Indiana Jones & the Stone of Sisyphus

Since the dawn of rock & roll, fans have been intrigued by rumors of unfinished or unreleased musical works.  The masters of Green Day’s “Cigarettes & Valentines” were stolen from the recording studio and the band chose not to re-record the album, producing “American Idiot” instead.  An electric version of Bruce Springsteen’s “Nebraska” exists but has never seen the light of day.  The Beach Boys’ fabled “Smile”, the most legendary unreleased album of all time, was finally released in “approximated” form in 2011 after nearly half a century of speculation & deliberation.  In each case, the circumstances are different, as is the ultimate fate of each album.  Some are finally made available, be it complete or in part, many years after the original intended release date.  Others remain mysteriously out of reach.  All of them leave us wondering what might have been.

Below are my top five unreleased (or eventually released) albums by eighties artists in order of when they would have been released:

Prince – “Crystal Ball” (1987)

In 1985, Prince & the Revolution began recording tracks for “Dream Factory”, which began as a 9-song follow-up to “Parade”, but would eventually become a double-LP.  Unfortunately, Prince had a falling-out with several members of the band and scrapped the project in favor of a “solo” three-album set called “Crystal Ball”.  However, due to the poor sales of “Parade”, Warner Bros. balked at the idea and convinced the purple one to trim it to a double-LP again.  He would cut seven tracks, add “U Got the Look” and release it as “Sign o’ the Times” in 1987.  The original track listing for “Crystal Ball” was as follows:

Rebirth of the Flesh

Play in the Sunshine

Housequake

The Ballad of Dorothy Parker

It

Starfish & Coffee

Slow Love

Hot Thing

Crystal Ball

If I Was Your Girlfriend

Rock Hard in a Funky Place

The Ball

Joy in Repetition

Strange Relationship

I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man

Shockadelica

Good Love

Forever in My Life

Sign o’ the Times

The Cross

It’s Gonna be a Beautiful Night

Adore (Until the End of Time)

The seven songs that were cut would later show up in one form or another.  In 1998, Prince would release an album called “Crystal Ball”, but it would bear practically no resemblance to this version outside of the inclusion of the title track.

Steve Perry – “Against the Wall” (1988)

Following Journey’s “Raised on Radio” tour, the band formally disbanded in 1987.  Steve Perry would soon return to the studio to begin work on the follow-up to his 1984 solo debut, “Street Talk”.  After months of work, the album, entitled “Against the Wall”, was practically completed when Sony executives informed Perry that they were not satisfied with the musical direction of the songs.  The project was scrapped and Steve wouldn’t release his actual second solo effort until 1994’s “For the Love of Strange Medicine”.  That album would not contain any of the songs from “Against the Wall”, though several of those songs would be used as B-sides for some of its singles.  Seven of the songs would appear in their completed form on Steve’s 1998 compilation album “Greatest Hits + 5 Unreleased”.  A songwriting demo of a song called “It Won’t be You” also appears on the collection and, presumably, was meant for “Against the Wall”, as well.  Two more songs from the “Against the Wall” sessions would appear on the 2006 reissue of “For the Love of Strange Medicine”.  That means the final track listing for the unreleased album might have looked something like this, although an actual track order is anyone’s guess:

When You’re in Love (For the First Time)

Against the Wall

Forever Right or Wrong (Love’s Like a River)

Summer of Luv

Melody

Once in a Lifetime, Girl

What Was

It Won’t be You

Can’t Stop

Friends of Mine

In retrospect, the label probably made the right call on this one.  While “Once in a Lifetime, Girl” and “It Won’t be You” have the same infectious melancholy that made “Street Talk” a blockbuster hit, most of the other tracks alternate between lightweight pop songs and bland ballads that likely wouldn’t have found a place on late-eighties radio.

Mr. Mister – “Pull” (1990)

After releasing their 1985 breakthrough “Welcome to the Real World” and the commercially disappointing 1987 album “Go On”, Mr. Mister went back into the studio in 1989 to record what would have been their fourth album.  Entitled “Pull”, the album was an introspective collection of songs that were not to the record label’s liking.  As a result, the band was dropped by RCA and subsequently broke up.  Lead vocalist Richard Page would go on to co-write Madonna’s 1994 hit “I’ll Remember” with Patrick Leonard.  The two would eventually form Third Matinee, whose lone album “Meanwhile” would also be released in 1994.

However, the final Mr. Mister album would remain unavailable until 2010, when Page would finally release a remixed version on his own Little Dume Recordings.

After the lackluster performance of “Go On”, it’s unclear why the band chose to go further in the same direction.  It would probably have been a better idea to return to the catchy, guitar-oriented sound that made “Welcome to the Real World” so likeable.  However, maybe their sophomore album was just a case of catching lightning in a bottle.  Their other three albums certainly sounded nothing like that one, though they sounded very similar to one another.  Regardless, I’m a huge fan of Mr. Mister and I like “Pull”, but this is another case where the record label was probably right.

Chicago – “Stone of Sisyphus” (1994)

Recorded in 1993 and intended for release on March 22, 1994, Chicago’s “Stone of Sisyphus” was, according to band members, meant to be a musical statement and a conscious effort to avoid the pressure of trying to create hit songs.  Producer Peter Wolf, who took the reins from David Foster, urged the band to make music they loved.  Initially, the album was met with excitement from Warner Bros. executives who commissioned cover artwork and even printed t-shirts.  However, roughly one month before the album’s scheduled release, the label inexplicably rejected the project and asked the band to go back into the studio & record another album.  The band was devastated by the decision.  They would complete their contract with Warner Bros. with 1995’s “Night & Day:  Big Band”, which would perform modestly on the charts, and subsequently end their relationship with the label.

Over the years, “Stone of Sisyphus” would acquire legendary status among fans.  Many of its songs surfaced as bootlegs or live versions.  However, in 1998 the album would finally be released in its entirety (minus one song) a full 14 years and ten albums after its original scheduled release date.

It’s hard to say how successful “Stone of Sisyphus” might have been in 1994.  It definitely doesn’t sound like anything that was on the radio at that time.  In fact, it sounds a bit more like the Chicago of 1974, although a couple of the songs have a hip-hop flavor.  Considering that the albums the band actually produced during that period didn’t exactly burn up the charts, I’d say this might have been just crazy enough to work.  Regardless, it’s worth a listen if you’re a fan of classic Chicago.

Duran Duran – “Reportage” (2006)

Hot on the heels of their 2004 comeback album “Astronaut”, Duran Duran went back into the studio to record a self-produced album that the band members have called angry, political, indie rock.  Unfortunately, when a rough mix was submitted to Sony, it was rejected for not having an obvious single.  The label suggested that the band record a couple of additional tracks with a producer who could give them a more commercial sound than the guitar-driven tracks they had already completed.  After meeting with a few producers, they settled on Timbaland, even as their relationship with guitarist Andy Taylor was dissolved due to an “unworkable gulf”.  As they began working on the new tracks, they eventually decided to shelve the “Reportage” tracks and start over from scratch with what would become “Red Carpet Massacre”.  In the years since, they band has expressed a desire to someday release the “Reportage” album, although none of its songs have ever surfaced ANYWHERE.

:-)