FOR 2013’s Record Store Day, there was speculation that Kate Bush would release her cancelled 1993 single Eat The Music. This year it’s finally happening, on a 10-inch picture disc (see above, bottom left). More miraculous, Bush has been announced as 2024’s Record Store Day (April 20) ambassador for the nation’s independent vinyl outlets. “I hope,” she said, “you get to celebrate music that’s been specially released for you.”
This year, it’s easy to think it has. Who wouldn’t want a copy of David Bowie’s Waiting In The Sky (Before The Starman Came To Earth) (Parlophone)? Taken from Trident Studios 1/4-inch stereo tapes from December 15, 1971, it makes for an alt-tracklist, parallel universe version of Ziggy Stardust. Also reverse-engineering a classic, The 1975 Sire Demos (Rhino/Warner) by the Ramones collects early sketches for the first time on ‘Ultra Clear With Black Splatter’ vinyl. The rewiring continues: 50 years from its original release, Gene Clark’s No Other Sessions (4AD) presents the original tracklist in nine alternate versions and nine first full takes.
Augmenting old favourites with bonus tracks is, as ever, popular: LPs promoted to doubles with contemporary out-takes and rarities include Elton John’s Caribou (UMR, on ‘Sky Blue’ vinyl), Parliament’s debut Osmium Deluxe Edition (Demon, on green vinyl), and Captain Beefheart’s The Spotlight Kid (Rhino, on ‘Milky Clear’ vinyl), whose second disc of alternate takes includes the unreleased, nine-minute version of I’m Gonna Booglarize You Baby.
Elsewhere, there are newly minted records which will slot nicely into any collection: Faces’ The Complete BBC Sessions (Rhino) compiles the beloved entertainers’ rare recordings for the national broadcaster in hi-fi on clear wax. Yardbirds’ Psycho Daisies – The Complete B-Sides (Demon) curates the blues rockers’ flipsides on purple vinyl with orange splatters (there’s also a translucent red repress of the Yardbirds’ Five Live (L.M.L.R.)). The Fall’s Country On The Click (Alternative Version) (Cherry Red) brings the original mix of MES’s 2003 triumph to vinyl for the first time, on translucent orange wax, using original unused sleeve art. Does Ian Hunter’s brand-new Defiance Part 2: Fiction (Sun), out on April 20, fit the brief because its RSD LP incarnation includes three tracks unavailable elsewhere?
Eye-catching visual novelty is everywhere, with bold new colour schemes for LPs including Black Sabbath’s Paranoid (Sanctuary, ‘Red and Black Splatter’), The Who’s The Story Of The Who (Polydor, pink and green), The Roches’ wondrous self-titled debut (Real Gone, ‘Ruby Red’), Little Richard’s Right Now! (Omnivore, ‘Sunflare’), and, 60
