what's in a name? and other questions we don't care about.

Among other things I'm into, I've gotten interested in ripping cassette tapes. Most of the time I feel people don't make very good rips of cassettes, whereas ripping vinyl is something of an art form. I'm pretty good at ripping vinyl, though I make no claim to being an expert. I have my method and it works for me. But when it comes to tapes, I think I've got this figured out pretty damn well. Because of that, I've looked around and hunted for bizarre cassettes that I might find interesting. Some of the things I've gotten are:

A pre-release version of Beck's Odelay with a slightly different title, some songs with significantly different titles (Devil's Haircut was apparently named Electric Music in the Summer People at one point, unless it was some kind of internal label mistake), and uncleared samples. Some of those tracks will end up here later on.

A collection of rough mixes from the sessions for Soul Coughing's first album, with every song but one included, and a number of unreleased pieces. (Thanks, Mat!)

Rather finished sounding demos for George Clinton's second album for Prince's Paisley Park label. These could've probably been released as a finished album, though the versions later released are mostly superior.

There are quite a few other oddities I've located here and there, but one that really stands out is a "pre-mastering" tape of Lauryn Hill's Miseducation album. It was apparently made for someone at a German branch of Sony and features most of the album, minus a song or two, with a song or two that didn't make the album in their place. None of the interludes are present and a number of the song titles are completely different. It's pretty cool, though none of those things are revelations. The only really big find is a notably different version of Every Ghetto, Every City. The vocals appear to be the finished performance, but the backing track is quite different, with a sample of Miss Lauryn dropping a quip being looped throughout the track. I don't think this has ever leaked, and I'm not big into holding onto things forever unless I've been asked to, so here's a little bit of joy for you to jam to as we approach the weekend. If anyone really cares about the rest of the tape, I'm sure I can make it available for you to check out. For now though, let's keep it to this one track, labeled Welcome Back on the j-card. Enjoy.