It’s always an amazing thing to be able to get a fresh and complete collection featuring the music of someone (or band) that you’ve grown to admire musically over the years (decades, even). Just before my first piece on Chris Carter’s British Invasion radio show on Sirius Radio, there was a great interview with Ian Hunter (Mott the Hoople), whereby he revealed an upcoming Box retrospective of his solo career, a career, which – to me – was nothing short of amazing.
His tenure with Mott The Hoople was a great one culminating in great albums to listen to so many years later! When he went solo, his career showed how much greater Mott The Hoople could have been if they had not capsized. Nevertheless, Ian Hunter solo is just as satisfying!
On September 2, there will be a MASSIVE 28CD/2DVD Boxed set that will revisit everything he has done and then some more. The set is being released by Proper Records.
The Box set is being called Stranded In Reality. It will provide all of his solo efforts including his Expanded Editions with bonus tracks as found on them. Not only will all seventeen of his solo works be in this Box, there will also be nine extra CDs filled with very cool material. Those bonus nine CDs are: Tilting The Mirror (2 CDs of rarities), a 2CD live set collection from 1979-1981 called If You Wait Long Enough For Anything, You Can Get It On Sale, a 3CD collection of Live performance tracks called Bag Of Tricks, Acoustic Shadows, a live 2008 acoustic show (1CD), and Experiments (1CD).
The Box will provide 2 DVDs (called It Never Happened) filled with a complete 1979 Hunter/Ronson Hammersmith Odeon concert, with a TV program of the set. The DVDs will also provide an assortment of promo videos, live performances, and plenty of archival materials.
It Never Happened, features promo, live and archive material, and most of the footage has not been issued commercially on DVD until now. The project includes a complete 1979 Hunter Ronson concert from London’s Hammersmith Odeon and a TV film from the same tour, live in Toronto. Collectively, the albums and DVD’s offer music fans a rock ‘n’ roll jackpot of over 400 tracks!
Completing this gem of a release will be a huge 88-page hardbound book that will provide not only the obligatory photos, memorabilia, essay, and notes, but will also contain a revealing track-by-track annotation by Ian Hunter of every track he wrote for his albums. (WHAT?! I’m In! BIG!) Added bonuses include a personally signed lithograph of All American Alien Boy, as well as album art work on the cardboard CD sleeves. The Box itself is an LP-sized container.
A track-list, although easy to glean for the studio releases and previously released expanded editions, is not available for the additional 9CDs and 2DVDs. But when they’re provided, I’ll get it out to you in an [UPDATE] post. Promise!
It is very important to note that while this set is obviously quite expensive and is pointed toward the die-hard Ian Hunter fan, it will be released in a very limited production. You can pre-order here. It’s expected to be the ONLY place of purchase (as far as I know).