Thank You!

Soundscapes will be closing permanently on September 30th, 2021.

Open every day between Spetember 22nd-30th

We'd like to thank all of our loyal customers over the years, you have made it all worthwhile! The last 20 years have seen a golden age in access to the world's recorded music history both in physical media and online. We were happy to be a part of sharing our knowledge of some of that great music with you. We hope you enjoyed most of what we sold & recommended to you over the years and hope you will continue to seek out the music that matters.

In the meantime we'll be selling our remaining inventory, including thousands of play copies, many of which are rare and/or out-of-print, never to be seen again. Over the next few weeks the discounts will increase and the price of play copies will decrease. Here are the details:

New CDs, LPs, DVDs, Blu-ray, Books 60% off 15% off

Rare & out-of-print new CDs 60% off 50% off

Rare/Premium/Out-of-print play copies $4.99 $14.99

Other play copies $2.99 $8.99

Magazine back issues $1 $2/each or 10 for $5 $15

Adjusted Hours & Ticket Refunds

We will be resuming our closing sale beginning Friday, June 11. Our hours will be as follows:

Wednesday-Saturday 12pm-7pm
Sunday 11am-6pm

Open every day between September 22nd-30th

We will no longer be providing ticket refunds for tickets purchased from the shop, however, you will be able to obtain refunds directly from the promoters of the shows. Please refer to the top of your ticket to determine the promoter. Here is the contact info for the promoters:

Collective Concerts/Horseshoe Tavern Presents/Lee's Palace Presents: shows@collectiveconcerts.com
Embrace Presents: info@embracepresents.com
MRG Concerts: ticketing@themrggroup.com
Live Nation: infotoronto@livenation.com
Venus Fest: venusfesttoronto@gmail.com

We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. Thank you for your understanding.

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2. SARAH HARMER - Are We Gone
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4. DESTROYER - Have We Met
5. DRIVE BY TRUCKERS - Unravelling

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Sunday
Apr032011

NEIL DIAMOND - The Bang Years 1966-1968

This one’s been leaving the store on a consistent basis, and the reasons are plenty. The only things you need to know, though, are that this is Neil Diamond, and that these are his first two albums, shuffled around from their original running order to best show off the talents of a young and hungry songwriter before he became overwrought and often schmaltzy. 

In the early '60s Diamond paid the bills as a hack songwriter, recording stray singles both as a solo artist and as half of Neil & Jack with Jack Packer. In 1966, with the help of Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich, he signed to Bang Records. With Barry and Greenwich also serving as his producers, Diamond’s songs and impassioned delivery guaranteed a string of hits in their own right, and a cache of songs that would be sung by countless others over the years. 

He hit the ground running, and in the time covered by his debut The Feel Of Neil Diamond and its follow-up Just For You produced a repertoire of pop standards that most musicians would love to have produced in their whole career, much less in the space of two years! Yes, you’ll know "Kentucky Woman", "I’m A Believer", "Red Red Wine", "Girl, You’ll Be a Woman Soon", "Monday Monday", "Cherry Red", "Solitary Man", and maybe more. 

Dissatisfied with his contract with Bang and feeling the need to move on from simple pop pleasures to a more introspective direction, he made a break for it, signing to a subsidiary of MCA and entering into years of legal disputes with Bang. From 1968 to 1973, Bang would find creative ways to reissue Diamond’s material in various forms, mangling the originals with overdubs, premature fade-outs, fake stereo, or different vocal takes. Happily, this reissue preserves "The 23 Original Mono Recordings", as the cover boldly states in its left margin.   

Reader Comments (1)

Bravo for this release. hard to believe that Neil's back catalogue of hits has been so messed up. It was very difficult to purchase a "Greatest Hits" of his old original material. In many cases, you would be cueing up an old classic and then find out it was a live version or totally remixed and mangled.
I purchased this one in the store a few weeks back and IT IS FANTASTIC to hear the original versions again. Excellent sound and excellent liner notes provided by Neil himself. Do yourself a favour and purchase this one. You won't be disappointed.
Waiting now for the review of Sam The Sham & The Pharoahs - The MGM Singles which I purchased on the same day. Fun ol' Tex-Mex hits from Sam and the boys. Some of them sound a little too much like "Woolly Bully", but it's great to have them all on one disk.
Cheers to the best store in Toronto!!

April 5, 2011 | Unregistered CommenterGERGS

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