The Zombies - Remember You
(soniclovenoize “1965 Album” reimagining)
Side A:
1. She’s Coming Home
2. I Want You Back Again
3. I Must Move
4. If It Don’t Work Out
5. Don’t Go Away
6. I Know She Will
Side B:
7. Just Out Of Reach
8. Whenever You’re Ready
9. I’ll Keep Trying
10. I Love You
11. Don’t Cry For Me
12. Remember You
At long last, we are revisiting The Zombies! This is the first in a series of album reimaginings which recontextualizes The Zombies’ discography as a series of albums, rather than the scattered releases that have existed in numerous forms throughout the last 50 years. Remember You collects the singles sessions recorded throughout the spring and summer of 1965 into a cohesive album, meant to be the proper follow-up to their debut album Begin Here. The best sources were used, additional mastering performed on the demo tracks to match the mixes of the single releases, and presented as the band originally intended– all in mono!
Following the surprise double-punch hits of 1964’s “She’s Not There” and 1965’s “Tell Her No”, The Zombies seemed to be a formidable adversary of another British pop group. Although sharing three-part harmonies, original intricately-written pop songs and a modern rock ‘n’ roll backbeat, these “Fab Five” seemed a bit more posh and cultured than their Liverpool contemporaries. Their two hits were collected into their debut album Begin Here in April 1965 (or alternatively, released as The Zombies in the US in January 1965) and the band embarked on endless gigs throughout the European college circuit, displaying their songwriting prowess as well as their penchant for American R&B covers.
While The Beatles were asking for Help and The Rolling Stones were Going Out of Their Heads, The Zombies’ patrons Decca Records chose to instead make them a “singles band”, and to forgo recording another proper LP like their contemporaries. On March 2nd, the quintet entered the studio to record a slew of new, original compositions, in the hopes that one (or more) would be a hit: keyboardist Rod Argent’s “She’s Coming Home” and “I Want You Back Again”, and bassist Chris White’s “I Must Move” and “Remember You”. Also tracked was a song penned by lead singer Colin Blunstone, “Just Out Of Reach” (and its variant “Come On Time”) meant for the film Bunny Lake Is Missing, which actually featured the band on-screen! An additional session was held on March 31st for two more songs meant for the film’s soundtrack: “Nothing’s Changed” and an alternate version of “Remember You.” “She’s Coming Home” b/w “I Must Move” was released in April, but did not hit the Top 40. “I Want You Back Again” b/w the Begin Here deep-cut “I Remember When I Loved Her” was released in June but barely scraped the Top 100. Strike one and strike two...
After returning from their first US tour, the band re-entered the studio on June 24th in a second attempt to record a hit single, this time with Argent’s uptempo rockers “Whenever You’re Ready” and “I’ll Keep Trying”, and White’s ballad “Don’t Go Away”. A second session a few weeks later on July 8th spawned even more excellent quality songs: White’s “I Love You”, “Don’t Cry for Me” and “I Know She Will”, Blunstone’s “How We Were Before” and Argent’s “If It Don’t Work Out”. While the later became a demo presented to Dusty Springfield for her Ev’rything’s Coming Up Dusty album, “Whenever You’re Ready” b/w “I Love You” was released as a single in August in the US (September in the UK) and while it gained critical praise, refused to chart. Three strikes and The Zombies were out.
Although music history would later trumpet the band’s 1968 last-ditch effort Odessy and Oracle as a forgotten cult classic, the sixteen original songs recorded by The Zombies during the spring and summer of 1965 remained as either failed singles or outtakes in the vaults, heard only as bonus tracks on various reissues. Four of these recordings (“I’ll Keep Trying”, “If It Don’t Work Out”, “Don’t Cry for Me” and “I Know She Will”) would later be embellished and overdubbed in the studio by Argent & White in December 1968, for inclusion on a proposed posthumous Zombies album R.I.P., which was ultimately scrapped, leaving these revised versions also unreleased. Luckily, the entire Zombies discography was collected and released on the boxset Zombies Heaven in 1997.
But should this really be the fate of the only band that this author believes could hold a candle to The Beatles? Are two albums and a smattering of random songs the best way to appreciate The Zombies through the modern lens? I propose that it is not, and we are able to make an additional two albums as a stopgap between Begin Here and Odessey and Oracle, as well as a restructured R.I.P. as a fifth and final album.
The first entry into this reimagined Zombies discography is Remember You, which specifically culls the best twelve songs from the sixteen recorded between March-July 1965, for a theoretical August 1965 release. I believe this specific set of songs could have been quite a strong album in itself, far superior to Begin Here. I have used Zombie Heaven as the source material, as it features all the original mono masters of the songs; I will be using the original 1965 “undubbed” versions of the four R.I.P. tracks, for which I have used Ozone Izotope Master Rebalance to match the mix of the other songs.
Sources used:
The Zombies - Zombie Heaven (1997 CD release)
No comments:
Post a Comment