Bands whose demos are better than their 'proper' release

[editor]

Case in point: Emmy the Great's demos of her tracks, 'The Easter Parade' and 'Mia' are loads better than her album version.

Any others?

 

[Voley]

There's a demo of 'That's Entertainment' by The Jam that's better than the original. It was on the 'Snap!' compilation that came out just after they split. A bit sparser-sounding and better for it, imo.

 

[matt m]

Nick Drake's "Family Tree", a collection of his home recordings, straight no-overdubs onto reel-to-reel with tape hiss in the background, sound fantastic. Much better than his overproduced studio albums, which are too easy-listening for me (the one exception being "Pink Moon", which uncoincidentally is also a straight voice-and-guitar no-overdubs album).

There's loads of singers I've found out about on myspace whose sound was so much better before the record deal. This is kind of a bad example, cos I don't rate her at all, and I never did, but I thought that the Florence & the Machine 'kiss with a fist' song had something. at least it sounded raw. whereas she's definitely been given the smoothed-out production treatment now.

 

[editor]

This is kind of a bad example, cos I don't rate her at all, and I never did, but I thought that the Florence & the Machine 'kiss with a fist' song had something. at least it sounded raw. whereas she's definitely been given the smoothed-out production treatment now.

Curiously, there was a lively version recorded by an entirely different band in south London before Florence had her big hit with the song.

 

[Silva]

Glasvegas had a cracker of a tune with Stabbed on a self-produced EP, but turned into rubbish when they made it a spoken word over Moonlight Sonata on the proper album. In fact, I'd take most of the "rougher" versions on the EP over the ones in the album.

 

[Metal Malcolm]

There were demos of the tracks off Worship & Tribute by Glassjaw going round on Audiogalaxy before the album came out. When it was finally released, they'd chopped all the songs up - I seem to recall on of them became a 16 bar outro tacked on to the end of another track. Was far more impressed by the demo versions.

Ah, teenagedom.

 

[butchersapron]

The Misunderstood - though they never even had a proper LP release. So far ahead of their time. A lot of those early demos were later released as The Lost Acetates 1965-1966.

 

[hiccup]

The demo version of Oasis - Cigarettes and Alcohol on a free NME (or maybe Melody Maker) tape was/is much better than the album version.

 

[stupid dogbot]

Doomtree's False Hopes series of unreleased and non-album tracks is seriously good.

 

[killer b]

The demo version of Oasis - Cigarettes and Alcohol on a free NME (or maybe Melody Maker) tape was/is much better than the album version.

oddly, i was just going to say this... noel sang on the demo iirc. the only oasis song i can even bear...

 

[cloudyday]

I was going to create a thread for demo versions people think are better than the common/release version of a song/track, of course one already exists.

 

[danski]

Modern Lovers - She Cracked (1972 demo)
One of my favourite tracks ever.
The proper version is just limp compared to this.

 

[ska invita]

THis is great;

The Doors - Audition Demos

View credits, reviews, tracks and shop for the 1987 Vinyl release of "Audition Demos" on Discogs.

www.discogs.com

A1		Moonlight Drive
A2		Hello I Love You
A3		Summer's Almost Gone
A4		My Eyes Have Seen You
A5		End Of The Night
A6		People Are Strange
A7		Break On Through
B1		Back Door Man - Maggie McGill - Roadhouse Blues (Medley)
B2		Crystal Ship
B3		Light My Fire

 

[rubbershoes]

This

 

[killer b]

Alison Statton's post- Young Marble Giants' band The Weekend were an okish indie pop band with latin jazz flavours in the 80s EBTG style, but their 4-track demo is red hot.

really into this one.

 

[ska invita]

THis is great;

The Doors - Audition Demos

View credits, reviews, tracks and shop for the 1987 Vinyl release of "Audition Demos" on Discogs.

www.discogs.com

A1		Moonlight Drive
A2		Hello I Love You
A3		Summer's Almost Gone
A4		My Eyes Have Seen You
A5		End Of The Night
A6		People Are Strange
A7		Break On Through
B1		Back Door Man - Maggie McGill - Roadhouse Blues (Medley)
B2		Crystal Ship
B3		Light My Fire

actually this First Demos 1965 is the thing i have a rip of but it may be the same recordings
doesnt have go insane on above

The Doors

The Doors: first six-songs demo, first single, and first album.

www.firstversions.com

 

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

Black Flags Rollins demos are better than the real thing.
I think Pixies Doolittle demos might have been better too.

 

[cloudyday]

Yeah, I prefer this to the album version.

 

[DaveCinzano]

Back To The Planet's early tape releases were much better than their proper albums