Magazine

by

Heart

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When I was 14 years old in 1978, I was the biggest Heart fan around. I saw a picture of the cover of Magazine in a small newspaper fanzine with an accompanying article. I remember the article title clearly: "Heart album ships One Million and you can't buy it anywhere!". The LP became as much folklore to a true heart fan as any Beatles album played backwards.

Heart left Mushroom records in 1977 and quickly joined CBS / Portrait records. Right before Heart left to record "Little Queen" they were in the midst of recording "Magazine" for Mushroom. The album was abandoned but Mushroom took the working tapes, brought in session musicians (who had nothing to do with Heart)to finish the tracks , added 2 live tracks, fleshed it out into a full length album and tried to release it. Heart quickly got an injuction against Mushroom just as the records were sitting in a warehouse waiting to be shipped.

After many court dates and depositions, the courts ruled that Heart had to go back into the studio to finish the album for Mushroom. They were not allowed to record new songs, just finish the ones they started and mix / edit the 2 live tracks. There were even guards in the studio hovering over the master tapes to make sure the band wouldn't vindictively erase them!

Hence, the band finished the album and it is now the CD that you have here.

What is really cool about this whole foklore of an album is that some reviewers on this site don't realize that they own the actual LP that Mushroom tried to release before Heart stopped them! Read Craig Burges' review. He complains that the songs are shorter than the LP and in different sequence - what Craig doesn't realize is that he owns the true goldmind sought after by all Heart fans who through the years have searched for - The original MAGAZINE!

"Mother Earth Blues" is over a minute and a half longer on the original LP. Heart edited Ann's vocal solo for some reason. "Just The Wine" on the original LP has a choir singing behind Ann on the french Chorus and the title song Magazine ends with Roger Fishers solo from Magic man in the background along with a speaker from Elvis Presley's eulogy. This is all gone on Heart's released version.

All of Ann's vocals on the LP are all different with the exception of "Here song" and all tracks are noticeably remixed.

Craig, I also am lucky enough to own a copy of the unauthorized Magazine - If you flip the LP jacket over, you will see a disclaimer from Mushroom indicating that the LP is released without Heart's consent but the label wanted to release this great music as a gift to Heart fans...

So now you can see how this album is the holy grail of all true Heart fans everywhere including a 14 year old teenager from 1978.

I won't get into the rather checkered history of this album and all the attendant contract disputes involving it. Everyone here has hashed that out enough.

I always thought this was kind of a hidden jem among the Heart catalog entries, and I think in retrospect it holds up pretty well, especially compared to some of the more overblown later albums. But be aware that this EMI/Capitol "Special Markets" CD "reissue" is NOT the same bunch of recordings as the old Mushroom LP. In some instances the songs have been re-recorded, and in others they sound as though they may have just been remixed. In a couple of cases the songs are 15 to 30 seconds shorter than the originals. This is especially evident in "Magazine" which originally had an extended fadeout in which you could hear a little bit of "Magic Man" from "Dreamboat Annie." It's gone now. One other curiosity is the live blues medley which, while sounding like the same recording, manages to run a full minute and 25 seconds shorter than it did on the LP. Someone did some editing here, obviously. And probably most noticably, the sequencing of the tracks is completely different on this CD. Whether all of this was done because the Wilsons wanted to do it for artisitc reasons, or because it was legally necessary due to all the contract hassles surrounding the original release, I don't claim to know. Perhaps someone else could shed some light on it.

So buy it if your old LP is worn out, or if you sold it when you were in college so you could buy pizza, but don't expect this to be an exact replacement. I'm just happy my original LP was still in good enough condition that I was able to copy it to CD with only one or two pops and clicks. It's the one I listen to, not this.

After reading P. Lannon's review, I thought I would add the following comments. I knew way back then that the LP I had was the "unauthorized" Mushroom issue. I may have forgotten that fact in the intervening years, as I've slept a little since then, and thought about a few other things. What I *didn't* know, but learned from P.'s review, was that Heart went back into the studio to "finish" the LP, which then apparently resulted in the particular recordings included in this CD reissue. Believe me, P., I know I have something special in this old LP, at least as far as Heart-o-philes are concerned, and even though I've put it on CD for archiving and convenience, I have no intention of getting rid of the original LP. It will stay on my "collectible" shelf with my French import version of the Beatles' "White Album" that's pressed on white vinyl. The only other thing I want to add is that as much as I liked much of Heart's later works, nothing can compare to the fun of listening to the live songs from that original "Magazine" on a good stereo, turned up loud enough that you can hear the background hum of the guitar amps during the introductions. Talk about transporting you to another time and place. What fun!