POGUES 30 / STRUMMER/POGUES

[Charles]

Mine just arrived today as well......haven't listened to any of it yet. I'll probably go in order.

Nice little "In loving memory of our friend Philip Chevron" on the back of the box.

[Hennybhoy]

The box-set is great! And my goodness, Peace & Love sounds much much much better than before!!!!!!

[James Murphy]

How great to have Peace and Love be a Pogues album now.

[Low D]

I will pile on and agree yes, Peace & Love is totally transformed, and now sounds as it probably should have all along. I caught things i've never caught before on at least half of the songs, so buried in the mix were they. And the fears about Shane's voice, though i'm sure real at the time, are irrelevant to all of us who have heard Hell's Ditch and indeed the band live. I hope Philip got to hear a final mix of "Blue Heaven" before he passed, as I feel it's much more what he described the original vision as. Steve & James did a wonderful job all around on this, and I'm so glad they did.

Red Roses For Me is less a total transformation, but on first listen there's certainly a lot more separation between instruments and voices than previous, which is nice. I'll have to give it a closer listen. Nice to see the liner notes are written by an early Pogues fan who lapped up a preview copy of the album at Rock On Records: Mr. Philip Chevron.

I realize i was quick to pile on with the hate when the contents of this set were announced. I will say i am quite pleased with the three new discs and with the gatefold-LP style packaging. But i still wish they'd added Poguetry & the B-sides, even as two more discs with a higher price, to make this the "definitive" Pogues collection. I just sort of don't see the point of this particular collection in the form it's in, and wonder why i have two sets on my CD shelves?

Oh, and the Strummer/Pogues disc? Well it's fabulous, innit?

[James Murphy]

Great to hear pre-peak Shane singing so well on Red Roses, and the instruments sound fantastic. Top job all round.

[Fr. McGreer]

Just had a very quick listen and two tracks on Red Roses are stand out for different reasons. Kitty is my favourite track on this album and to hear the remix version on head phones is truely amazing. Shane's voice is completely transformed with all the echo effects removed and his vocal brought to the front. It knocked me sideways to be honest. Incredible.

What the fuck has been done to Battle of Brisbane though? The part which repeats 3 times just before Spider's two whacks on the head with the beer tray is awful. The melody is gone only to be replaced with some kind of........ i dunno what?

I listened to the previews on iTunes and if you swap between originals and remixes you really can hear some huge changes on some tracks. I'll buy the physical boxset and then have a proper listen.

[Kilmichael]

What the fuck has been done to Battle of Brisbane though? The part which repeats 3 times just before Spider's two whacks on the head with the beer tray is awful. The melody is gone only to be replaced with some kind of........ i dunno what?

Cheesy Fiddle?

[Will]

Finally got around to listening to some samples on Amazon UK. Surprised at how good Shane's voice sounds on Peace & Love. Figured the performances would have had to have been absolutely God-awful in order to justify the complete and total butchering of the tracks in '89. Even with the choir vocals down in the mix, I find myself wanting to tell the other singers to shut the fuck up. First impression is they ought to have taken 'em out altogether, but first impressions are first impressions. Whatever the case, the album sounds much improved. Think I might buy it after all.

Still peeved I gotta buy it in a box-set, though. Don't do the MP3 download thing. One of the few human beings left on the planet with neither a smartphone nor an MP3 player of some sort, and don't plan on investing in either anytime soon.

As for the Battle of Brisbane -- what you're referring to, I could almost swear I hear buried way down in the original mix. At any rate, everything else is still there, melody and all.

[kahaya]

I got the Boxset Friday and listened to the 2 remixed albums twice so far and have to say they're great, really think the differences in Peace & Love are easier to spot than Red Roses for Me.

I'm just listening to the Live album at the minute and it's very good too. Really like the package as a whole, top work from all involved.

[mc_gatty]

I lurk here once in a while, though I'm afraid I've never posted... I just found out about the box set, and I can't add much to the content discussion aside from the fact that the concert and remasters both sound like they're worth it to me (I love the writing and music of P&L, but I think the songs could all desperately use a bit of nurturing in the mix). However, I don't think anyone has given a nod to the cover design as a nod to Ulysses--I love it!

[in_the_morning]

Judging from the samples, both RRFM and P & L sound fantastic, but especially P & L sounds so much better than before. Shane's vocals are nowhere near as bad as Steve Lillywhite has stated in Carol Clerk's book. Have to get the box set as soon as possible.

[soulfinger]

I have to say I am absolutely delighted with RRFM. I think almost all the tracks are very much improved. I could probably spout some bollocks about clarity of vocals, depth and space but will settle for saying it's a job well done. P&L is decent too.

[in_the_morning]

I have to say I am absolutely delighted with RRFM. I think almost all the tracks are very much improved. I could probably spout some bollocks about clarity of vocals, depth and space but will settle for saying it's a job well done. P&L is decent too.

Amazing how great Shane's voice was on RRFM. Futhermore amazing how fast he eroded it in subsequent years, which is not to say that it got worse or anything, I love it, even the way it is today. But he surely had a phenomenal voice on RRFM.

[Michaelo]

I think the new version of Peace & Love is a lot better than the original. I particularly like the remix of USA - the accordion in the section where Shane sings "I gambled in two graveyards..." is fantastic and Andrew's drumming is so much clearer throughout the song. Many other tracks are improved also (Blue Heaven and Tombstone spring to mind) , though I'm not too sure about the remix of Misty Morning, Albert Bridge - which is one track I don't think needed to be stripped back.

[DzM]

I wish I had something new to add here, but other's have already done a much better job than I can of reviewing this collection.

The package itself is nicely done and would make a great vinyl collection (especially given that the tracks of the albums mimic the vinyl tracks, omitting "extra" tracks that have always been on the CD releases). If this were a 12" vinyl set it would be epic. Each of the releases features the original album cover art, lyrics on the inside, and two (I believe) feature liner notes (Red Roses featuring text by Philip, and I believe Peace & Love featuring text by James). My biggest complaint ('cause what's a review without some complaining?) is that the text has been squeezed to nearly illegible sizes to fit within the cardboard gatefolds for the CDs. Legibility was consciously sacrificed and that's a shame.

As others have pointed out both Red Roses and Peace & Love have benefited greatly from the remixing. Red Roses has always been thought of, even by fans, as "muddy at best." The remixing has made the old favorites on there a real joy to listen to. I had never really noticed Peace & Love's mixing, but the remix has brought a remarkable amount of depth to all the tracks (as I type Young Ned of the Hill has begun playing and I've been struck by the clarity on Spider's whistles and the solid "thump thump" on the bodhrán during the intro). The clarity and separation on all the tracks is just stunning. A lot of people dislike Peace & Love. This remix probably won't change their minds. But for the rest of us this release has breathed new life into this selection of tracks. Clear vocals, clear instruments, nice resonate drums and bass, nice clarity and separation on the other instruments. It's like seeing before/after images of the cleaning and refurbishing of a classic painting - you always knew what the image was, but suddenly it's so much more than it used to be.

The Strummer disc is exciting and disappointing. The first Pogues show I saw was in October 1991 in San Francisco, weeks after they had split from Shane. Joe was the front man. My future wife and I danced, shouted, sang, sweated. It was an amazing night. Since then some of these officially recorded tracks from London had been released as B-sides for singles, and a few bootlegs have made their way around the Internet of various shows from this tour. The merging of my memory with those few official tracks and those other poorly recorded bootleg tracks has made this concert into a real, living thing in my mind. To now have it locked down to a real tangible thing is, in some ways, a let down. Coveting it has been a pretty fun constant in my life since that first show. I'll miss that coveting.