Five years ago, Universal Music Company was still doing
right by one of its coolest properties, reissuing Siouxsie and the Banshees’
original albums since 2007 with remastered sound, bonus tracks, and nice
digipak packaging. The pop-breakthrough Tinderbox
had come out in 2009, and the transitional covers album Through the Looking Glass was next. Then the reissue campaign
stopped. Banshee Steve Severin, who’d been involved in these reissues, claimed
that UMC lost interest because there weren’t enough bonus tracks to accompany
his band’s final four albums to justify reissue. The claim seemed like a
sketchy excuse, but whatever. The bottom line was that we would not be getting
remasters of Through the Looking Glass,
Peepshow, Superstition, and The Rapture.
This was a drag, because these later albums contain a lot of
great music. Through the Looking Glass
is one of the few covers albums that doesn’t simply feel like a time-buying
throwaway released while the band scrambled for original ideas. Covers of
Billie Holiday’s “Strange Fruit”, Iggy’s “The Passenger”, The Doors’ “You’re Lost Little Girl”, Dylan and The
Band’s “This Wheel’s on Fire” (dare I say, definitive version? I dare), and
John Cale’s “Gun” (thank you, Siouxsie, for inspiring me to check out Cale’s
records. They are wonderful) are totally essential entries in the Banshees’
catalog.
If the purpose of that project was to replenish Siouxsie,
Steve, and Budgie’s creative juices, it did the trick. Peepshow is simply one of the band’s best, a killer fusion of their
dark vision with a more lush production approach than they’d ever employed
before. The psychedelic bump-and-grind of “Peek-a-Boo” sounded like nothing else in
1988 and it still sounds like nothing else today. Things like “The Killing
Jar”, “Ornaments of Gold”, and the breath-taking “The Last Beat of My Heart”
also suggested that Siouxsie and the Banshees could snatch the hit-parade brass
ring if they really wanted it.
I guess they did, because Superstition came next in 1991. Overall, this bid for pop success
is the weakest Siouxsie and the Banshees album since 1979’s turgid Join Hands but for totally different
reasons. The group gives in to too many of the slick fads of digital pop
production, which would really sound out-of-date when Nevermind arrived a few months later. There are several decent cuts, but the singles “Kiss Them for
Me” and “Shadowtime” are the only essential numbers here. I should
emphasize that they are really
essential.
Fortunately, 1995’s The
Rapture had material strong enough to transcend any production problems
(and there were those: after cutting nine of the songs quickly, John Cale was
hired to complete the project in a sparkly fashion that some thought didn’t fit
with the older tracks. It’s really not that bad though). Not everything is
superb— inverse to Superstition, the
cute single “O Baby” is one of the less impactful tracks— but the powerful
popper “Stargazer”, the brooding “Not Forgotten” and “Sick Child”, the
enchanting “Forever”, and the epic title track are. Unfortunately, The Rapture also turned out to be
Siouxsie and the Banshees’ final album. Not a bad way to go out, though.
Back to more fortunate matters, that 1995 issue is not the
last word on The Rapture or Siouxsie
and the Banshees, because UMC is finally
resuming its reissue campaign after that long five-year lag. Through the Looking Glass, Peepshow, Superstition, and The Rapture are now reissued with all the perks of those other
reissues (including the digipaks that were replaced with jewel cases for later
issues of the 2007-2009 remasters). As Severin indicated, the bonus tracks are
not overwhelming, but there is some great stuff to hear. Basically, each CD
features one or two major exclusive songs and one or two remixes of numbers
found elsewhere on the particular album. Through
the Looking Glass rips with a b-side version of The Modern Lovers’ “She Cracked”
that’s punker than most of the Banshees’ actual punk-era records, and a more
driving, more percussive mix of the single “Song from the Edge of the World”
than the one that appeared as a bonus on Tinderbox.
Peepshow parties with a wild b-side
salsa called “El Dia De Los Muertos” that finds the band once again stretching
themselves into previously untraveled regions. “Face to Face”, an alluring
single from the Batman Returns
soundtrack, gives much needed additional substance to Superstition. The Rapture
has a clattering demo called “FGM” that is the only thing on any of these discs
that sounds like it could fit seamlessly on The
Scream and “New Skin”, a snarly rocker from the Showgirls soundtrack of all places. The remixes are nice but there’s
nothing you can’t live without.
Sound on the three earliest albums is a booming improvement
over the tinny and flat original CDs. When “Kiss Them for Me” kicks in, you’ll
think someone slipped a Led Zeppelin disc in the player by mistake. The Rapture already sounded really good
in 1995, so any upgrade on this one is barely detectable. What is most
detectable is how much of an improvement John Wilde’s clear and informative
liner notes are over the pretentious ramblings of Paul Morley that wasted space
in the previous run of reissues.