The Ongoing History of New Music, Episode 714: Great Lost Albums

Just because you make a record doesn’t mean it’ll ever be released. Maybe you’ll abandon it before it’s finished. Maybe you do finish it but you decide it’s not good enough. Or it could be your record company decides they don’t want to release it. Or maybe it’ll just be declared “lost”–whatever that means.

This week, we’re going to sift through some clues for great lost albums, much like an archeologist will try to reconstruct something using nothing but shards of pottery. While these albums have been declared MIA, they’re not truly 100% gone. There’s still some stuff we can hear–if we know where to look.

Like what?

• Rage frontman Zack de la Rocha’s Trent Reznor-produced solo album.
• Reznor’s long-rumoured Tapeworm project.
• Green Day’s “stolen” album, Cigarettes and Valentines.
• Sheep from Nirvana.
• Kurt Cobain’s solo record.
• And more!

Normally I’d post an Rdio playlist of the songs contained in this week’s show, but let’s just say that I’d rather not reveal any sources this time. You’ll understand when you hear the show.

The Ongoing History of New Music can be heard on the following stations:

• 102.1 The Edge/Toronto – Sunday night at 7, Monday night at 11 with archives show Tuesday and Wednesday at midnight.
• Live 88-5/Ottawa
• 107.5 Dave-FM/Kitchener
• FM96/London – Sunday night at 7, Monday night at 11
• The Drive/Kingston
• 98.1 The Bridge/Lethbridge – Saturday night at 6, Sunday morning at 10am
• 92X/Calgary
• Sonic 102.9/Edmonton
• The Zone/Victoria
• Live 105/Halifax

And if things go well, the show will soon be heard on a few other stations. We just lost Winnipeg this week (not our fault; a format change).  I’m also looking for outlets in Vancouver, Kamloops, Kelowna, Red Deer, Grand Prairie, Regina, Saskatoon, Brandon, Windsor,  Montreal, Charlottetown, Moncton, Fredericton, and St John’s and anywhere else with a transmitter. Anyone? Anyone want to start a campaign?

Meanwhile, if you want to go really deep into some of this stories, head to Flink.to, which is the official archive of all things Ongoing History. This is a place for super fans of alt-rock. Hope you can take a look and start contributing to the stories.