Another World Post Release (22/4/22) Discussion

1) Space
2) Business
3) China Belle
4) Why Don't We Try Again
5) I'll Be Prayin'
6) On My Way Up
7) Cyborg
8) The Guv'nor
9) Wilderness
10) Business Stings
11) Slow Down
12) One Rainy Wish
13) All the Way from Memphis
14) The Last Great Optimist
15) Another World
16) Being on My Own

As with the BTTL re-release, Another World sounds fabulous. The team have done a great job. For the content, nice to hear some snippets I haven’t heard before, so happy with that too.

Forgot how much I enjoyed this album! So glad to have it available again!

Agreed on both tracks!  Neither of those songs appealed to me 24 years ago, but listening today I can see I was a fool!  Agreee

Love the song.

I was lucky enough to attend the launch party at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich last night. Admittedly, had I not have won, I’d have still tried getting in as I’m only 10 minutes away.

Couple of tidbits:

—> Star Fleet is the next archive release. They’re working on it already.
—> He’s planning to remix and remaster that as he thinks it sounds flat compared to BTTL and AW.
—> He personally hasn’t remastered anything in the box sets to date but there are some modern guitar overdubs, mainly on disc two of this set
—> He said that in return for not asking for royalties, he can publish everything he’s ever played on. So one box set is likely to be a full set of collabs. Brixton is still planned, no mention of any other live sets.

—> The Another World front cover tree is a Phoenicean Juniper (Juniperus phoenicea) on El Hierro in the Canary Island. —> Asked about the album’s original, he said he came back off BTTL tour “a little confused as to who I was or where I was going”.
—> Initial project was to refind his heroes, the people who influenced him, and work out “what was inside him, pushing him on”.
—> He then got asked to do music for Sliding Doors: “a very good friend of mine asked me to write the theme tune”. This didn’t get used as there was a publisher conflict but that “gave him a kick” to do an album.

I'm curious in how far he can be able to stretch a Star Fleet project. We'll get the answer later this year i guess. A shame that no DVD or blu-ray has been included in both BTTL and AW boxsets.

I've always liked the unpolished sound of Star Fleet, and thought it suited the "jamming with friends"-feel of the project. Still, I'm sure it can sound amazing if they fiddle around with it.

Controversial comment coming up...

I had never really heard the album prior to this re-release. To be honest, any Queen solo album I struggle to want to listen to them as the thing which appeals to me with Queen is that there are four writers who often compose very different songs. I don't want to say their solo works are boring because they're not but they aren't what I call unique or as appealing as a Queen album. I think it's the case with any band though.

But today I listened to Another World from start to finish for the first time and I've got to say it wasn't as amazing as I thought it would be. I was kind of expecting a Back To The Light Part 2 but it wasn't like that - kind of like News Of The World following A Day At The Races or Fleetwood Mac's Tusk following their Rumours. I think there are some great tracks on it - the highlights for me are Business, Another World and All The Way From Memphis. (I know the latter is a cover but it is very different to the original.)

To me there each song was either a heavy rocker or a quiet ballad with no flow or theme. I think this album will be a grower just like Roger's Outsider (to me these two albums are new!) which I think is really good and an enjoyable listen.

I think you could say that maybe this was the turning point in Brian's songwriting, I think his had already peaked whereas Roger's was getting better and stronger. I do feel you can apply this theory to The Cosmos Rocks. I'm not saying Brian's songwriting was bad because he did and still writes great songs, I'm just saying that some weren't and there was a drop in standard.

There we go, I'll shut up now...

I'm glad Brian did new music but I wonder if Brian would have done a kind of live album instead - playing the new songs live to a small audience so they are rawer. I don't think all the songs are strong enough on their own and maybe having this to follow could improve it. I can think of a few albums by other artists where this sort of scenerio was done and I think they're great to listen to. But that's me, maybe Cozy's passing changed Brian's plans - certainly live it did.

It’s funny, because before the reissue I would’ve agreed that this isn’t his best album, and while I certainly don’t think that now, I have grown a new appreciation for it. To me the outcasts are Slow Down (I never liked the song though, even when The Beatles did it; Only Make Believe would’ve been a better selection) and Cyborg, but only because it’s such a drastic change of mood from the rest of the album (and, to be honest, it sounds like video game music; reminds me of Bowie’s “hours…”, most of which was written for a video game and, well, it sounds it).

But songs I would’ve considered filler before – Guv, China Belle, Wilderness, One Rainy Wish – just seemed to make more sense in context. Maybe it was listening to it for the first time in a decade-plus, maybe it’s the remastering, maybe I’m still smitten with that On My Way Up video and so much is clouded, maybe I’m nostalgic for 1998, but this reissue is hitting most of the checkboxes for me. I find it ever so more satisfying than Back to the Light, even though I find that album far superior to Another World.

There's already a bootleg "Collaborations I & II" knocking around. I wonder if the stuff he did with 'er indoors will finally see a CD release?

Admittedly I didn’t win, despite entering as a result of my purchase. Handily, a friend (who also purchased the box set + single) did. Winners were allowed a guest. He was notified last Thursday lunchtime. Admittedly, given that Brian advertised the venue in advance and that I live so close to it, I’d have gone along and tried to get in anyway. Definitely wasn’t full.

The Japanese release of the deluxe edition comes with a mini tour program replica with multiple pages, just like Back to the Light did. I think it's a nice little bonus that most fans would appreciate, and it's too bad it's not a worldwide release. Seems like a logical bonus item for a future Live at Brixton box. I wonder how much it costs to produce these vs. the badges that have come with the box sets? Here's my pic of the tour programs:



The Japanese edition comes with a B2 poster (just like Back to the Light did), which is a full-colour version of the monochrome+red one that was my guess that I posted before. It's also featured in the book in the box set. Again, a tour poster replica for Live at Brixton would make sense. Here's someone else's pic since I don't want to unroll mine yet: