-side, sure; but once that was done, you knew that was it, at least until the next outpouring of new material in a couple of years).
By the mid-90s, albums would occasionally appear as special editions. This usually involved a bonus disc containing a handful of extra songs (or in the case of The Beautiful South’s excellent ‘Carry On Up the Charts’ anthology, a whole disc of hard to find b-sides) or live material. Another easy choice for the consumer: you chose to buy either the standard release or fork out a few extra quid for that bonus disc – job done, everybody happy. Bon Jovi’s ‘Keep The Faith’ was among the first to mark a shifting tide towards fan-testing, record company greed when the special edition appeared months after the original album’s release. This staggered release ensured almost everyone had purchased ‘Keep The Faith’ already…but would they buy it again? Of course they would – if not everyone, then at least a good proportion of the die-hards would want that extra material. Why wouldn’t they? The floodgates were open.
New fund-raising xmas single from Marillion available now
As part of their now-traditional fan-club freebie, rock legends Marillion recorded a version of the festive tune ‘Carol of The Bells’. Normally fan-club tracks stay that way, but this year, the band have made an exception.
The REAL GONE 2012 Advent Calendar
With all of the in-depth reviews and other stuff on Real Gone, since it’s nearly Christmas, it’s time for a bit of fun.
Every day between the 1st and 24th of December, a new link will be posted here containing a clip. It may music, maybe not; it may be a classic you’ve seen a thousand times, it may be something you’ve never seen…it may not even be an official clip.
It’s just a handy way of rounding up a few of Real Gone’s favourites in a quick and unoriginal fashion. After the calendar is completed on Christmas Eve, the links will stay up for those who missed out.
…Will Bruce Springsteen will be bellowing festively somewhere?
DEC 01 DEC 02 DEC 03 DEC 04 DEC 05 DEC 06 DEC 07 DEC 08
DEC 09 DEC 10 DEC 11 DEC 12 DEC 13 DEC 14 DEC 15 DEC 16
DEC 17 DEC 18 DEC 19 DEC 20 DEC 21 DEC 22 DEC 23 DEC 24
ARENA – Songs From The Lions Cage
This debut album by Arena feels like an important progressive rock release. Arena’s keyboard player Clive Nolan is probably best known as being a longtime member of Pendragon and the drummer, Mick Pointer was part of the original Marillion line-up.
The lengthy album opener, ‘Out of the Wilderness’ is a good indication of Arena’s musical ability. At over ten minutes, ‘Valley of the Kings’ follows a similar neo-progressive musical path and has a mid-section which sounds like Marillion’s ‘Forgotten Sons’. As a consequence, vocalist John Carson tries his best to sound like Fish. Sadly, this is the album’s main deficiency: Mick Pointer seems intent on capturing his former glories and as a result, all of the best bits sound like they’ve been all but plagiarized from ‘Script For A Jester’s Tear’.
The conceptual ‘Crying For Help’ could’ve provided the band with an interesting centrepiece. Unfortunately, it’s nearly all instrumental keyboard work and when added together, its four parts total nearly fifteen minutes and very little of it holds the attention. The only part of ‘Crying For Help’ which shows any real promise is the final part which features a guest solo from Marillion’s Steve Rothery. But, again, on the down side, the track closes with a ringing telephone and a message saying “…this is the problem line.” Sound familiar?
On the whole, ‘Songs From The Lions Cage’ lacks originality and is only worth a listen if you’re a diehard Marillion fan. Otherwise…
Originally written for Fastlane magazine, 1994