Monday, July 22, 2024

Black Flag - Everything Went Black (1982)

 

Side A:
1. Jealous Again
2. Clocked In
3. Six Pack
4. I've Heard It Before
5. American Waste
6. Louie Louie
7. Police Story
8. Gimmie Gimmie Gimmie   
9. Depression    

Side B:
10. Room 13    
11. Damaged II
12. No More   
13. Padded Cell
14. Machine
15. Damaged I

When Black Flag released their first album Damaged in 1981, they recorded it with their fourth vocalist Henry Rollins. In fact, the band almost recorded an alternate version of the album with their third vocalist Dez Cadena. Dez switched to second guitar and Henry from State of Alert took over on vocals. They wouldn't release another album till 1984 but in between they put out two compilation albums, Everything Went Black in 1982 and The First Four Years in 1983. The first one was a two LP set that included three sides of previously unreleased alternate versions of songs with the first three vocalists. The second one contained tracks from their EPs but also featured the first three vocalists. This is an alternate version of Damaged with Dez which could've replaced these two compilation albums. 

Sunday, July 7, 2024

Nirvana - Free From Chains (1999)

 

1. All Wet, Yet Nice
2. Dweller
3. This Would Last
4. Self Interest
5. As It Is
6. Insomnia
7. Lecture One
8. Lovely Guts
9. Anorexorcist
10. Nobody Knows I'm New Wave
11. Vendetagainst
12. White Lace and Strange
13. Clean Up Before She Comes

The first eight songs would mostly use AI generated Kurt Cobain soundalike vocals but are all original songs. The next five songs also use AI vocals but are based on unreleased Nirvana songs. This would also represent their final contractually obligated album, freeing them from their contract. So with no contract and the millennium about to happen, who knows what awaits them?

Saturday, July 6, 2024

Sex Pistols - The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle (1979)

 


Side A:
1. Belsen Was a Gas
2. I Wanna Be Me
3. Did You No Wrong
4. Satellite
5. Don't Give Me No Lip
6. (I'm Not Your) Steppin' Stone

Side B:
7. Substitute
8. Lonely Boy
9. Silly Thing
10. Black Leather
11. No Fun 

The Sex Pistols infamously only released one album before breaking up. In a quest for more material, producer Dave Goodman found an old rehearsal tape and based a movie around their story. Tracks from the tape were featured on the soundtrack from the movie. It's not great but it might be the closest to an official second Sex Pistols album. The first track "Belsen Was a Gas" is included as an edited live performance. There exist two studio versions: one with Johnny on vocals which has a ghostly effect on his voice, and one with train robber Ronnie Biggs on vocals (???). The most famous version though is the live performance since Johnny sings. 

In one part of the tape they do a cover of "Johnny B. Goode" for some reason, but then Johnny says he doesn't know the words and wants to play "Roadrunner" instead. So they play that song but he still doesn't remember the words! The album consists of B-sides from singles and cover songs from the tape that were staples at early shows. After Johnny left the group in 1978, the band recorded some tracks without him for the soundtrack, including some with other members. 

Friday, July 5, 2024

Nirvana - Heaven is a Hoax (1997)

 

1. Drowned in the Sun
2. Suffer
3. Lavender
4. Flower on a Grave
5. Cuts
6. Like New (feat. Layne Staley)
7. Star
8. Dream Song
9. Culture Abuse
10. Come on Death
11. Seattle Abridged
12. Vasectomy in Four Countries

In my Nirvana alternate universe discography, I only made one posthumous album which was Bliss from 1995 because I didn't feel as though there was enough material to make a second one. But in the years since then, there were a lot of fan made Nirvana albums being uploaded to YouTube, some tracks using Kurt soundalike AI vocals to make completely new songs. The most famous example would be Drowned in the Sun, which was supposedly all created by AI to sound like a Nirvana song but was uploaded by a YouTuber named Good Luck Chuck. Then there was the fan made song Smother which had AI written lyrics that were in the style of Nirvana but was recorded by a YouTuber named Kurt Connor. However I feel like this one is less original, but I found a similarly named song called Suffer made by If Kurt Cobain Lived. 

The idea for this person's album is that by 2000, Kurt Cobain was working on his first solo album, but it would be intentionally unlistenable to piss off any record executive that would be interested in releasing it. I loved this idea, especially the idea that at least one track would be a sound collage made from the experimental tracks from the Montage of Heck soundtrack. This can be represented on the track Culture Abuse. Lavender might be an answer song to Hole's Violet, and some other songs like Flower on a Grave could also be a hit single. The instrumentation was all fan made which gives some songs a loose feeling and make some vocals sound more robotic. 

Technically there were some fan made band mockups that I didn't use on the last album, as well as tracks from the Foo Fighters' album The Colour and the Shape, though the idea of making a solo album with songs that used AI vocals intrigued me. There is also the idea of simply using songs by obscure bands that sounded like Nirvana, though I don't necessarily like this idea. 

Thursday, July 4, 2024

Bob Dylan - Great White Wonder (1977)

 

Side A:
1. Bonnie Ship the Diamond
2. All American Boy
3. Get Your Rocks Off
4. Johnny Todd
5. Tupelo
6. One for the Road

Side B:
7. I'm Your Teenage Prayer
8. Four Strong Winds
9. The French Girl
10. Joshua's Gone Barbados
11. Baby Ain't That Fine
12. Rock, Salt, and Nails

This is a sequel to my single album version of his Basement Tapes double album from 1975. With the release of The Bootleg Series Vol. 11, we have a whole slew of songs we could use. Also Dylan never released an album in 1977, so I thought maybe he could put out more tracks from the tapes for its 10 year anniversary and name it as a tribute to the bootleg that initially brought the tapes to public attention. On the box set, the tracks from the original album appear on discs 3 and 4, and there's a couple new tracks on there we could use for our sequel. Though some were unfinished like "The Hills of Mexico" and some were just short like "Down on Me". To fill it out we can include tracks from disc 2 which is where “Tiny Montgomery" originates from. 

Wednesday, July 3, 2024

Rancid - Life Won't Wait (1998)

 

1. Bloodclot
2. Hoover Street
3. Black Lung
4. Stop
5. New Dress
6. Warsaw
7. Tattoo
8. The Brothels
9. Leicester Square
10. Backslide
11. Who Would've Thought
12. Cash, Culture and Violence
13. Cocktails
14. The Wolf
15. 1998
16. Empros Lap Dog
17. Brad Logan
18. Turntable
19. Something in the World Today
20. Corazón de Oro

Coming off the success of their last album, ...And Out Came the Wolves in 1995, Rancid's next album went through a lengthy recording process, tracking over 50 songs with most of them being unreleased. Some of the songs were reggae sounding and two were even recorded in Jamaica. The final result took three years and has 22 tracks at over an hour long, making it their longest album. I was able to find 10 more tracks from around this time mostly from the B Sides and C Sides compilation so I wanted to see if I could replace the reggae tracks.

Tuesday, July 2, 2024

Radiohead - Decompression Sickness (1996)

 

1. Maquiladora
2. Killer Cars
3. India Rubber
4. How Can You Be Sure?
5. The Trickster
6. Lewis (Mistreated)
7. Punchdrunk Lovesick Singalong
8. Permanent Daylight
9. Lozenge of Love
10. You Never Wash Up After Yourself
11. Talk Show Host
12. Bishop's Robes
13. Banana Co.
14. Molasses

For whatever reason, the Bends album had more B-sides than any other Radiohead album, including the My Iron Lung EP which contained six exclusive tracks and the Street Spirit (Fade Out) EP which contained four exclusive tracks. So you could make a secondary album out of these outtakes, like they would do with Kid Amnesiac. 

Monday, July 1, 2024

The Misfits - Walk Among Us (1982)

 

Side A:
1. 20 Eyes
2. I Turned Into a Martian
3. All Hell Breaks Loose
4. Vampira
5. Nike A Go Go
6. Hatebreeders
7. Night of the Living Dead
8. Skulls

Side B:               
9. Violent World
10. Devil's Whorehouse
11. Astro Zombies
12. Braineaters
13. Halloween
14. London Dungeon
15. Horror Hotel
16. Ghouls' Night Out
17. Where Eagles Dare
18. Halloween II

When the Misfits recorded their first album, it was actually not their first time doing so. They previously recorded two albums, the first being Static Age which was recorded in 1978 and released in 1996 and the second being 12 Hits From Hell which was recorded in 1980 and unofficially released in 2001 but has never been officially released. Static Age was 35 minutes long while 12 Hits From Hell and Walk Among Us are both about 25 minutes long. The former serves as a demo of the latter and they share six songs in common. I thought if we can't officially release 12 Hits From Hell, why not include the exclusive tracks as an expanded version on their first album? I used the single version of Where Eagles Dare. 

The Hollies - Listen to Us (1968)

  Side A: 1. Open Up Your Eyes 2. Do the Best You Can 3. Relax 4. Tomorrow When It Comes 5. Man With No Expression 6. Like Every Time Before...