10 albums that deserve to be remade
Not every album is destined to work out the way an artist thought of when they began. There are a lot of bells and whistles that happen before an artist even plugs in a microphone, but if the songs are there, any album has the potential to shine through pretty much anything else in its path. There are moments where the final product falls short, though, and some projects from the likes of the Eagles deserved to get a second shot at life if they were more fine-tuned.
Throughout the recording process, plenty of things can go wrong and make the whole thing look a little strange by comparison. Whether it’s the production not being done in the right way or the songs being way too long, every project on this list had the potential to be good but was bogged down by a few production cock-ups or the odd instance where too much filler was added onto the back end.
Then again, some have to be left absent because they have already been corrected. Let It Be by The Beatles could be a classic example of what would qualify for something like this, but since it has been re-released as Let It Be…Naked, it’s hard to argue that it should be remade when the band actually thought enough of it to tidy it up.
As of right now, these are still the albums that deserve to have been glossed over a little bit more and given a second chance at life. Whether they would have done better is up to the listeners, but they would certainly be a lot less of a sonic mess to work through than the ones we ended up with.
10 albums that need to be remade:
10. Death Magnetic – Metallica
For their reputation as one of the biggest bands in the world, Metallica deserve much more than the production jobs they’ve seen in recent years. They have had pristine records in their catalogue, but the fact that the same band behind Master of Puppets also made St Anger boggles the mind for anyone thinking too hard. Although they corrected their mistakes on Death Magnetic, there were still some bugs that needed to be worked out.
First off, it was nice to at least see them on higher ground again. From a songwriting perspective, this is the kind of Metallica music that most people had been waiting for since And Justice For All, but having it hampered by the brick walling technique makes for a fatiguing listening experience, especially when the drums end up sounding like static halfway through some of the tunes.
Even though the band put their all into it, it’s a shame that no one bothered to correct the mixing problems, especially when their trademark Guitar Hero game came out and ended up having much better album mixes than what was on the CD. It was nice to have them out in full force again, but even when making their grand return, the thrash legends weren’t short of a few stumbling blocks along the way.
9. Say You Will – Fleetwood Mac
By the end of the 1980s, bringing together the classic lineup of Fleetwood Mac felt like an impossible task. Some people were still aching to hear what Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks would have sounded like together, but after someone gets into a fight with their bandmate, it’s a safe bet that they aren’t going to be cordial anymore. But when the miracle reunion did happen, fans may have been given a bit more than they bargained for on Say You Will.
For the first part of the album, though, it doesn’t feel like everything will be a dud. The majority of the songs feel like the long-awaited follow-up to albums like Tango in the Night and Mirage, but the fact that it keeps going and doesn’t leave most people needing a breather halfway through everything, especially when Buckingham gets up to his old tricks like ‘Murrow Turning Over In His Grave’.
There are pieces of what might be the greatest comeback album anyone had ever seen, but looking at the album presented to the fans, Say You Will needed to be trimmed down if it wanted to stand amongst the greatest Fleetwood Mac projects. And while there is some trash in the group’s back catalogue, an album that slightly disappoints is always worse than what was doomed from the start.
8. Stadium Arcadium – Red Hot Chili Peppers
Part of being a Red Hot Chili Peppers fan means getting used to some pretty long runtimes. Every one of their classics runs well over an hour, and while it might sound like a long sit to hear about California for that long, their classics do find a way of holding everyone’s attention for that long a timeframe. When we get two albums for the price of one, though, that’s when even the most hardcore fans are going to be crying for help.
Then again, Stadium Arcadium is close to being one of the best records in the band’s canon. No project deserves to have songs like ‘Dani California’, ‘Snow (Hey Oh)’, and ‘Slow Cheetah’ on the same album, but hearing it sandwiched between mountains upon mountains of fluff makes the whole thing feel like getting seconds and thirds when the first time around would have served everyone fine.
While it’s hard to reassemble an album this excessive, bringing in songs from the second record like ‘Turn It Again’ and ditching some of the goofier songs to B-sides like ‘Hump De Bump’, this could be the magnum opus from the John Frusciante era of the group. Until that day, though, it will stand as a grandiose suite of songs that might be punching a little over its weight class in places.
7. The La’s – The La’s
Every seasoned artist doesn’t have to be in love with every record they make. Even if everyone loves to sing along to it, it doesn’t matter unless it moves something in the writer’s heart before anyone else. And while Lee Mavers did what he could to make The La’s’ first album a success, the fact that we’re only hearing the ramshackle version of things has left fans desperate to hear the full thing for years.
Since Mavers was insanely dialled in regarding what he wanted, the lion’s share of the material feels like hearing the greatest band in the world playing half-drunk. There are pieces that are already perfect, like ‘There She Goes’ and ‘Way Out’, but to see them put next to the rustic version of ‘Liberty Ship’ and ‘Son of a Gun’ sounds like the group blatantly handed in a worse so they could get more time to work on it.
And while that makes the project stand out in the same way that rough Neil Young classics do, it does feel like a missed opportunity, regardless. All of the pieces were there, but if they had only been given a bit more time, we could have been looking at the Bible to Britpop years before the genre had a proper name.
6. Somewhere in England – George Harrison
It’s practically an unspoken rule in the music industry to never question a Beatle. The Fab Four had written the rulebook on what a good song is supposed to sound like, and even if it wasn’t the most complex thing in the world, it left the audience grinning from ear to ear and putting money in millions of pockets over the years. So how come George Harrison was treated like a kid who had no idea what he was talking about when making Somewhere in England?
Throughout the first iteration of the album, Harrison was told to go back to the drawing board and make something that was closer to the traditional love or breakup songs that were focus-group-tested. Although that led to some of the funnier songs that Harrison ever wrote in protest, it’s a shame that some of the biggest highlights from the original record got relegated to bonus tracks on later pressings of the album.
While Harrison’s spiritual side might not have been as trendy as it was back in the 1970s, the fact that fans had to hear him coated in keyboards instead of hearing his honest thoughts is the real tragedy. If Harrison had had his way, though, maybe we could have been listening to a tune like ‘Flying Hour’ instead of watching him bitch his way through a song like ‘Unconsciousness Rules’.
5. A Momentary Lapse of Reason – Pink Floyd
The entire concept Pink Floyd had for The Final Cut felt like it was doomed to fail. Although there were pieces from The Wall that could have been salvaged, seeing Roger Waters assemble a different story to follow it up made me feel like he was clutching at straws, trying to find some sort of concept to wrap everything together. While most would understand why the band wanted Waters out by the end of things, A Momentary Lapse of Reason might have been their first clue that things weren’t quite there yet.
Despite history writing up this album as a David Gilmour solo album in disguise, there are still pieces that read as authentically Pink Floyd. ‘On the Turning Away’ and ‘Learning To Fly’ are still beautiful pieces featuring Gilmour’s trademark guitar solos, but the minute that people start to listen for a few minutes, things get bogged down by production that feels like it was left over from a Madonna record.
So, if they managed to have another version of the album that cooled off on the reverb and kept a dry mix, A Momentary Lapse of Reason could have been a firm start to the next era of the group’s career. Still, if you want to hear what a better version of the band sounded like, Delicate Sound of Thunder does a much better job of pointing out what made this lineup a worthy successor to Waters’s vision.
4. Let Me Up (I’ve Had Enough) – Tom Petty
One of the biggest mistakes a label can make to a band is to rush them into the studio. No one can summon up their songwriting tricks on the fly, and the classics only come from people who are truly inspired rather than someone forced to create at gunpoint. When Tom Petty did finally come up for air for Let Me Up (I’ve Had Enough), his choice to make things rough around the edges didn’t work out in the album’s favour all that much.
Since he had come off of the aborted double album Southern Accents, he and the rest of the Heartbreakers made up a lot of this album on the spot. Even though they could improvise like no one else after touring with Bob Dylan, hearing them run through songs for the first time on record like ‘The Damage You’ve Done’ is much more noticeable when paired with tunes that had been slaved over like ‘Runaway Trains’.
Even when the band does decide to cut loose, though, hearing them capture that Rolling Stones’ sense of abandonment on the title track was more in line with what the whole album should have been. But considering that Petty was halfway to making his solo debut on Full Moon Fever, Let Me Up (I’ve Had Enough) is destined to be the flawed highlight for Heartbreakers fans who fell through the cracks.
3. Diamond Dogs – David Bowie
The fact that anyone could put out the insane run of albums that David Bowie did in the 1970s is astounding. Discounting the covers album Pin Ups, nearly everything that ‘The Starman’ came out with during that decade was nothing short of fantastic, whether that was him inventing Ziggy Stardust, switching to ‘The Thin White Duke’, or recording his most acclaimed albums in Berlin. While Diamond Dogs serves as the perfect bridge between those two worlds, the fact that it couldn’t be half the record it should have is disconcerting.
While Bowie tears through this album surprisingly well, his plans to make a concept album based around George Orwell’s 1984 felt too perfect. He was already known for being on the fringes of rock and roll, so having him sing about that dystopian world would have been great had Orwell’s widow not stopped him from going through with it after denying him the rights.
With that in mind, it’s hard to think of Diamond Dogs as the compromised glam record that Bowie had to make instead, albeit one that still had the greatest tunes of his career, like ‘Rebel Rebel’ and the medley of ‘Sweet Thing’ and ‘Candidate’. No one could tell the Orwell estate what to do with their property, but looking at what Bowie did in the future, it’s not like the dystopian masterpiece would have been in shaky hands.
2. Standing on the Shoulder of Giants – Oasis
Oasis should have probably taken more than a break when coming off of Be Here Now. Their third album had catapulted them into the same conversation as rock gods, and while the record is seen as a misstep today, there was no way that anyone could have stopped their momentum circa 1997. While Be Here Now would always sound overblown, Standing on the Shoulder of Giants could have been given a much better fate than a weary comedown album.
There were bound to be some pieces that didn’t work after Bonehead and Guigsy left, but listening back to pieces of the album, the B-sides deserved to replace some of the album tracks that we were given. ‘Let’s All Make Believe’ could have easily fit into this album, and even though it deserves a place in history as Liam Gallagher’s first song, ‘Little James’ would have been better suited going on the flip side of ‘Go Let It Out’.
And with other gems like ‘Cigarettes in Hell’ and ‘Carry Us All’ added to everything, this could have been the moodier version of Oasis no one saw. It wasn’t easy trying to face the comedown of being at the top of the world, but any fan would have rather seen a version of the album that was more honest than something that was put together to balance the flow of the record.
1. Long Road Out of Eden – Eagles
By the 2000s, no one was asking the Eagles to come back together for anything. They had earned their stripes as one of the best acts in the world, and without Don Felder in the group, the band could still carry on with those heavenly harmonies as well as ever. Although ‘Hole in the World’ felt like a one-off experiment for a reason, the band’s decision to make everyone happy on Long Road Out of Eden didn’t come without some messy moments.
Since every Eagles album tried to have no room for filler, their decision to make this a double album is one of the strangest decisions that got past Glenn Frey and Don Henley. Although the pair could still write as well as ever on the title track and still harmonise on ‘How Long’, there are a few songs that sound like they are saying too much of the same thing like Timothy B Schmitt’s ‘Do Something’ and ‘I Don’t Want To Hear Any More’ sounding like he was rewriting himself halfway through the record.
Despite closing the book on their legacy, Long Road Out of Eden felt like it was made to give the band one last go-around in the studio rather than making something that could stand up with the classics. And considering how nearly everything from the album was dropped from their setlist by the time they went on their final tours, it’s safe to say that even they would admit they overdid everything a touch.
