Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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35 of 35 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
At Last !! - but what about the other sessions ??, 28 Oct 2006
History is written by the victors. This is why Madonna and Annie Lennox are treated as innovative artists. Siouxsie, however, never really gets the credit for opening the door for them. Here we have them the way many of us heard them for the first time - their wonderful John Peel Sessions. The first two sessions, recorded prior to their Polydor contract, have been released several times before - initially as part of the infamous Love in a void bootleg then subsequently on official releases. What the fans have wanted for years, and now got, are an official release for the three remaining Peel sessions. Alternative versions of songs from Join Hands, JuJu and Tinderbox. All wonderful - hell, I am biased ! - it sounds fantastic.
If I have one minor gripe, it is the fact that their were four other BBC Radio One sessions - Richard Skinner (JuJu), Kid Jensen (A Kiss in the Dreamhouse), Janice Long (Through the Looking Glass) and Mark Radcliffe (The Rapture). - Instead of a one CD Peel sessions release, why not a two cd complete Radio One sessions ? - Pull your fingers out, Universal !!!
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30 of 30 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
This is what it's all about., 15 Mar 2007
Siouxsie and the Banshees, one of the greatest forgotten bands of all time. If you ever listened to their earlier albums and were blown away by their depth, originality, glory - then this is for you. These sessions sound, blaspherically, even better than the album tracks. I honestly expected poxy 'liveish' recordings, a little echo[e]y, a little, well, crap really. But these are just outstanding; it really is like listening to each individual track for the first time. Oh you generations of now, you 'You' children, wallowing in the morass of cover, of intertextual pap; you will never know what it was like to be truly outside, to make music like no-one else on earth. This still is, unmistakably, Siouxsie and the Banshees, and if you need a starting point, stumbling upon them for the first time, forget Once Upon A Time, Twice Upon A Time get this, get this: this is music that just might, in every sense of the world, change your life in this floundering culture of ours typified and tarnished by mediocrity and safely safely pap.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
But..., 18 April 2009
This very welcome package brings together all the sessions the Banshees recorded for the John Peel show, two before they had even signed a record deal, and all between 1977 and 1986. It once again demonstrates the small miracles regularly performed by the producers and studio engineers in the small radio studios at Maida Vale. Each session, usually comprising about four tracks, was recorded in a single day, generally as live with no more than a few minor overdubs, and often captures a sense of performance missing from the officially released versions.
Voodoo Dolly particularly benefits from this treatment, and like the other three titles from this February 1981 session, was recorded the month before they went into the studios to record them for Juju, giving the listeners a chance to preview a work in progress. But For Them, a showcase for Siouxsie and Budgie, is especially interesting as it was dropped uncompleted from Juju and instead turned up later on the debut EP by the Creatures, the Siouxsie and Budgie splinter group whose genesis this track had inspired.
I'm not so sure the Peel sessions should be singled out for this special treatment, when the band recorded sessions in the same studios for other Radio One shows, such as the Evening Session, and later in Manchester for Mark Radcliffe. They also recorded sessions around the world for other radio stations, not to mention a Capital Radio session in 1978 (Mirage and Metal Postcard).
In 2009 this collection has been complemented by a CD/DVD box set, At The BBC. It is considerably more expensive than this single CD; bad news for those of us that have already bought this one, but it does include everything on this CD plus the other missing Radio One sessions in full, as well as some live recordings broadcast on radio or TV.
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~ Siouxsie And The Banshees
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