Kat's Korner: The late Melanie releases a live album

Kat: I think two things are well known about me in the online world: First, I'm lazy and procratinate and, second, my memory frequently needs a jog.  If someone quoted to me from HEATHERS "Such a pillow case," I wouldn't object or deny.

I bring that up because I need to review an album by Melanie who passed away at the start of the year -- see:

 "Melanie: Queen of the Music festivals ," "Thank you to Melanie (Jess)," "Jon Stewart to return to the desk," "Melanie, REACHER, young voters," "When are they going to arrest Kari Lake?," "We lose Melanie and Dexter King but are still stuck with Jonathan Turley?," "my top five melanie albums," "Ugly Chaya Chachi Ratchik," "Where's Florida's "Don't Say Southern Baptist" law?," and "Melanie, Mary Weiss, Green Day" 

I thought the new one came out in May.  And I was feeling bad about not noting it but assumed most who read my reviews were aware of how I do not rush to do reviews when a favorite artist has passed and new albums come out from them.  I know I discusses this regarding Prince's passing when album started being issued.  I need some distance if it's an artist like Prince or Melanie that I really loved before I can consider some newly released album by them.

I also wanted to note the previous albums of Melanie's that I've reviewed because she's not just someone who succeeded in the sixties and seventies, she's someone who had a true artistic rebirth this century.  

So I go to CRAPAPEDIA, more and more that's how most jokes start these days, right?  And I see one album title that I know I reviewed in Melanie's discography.  Her studio album discography.  

You know, I've got to start with inconsistency.  In the studio albums, they have listed a 1999 album, BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE, where Melanie re-recorded some of her earlier work.  I agree, that is a studio album.  And I was so glad to see that because in 2022, I praised an album where an artist went back into the studio and re-recorded his early work.  From "Kat's Korner: Robbie Williams re-evaluates his own work on XXV:"

Robbie's XXV?  They're also calling that a compilation album and not a studio album.  

Strange but that's CRAPAPEDIA.  In the real world, at Robbie's website, the album is accurately explained:

XXV, the thirteenth studio album from Robbie Williams, is made up of all the classic hits newly orchestrated by Jules Buckley, Guy Chambers and Steve Sidwell, and re-recorded with the acclaimed Metropole Orkest. Also, included on XXV is “Lost” a new original composition & single. The deluxe version of XXV has ten additional bonus tracks, including three all new original compositions.

This CD is 2x discs, in a 40 page hardcover book.

TRACKLIST:-

1. Let Me Entertain You

2. Come Undone

3. Love My Life

4. Millennium

5. The Road To Mandalay

6. Tripping

7. Bodies

8. Candy

9. Supreme

10. Strong

11. Eternity

12. No Regrets

13. She's The One

14. Feel

15. Rock DJ

16. Kids

17. Angels

18. Lost

19. Nobody Someday

DELUXE ADDITIONS

20. Lazy Days

21. Hot Fudge

22. Sexed Up

23. More Than This

24. Disco Symphony

25. Better Man

26. Home Thoughts From Abroad

27. The World and Her Mother

28. Into The Silence

29. Angels (Beethoven AI)

Robbie recorded the songs for this album where they are set to new arrangements "F**k me, that's 25 tracks I've gotta sing in the next two weeks," he tells NME he realized before starting the album.  Someone inform CRAPAPEDIA that's not a compilation album, it's a studio album.

XXV is a studio album. And it doesn't matter to CRAPAPeDIA what is is, what the label says it is or what the artist Robbie Williams says it is.  You may remember my war with CRAPAPEDIA over this issue before with Diana Ross.  "Kat's Korner: Diana Ross releases a masterpiece (belatedly)" noted that MOTOWN finally released, in 2016, the album Diana recorded in 1978.  On it, she sings all the songs from the film THE WIZ.  Berry Gordy thought the film would be a big hit and planned to give the movie new life after it had played for a few months in the theaters by releasing this album.  Instead, the album was never released.  And I've complained ever since about CRAPAPEDIA putting this album in the "Compilation" category on Diana's discography.  It is not compilation.  These are not the tracks she sang on THE WIZ soundtrack.  These are re-recordings for a planned album that was never released.  I bitched at my site, I bitched here.  Such as in "Kat's Korner: No, Diana Ross, Thank You:"

Diana Ross has released THANK YOU and it's a great album -- one that allows us to look at the shortcomings in the system.

Such as?  It's been called Diana's 25th solo studio album released by the media and that's not accurate.  I may have repeated it myself online, that false claim.  I mentioned it to C.I. and she rolled her eyes.  Huh?  "Kat, THE WIZ."  Immediately, I knew two things (a) that it was a lie and (b) how the lie started.

This is Diana's 26th solo, studio album.  

[. . .]

Diana Ross has released THANK YOU and it's a great album -- one that allows us to look at the shortcomings in the system.

Such as?  It's been called Diana's 25th solo studio album released by the media and that's not accurate.  I may have repeated it myself online, that false claim.  I mentioned it to C.I. and she rolled her eyes.  Huh?  "Kat, THE WIZ."  Immediately, I knew two things (a) that it was a lie and (b) how the lie started.

This is Diana's 26th solo, studio album.  

If you missed it, we finally won that battle at the end of last year and CRAPAPEDIA moved DIANA SINGS SONGS FROM THE WIZ into the studio album category.  

So seeing today that Melanie's re-recording of songs on BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE was rightly listed as a studio album in her CRAPAPEDIA discography, I rushed to see if they'd finally fixed Robbie's album?  Nope.  His studio album where he went and rerecorded his songs is still listed as a "compilation album" -- that's what they call greatests hit and best ofs where the label grabs recordings from various albums -- studio and live -- that were already released and repackages them.  Hence the term "compilation."

CRAPAPEDIA just can't get it right.  And I saw that when I was trying to find the two albums I had reviewed by looking at Melanei's studio albums.  I see EVER SINCE YOU NEVER HEARD OF ME.  I do not see CRAZY LOVE.  Not under studio, not under compilation, not listed wrongly, just not listed at all.

I go to Melanie's live album section and, according to them, she hasn't had a live album released since 2020.

There's been a huge re-releasing of Melanie's albums since her death in January.  CENTRAL PARK 1974 was re-released recently, for example, but was originally released in 2018. AMAZON's not anymore helpful, by the way.

I went to AMAZON and pulled up Melanie (Melanie Safka to narrow the list) and the album I'm about to review, THE MAGIC BUS SESSSIONS, isn't even listed.  I know it exists because I listened to it on vinyl yesterday at C.I.'s and, if you search "Melanie THE MAGIC BUS SESSIONS," it will pop up on AMAZON.

"I'm not a poet,  living is the poem, I am not a singer, I am in the song," Melanie sings in the opening of the track while gently playing the guitar.  AMAZON calls it a "reissue" but if you got BANDCAMP -- where many artists release their music -- they don't and they're usually really good about labeling reissues -- for Melanie and for other artists -- so I'm going to argue this is a new release.

It's a 44 minute plus album.  On vinyl, I listened to C.I.'s vinyl copy yesterday and ordered my own copy from AMAZON this morning, it's a 10 track album.  AMAZON describes it as follows: "Rare vintage recordings from the counterculture folk hero Melanie, performing on a live radio broadcast in 1972.  Intimate, warm and deeply moving, Melanie pours her effervescent essence into each of these superb songs giving a richly nuanced performance." Listen to "Lay Your Hands Across the Six Strings" and see if you don't agree.

It's great to hear Melanie in this intimate setting, just her singing and playing the guitar.  I've long wished Carly Simon would do an album like that.  Because?  It sounds great and makes you really focus on the song.  

"What Wondrous Love," for example, is a folk song she recorded for her 1971 album GATHER ME and it's pretty powerful.  But the live version on THE MAGIC BUS SESSIONS is even more moving.

The album does what the recent Johnny Cash album SONGWRITER didn't do:  It puts Melanie front and center.  While the estate of the late Johnny Cash was right to strip down some 90s demo to just Johnny's voice and his guitar, they were wrong to then add 'performances' from a band to that.  Not just because it's dishonest but also because Johnny wan an artist and imposing a band and its sound on him is ridiculous.  Had he recorded with that band, he would have done his vocals differently.