It is said that music gives wings to the mind, a soul to the universe, flight to the imagination and most importantly, life to everything. But we have to face the truth, many albums, with every passing year, go out of print, and this is well justified. Over the years, People have come up with appalling music and there is just not enough room on the shelves to have them stick around.
Music is deplorable. There are many reasons as to why music vanishes–a phenomenon that has, sorry to say, claimed the lives of many albums that were the heart and soul of the music industry back in the day. We could go back and forth with varying opinions and never hear the end of it but instead, let us have a look at some of the greatest albums that you no longer have access to.
Number Five: Neil Young’s First Live Album. Many people still talk about Neil young and his album as though we are still in the 70s. Well, he is to blame for two things: being alive up to date and still doing things irrespective of his age. Now that we have cleared the air of that, let us talk about him some more. But first, if you have no clue of Neil’s other songs; you surely are familiar with songs like “Heart of Gold” and “Old Man,” both classic songs that were major hits from his beloved and clearly most successful album, Harvest. The classic album was however responsible for the birth of what grew to be referred to as “The Ditch Trilogy”, a series of careless and unsystematic, yet very incredible albums that cemented Neil Young’s fame for the years to come. But even he knows that he never did, not even once release an album that came close to the Harvest. The albums that followed were On the Beach and Tonight’s the Night. They were pretty good, but if you have ever listened to them, good luck finding them in stores–these albums do not exist; to be more specific, their master tapes are missing! Go figure.
Number Four: The Last Great Prince Album (80’s). This advice comes for free, and will be well worth it. If you have never read Possessed: The rise and Fall of Prince, do yourself a favor, tack it down and read it from cover to cover. You will find some amazing and entertaining information right there. The accuracy of the stories told about pop music cannot be truly relied upon, but then again, if Prince really wanted us to know the truth, he should have told us, like a good and loyal Jehovah Witness is meant to. All we have access to, are interview of people who were close to the Prince. The most memorable and probably one that you will also like is about on his decision to retract all the Black Album pieces from the store shelves before a single copy was sold. Don’t get it twisted, everything was in place, down to the last detail. But at the very last moment, Prince decides that the album was evil and there is no way he can have that kind of guilt on his shoulders. Like hell he couldn’t have that. But like everything else, that is myth related in the music industry, the use of drugs had a hand in it. Apparently, Prince experimented on ecstasy for the very first time, and judging by his last minute decision, things did not go so well.
In the early 90’s however, his concerns of the album being evil died down and he released the album in the year 1994 (November) only to delete it only a few months later in January, 1995. To be clear, apart from the two months, The Black Album never was and never will be available.
Number Three: Any Garth Brooks Album. Hands down, he is, or rather was, the biggest artist during the SoundScan era. Unlike many of his peers back in the day such as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin and Metallica, he never ever made the music that he made available digitally. And this is not for business reasons, no, he just believes that music should be enjoyed as a whole and not divided into bits of singles and sold for less a dollar. While this holds true, for now, he is making plans of making his catalog available in different digital formats. When he does come through, it will probably make him one of the best-selling artists (solo) of all-time. Yes, you heard right, of all time, as in ever–goodbye Elvis. Sure no one can stop people from ripping DVDs and uploading them onto the net, but the idea here is that no other major artist, apart from Garth, has ever given Apple a hand off for such a long time.
Number Two: Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks Album Duo. Very few duos, if any, are respected as Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham are, and this is considering that they are in a band with three other people. As a matter of fact, not many people can name the other members. Can you? The point is, they are mostly known as a duo, which makes it rather strange that the only Album they have ever released for more than 40 years now is the Buckingham Nicks.
But why has it never been released? Is it such a terrible piece of work? Or is it that it was very embarrassing for them? Not at all, especially given the fact that they have included some of the songs featured in the album in some of their live shows and subsequent releases. The reason it has not been released yet is because it just hasn’t. It was to be out some years back, or rather it was rumored to be so, so for the better part of the album’s life, it has been locked away from the general public.
Number One: The Beatles One and Only Live Album. It is always very surprising that in the endless debate about ‘Stones vs. Beatles”, the Rolling Stones fans never at any one point play their most valuable card in the argument–who is the better band? Well, truth be told, that is not an evenly matched competition as there has never been any point in history that the Stones wouldn’t have crushed the Beatles in a live performance. True, the Beatles actually stopped touring the world halfway through their precious career, courtesy of the screams they got from their fans which made playing music impossible, but still, the point remains, they did stop and the stones continued.
However, even with that, is it not weird that a live Beatles album is not in existence? True there are some few releases that consist of some live recordings, but there is not a single official recording of the Beatles in a live show, entertaining the girls whose screams marked an end to their live performances.