Peggy Suicide [CD]

Peggy Suicide is an album of incredible variety and scope, especially the rhythmic textures & the impressive array of guitars. The arrangements are innovative and the music melodious. The opener Pristeen is a tuneful ballad with extraordinary guitar sounds, followed by Double Vegetation, a brooding number with nervous rhythms. The tender Promised Land starts out as a folkie rumination, turning into a rock ballad as the guitars enter for a powerful build-up.

The uptempo rock song Hanging Out & Hung up on the Line is reprised later in the atmospheric Hung up & Hanging out to Dry with its long instrumental introduction. There are two anti-road songs, the funky East Easy Rider and Drive, She Said, a mid-tempo rock ballad with lovely vocal arrangements. Julian sure didn't like the road. Safesurfer opens with tormented guitars and in its tempo shifts display lovely mini-moog & piano.

The percussive If You Loved Me At All is a catchy track with symphonic keyboards, massed acoustic guitars later joined by electric ones, and considerably less gravitas than the others. There are two songs that explore overt psychological themes, the jittery track You with its unusual baritone sax and the appealingly melodic Head, whilst the buoyant Beautiful Love is spiritual & uplifting with its joyful trumpet. The American Lite, a stirring love song, and Las Vegas Basement are tender ballads with beautiful melodies.

After the massive disappointment of the 2006 Jehovah Kill remastering (a sonic disaster)you might have thought that island might have ensured they got this one right? Right? WRONG! UNBELIEVABLY SO VERY WRONG!
On first listening to disc one at least, the remastering seems to have avoided the distortion problems of the Jehovah Kill remastering which made the latter probably the worst remaster i had ever heard. Sonically, the Peggy Suicide reissue is ok:certainly brighter and crisper than the original, a tad more detail retrieval, but losing some natural warmth and depth compared to the original; a common trait in remastered discs. I guess this is just a matter of personal taste.

So my main problem with the new deluxe edition? The track inclusions, or rather the lack of...Where is 'uptight', the track which was on the original vinyl release of the album, but missing on the original cd due to time limitations of the cd format. All pre-release track listings for Peggy Suicide deluxe edition have included 'uptight' as track 15 on disc one. Never having owned the vinyl copy of this album i was so happy to be finally getting my hands on this long lost Cope track. So imagine my frustration and sense of betrayal when i arrived home from work today to find my amazon delivery waiting for me...only to look at the track listing and find...you guessed it, no 'uptight'!!! AAAARRGHHH!!!! What is the problem with these idiots at island records? Are they so incompetent that they are prepared to misinform all musical retailers/publicists of an incorrect track listing? There are even discrepencies on the track listing for disc two: my cd has eleven tracks on it, amazon listed 13, hmv 15!!! What is going on?!!! Its an utter joke, and truelly unprofessional and shoddy in the extreme. On further inspection, checking out the amazon downloads, there is indeed no 'uptight' available to download and only eleven tracks as per my 2nd disc to download. But why the discepencies? I feel like a victim of false advertising! But more importantly, why has island wasted the obvious oppurtunity to finally put out on cd the complete Peggy Suicide album, ie, inclusive of 'Uptight'? If a deluxe edition is incapable of putting such a historical anomaly to rights, then really, what the hell is the point in the whole process anyway?

To say i am cheesed off with this is an understatement. My review still has to concede 3 stars simply on the strength of the music, as this is one of my favourite albums of all time, but really, what a total anticlimax! Shame on you, yet again, island records.

I have to agree with Mr. Top Cat; what a bodge job this is. No 'Uptight', no 'Port of Saints', no 'Bagged-Out Ken' and no Hiphoprisy versions of 'Soldier Blue', tchah! .... Island could have left off some of the remixes which have been available for years on the 'Dancing Heads' e.p.. Even the booklet in my copy is cocked up with two pages being printed twice... A five star album given a three star reissue.