Since I've been listening to a lot of the Pretty Things, here's another album from them.
I'm very happy with what I've accomplished here, I must say! "Emotions" is a 1967 album from the Pretty Things that wasn't well received when it came out, and was almost immediately disowned by the band. They've been critical of it ever since. I hope I've tweaked things to come up with a version that would meet their approval, and hopefully yours as well.
There's an interesting story behind this album. In late 1966, the Pretty Things were on a commercial decline. Their rocking R n' B msuci was going out of style, and musical tastes were drastically changing fast. They owned one more album to their record company Fontana Records. Fontana wanted hits from them, and forced a producer on them, Steve Rowland who had made some hits for a couple of lightweight bands. The band members tried their best to go along with the record company's demands, writing songs in a new style and acquiescing with the producer's methods, which was to slather horn sections and strings all over the songs.
Keep in mind that this was 1967, and the new psychedelic style often had very ornate production. Consider how drastically the Rolling Stones changed their style for one album that year, "Their Satanic Majesties Request," to fit in with musical trends. (The Stones would soon disdain that album of theirs as well, although I think it's a really good one.)
The good news was, the Pretty Things wrote a very good bunch of songs, proving they had the talent and versatility to go beyond R n' B. But the producer way overdid it with the strings and horns, badly undermining the songs. Two band members were so upset that they quit the band in frustration in the middle of recording the album, never to return. The band never played any of the songs from it in concert (except one, "Children," and that only briefly). The album did poorly commercially, so all the selling out was for naught, but at least the band was done with their Fontana record company contract. They would go on to greater things with their next album ("S. F. Sorrow").
Luckily, it turns out that various archival releases have included alternate versions of most of the songs, stripped free of the strings and horns. I was able to find alternate versions for eight of the twelve songs. Of the remainder, two of them don't have that much overproduction. But you will definitely notice the horns on the first song, "Death of a Socialite," and the strings on another song, "Growing in My Mind." Overall,l this is much closer to how the band wanted the songs to sound, before the producer went wild on them.
Since the band has continued to express their frustration with this album even to this day, I'm kind of surprised they haven't made an alternate version just like this one. The alternate versions I found were scattered all over the place. Perhaps if they search their archives they could find alternates for the remaining four songs as well, and fully undo the mistakes of the past.
For bonus tracks, I've included two other songs from the same era that similarly had production issues. (One of the songs, "Progress," is from 1966, but December 1966.) These bonus tracks use alternate versions that are similarly stripped down. I'm putting the non-alternate versions of these two songs on different albums.
UPDATE: On November 18, 2020, I updated the mp3 file. I didn't add or remove any songs. But I did change some of the songs. This is because someone pointed out to me that there's a version of the album with extreme stereo separation, putting all the horns and strings in one channel for some songs. I used this to strip the horns and strings from "Death of a Socialite," "House of Ten," "Growing in My Mind," and "Bright Lights of the City." So now the album is even closer to the original vision the band had. Basically all the ornate production they didn't like has been removed from all the songs. The only song that didn't get changed is "Tripping," and that's because there was nothing objectionable to change for that one song.
01 Death of a Socialite [Alternate Version] [Edit] (Pretty Things)
02 Children [Alternate Version] (Pretty Things)
03 The Sun [Alternate Version] (Pretty Things)
04 There Will Never Be Another Day [Alternate Version] (Pretty Things)
05 House of Ten [Alternate Version] [Edit] (Pretty Things)
06 Out in the Night [Alternate Version] (Pretty Things)
07 One Long Glance [Alternate Version] (Pretty Things)
08 Growing in My Mind [Alternate Version] [Edit] (Pretty Things)
09 Photographer [Alternate Version] (Pretty Things)
10 Bright Lights of the City [Alternate Version] [Edit] (Pretty Things)
11 Tripping (Pretty Things)
12 My Time [Alternate Version] (Pretty Things)
Defecting Grey [Alternate Mix] (Pretty Things)
Progress [Alternate Version] (Pretty Things)
https://www.upload.ee/files/16700876/TPRETTYTHGS1967_EmtionsAltrnte_atse.zip.html
For the album cover, I simply used the cover for the officially released album.
Thank you... I enjoyed listening today to the earlier collection you posted. I guess they were just too similar to the Rolling Stones and that was why they never really took off.
ReplyDeleteWait until you hear the rest of their stuff. "Emotions" is a transitional album. Then they really hit their stride in a more psychedelic mode that moves away from the Stones style. That's their prime stuff in my opinion, from 1957 to 1971.
DeleteAs for why they didn't get more popular, one big reason you'll see is that about half of that prime stuff never got put on any easily available albums.
nice comp here but a few important notes. You go with Rowland where the real heavy here is one Reg Tinsley who took the "raw product" of just the band playing - & added the "accompaniments" -strings, horns etc.
ReplyDeleteAnd there have been boots of "those raw mixes" & finally the band has released them "officially".
But for all the grief and worse associated with this album there is one great song with strings "The Sun". How many shit albums have a great song.
And for the stones issue above by another commentator .....Dick Taylor the PTs guitarist was an original Stone
-Rosalyn is hardly "Stones-like"- they should have been so lucky - in the day. Thanks for all your good work
Hi Paul, thanks for this. Emotion is my favorite PT album. I was able to strip out all of the horns from the 2014 stereo Snapper Music CD, as they were isolated in one channel. Hearing 'Death of a Socialite' and 'Growing in my Mind' with just the band playing is fantastic! Happy to share if you like...
ReplyDeletePlease do share. I'd love to hear that.
DeleteActually, never mind. Thanks to you pointing it out, I was able to find that version and do it myself. "Death of a Socialite" was a bit tricky, since the horns switched tracks in the middle of the song. But I've fixed both those two songs, and also "House of Ten." I haven't posted the changes yet though - is there anything else you think I should change? I didn't see anything needing fixing in the song "Trippin',"
DeleteHi Paul, yes, Death of a Socialite was tricky due to the channel switch. 'The Sun' is interesting - it can be made into two versions - one w/horns, one only horns. Basically, I split every song on the original album except 'Children', 'One Long Glance', and 'Tripping', as they didn't seem to have horn overdubs present. Hope that helps? PS, really appreciate your great work here!
DeleteHi Paul, sorry I misunderstood your question. In comparing your version with the stripped mixes - 'House of Ten', agree, should be updated. Also, 'Out in the Night' and 'Bright Lights' would be improved with the stripped horn mixes (the one your have sound very demo-like and unbalanced). Last suggestion is improving on 'Growing in my Mind' - really great without the horn section present.
DeleteNunz, check this out. Here's my version so far, with three songs changed - Death of a Socialite, Growing in My Mind, and House of Tens. For House of Tens, I didn't get rid of the strings entirely, but I toned them way down:
Deletehttps://www37.zippyshare.com/v/cQl7usc7/file.html
I'd like to hear what you did, esp. with The Suns, Out in the Night, and Bright Lights. Please post what you've got, or you can email it to me.
Hi Paul, sure, i'll check it out. Here's everything I've done so far. Feel free to reach out via email also.
Deletehttps://www92.zippyshare.com/v/G3ArM8vW/file.html
Thanks. I'll check it out. But I don't have your email address.
DeletePaul, check in the zip archive :)
Delete'Growing in my Mind' is especially great without the horns...
ReplyDeleteI'd love to hear this if possible. Looks like I'm just a bit late. Any chance of a re-up?
ReplyDeleteOh, amazing. Thanks so much! On a major pretty things kick at the moment but have never really been able to get into Emotions because of the corny orchestration. Looking forward to hearing this!
DeleteQuick question the links never work for me always get "403 FORBIDDEN" are these links dead
ReplyDeleteSome links are dead. But not this one. Here's some advice:
Delete1) Try right clicking on the link, and opening it in a new window. People say that helps.
2) Use an ad blocker add on or extension for your browser. That's what I do, and it leaves Zippyshare free of all the crud. Plus, it's a good thing that helps you avoid ads when browsing on the Internet in general. There's a bunch to choose from, and they're generally free.
3) Use a VPN. That stands for Virtual Private Network. Zippyshare is banned in a few European countries, so this is a way to hide what country you're in. Actually, it's a good (and perfectly legal) thing to do when browsing the Internet in general.
4) Use the Tor browser. This is a modified Firefox browser with extra privacy features. This is said to work particularly well for people in countries where Zippyshare is blocked.
5) If all else fails, I also share everything I post on my blog through the music file-sharing program SoulseekQT. It's free, no strings attached, and super easy to use. Just search for the artist and album title, plus "atse" (which stands for "Albums That Should Exist").
This is great, thanks for sharing. For some of the songs on this album though, I think the brass/strings sounds OK but I just wish it wasn't so "up-front" in the mix.
ReplyDelete