T.rex Mp3 First

These "Final Cuts" are an odds-and-sods collection of music Marc Bolan had been working on – and it's in various stages of completion – before he was killed in 1977. Some of the music here appears on other recordings of late cuts; some are reworkings of tunes or alternate takes of tracks that appeared on Futuristic Dragon or Dandy in the Underworld; some never appeared at all. You have to be a hardcore T. Rex and/or Bolan fan to want this music. There is a weird version of "To Know You Is to Love You" with a vocal by Gloria Jones (the disco star who was Bolan's wife), and the rest has either new tags, or more or less guitars, or reworked melodies. You get the picture. Usually Edsel is spot-on, but this is dodgy. About the only thing you can really compliment the compilation producers for is good-quality sound – it's top-notch for what it is.

Tyrannosaurus Rex's transformation from oracles of U.K. hippie culture to boogie-friendly rock stars began with the album A Beard of Stars, released in early 1970 when the band picked up electric instruments, and by the time the year was out, Marc Bolan had pared their name down to the more user-friendly T. Rex and dropped their first album with the new moniker. Oddly enough, while the songs on T. Rex bear a much stronger melodic and lyrical resemblance to what would make the band famous on Electric Warrior in 1971, the tone of the album is a bit more pastoral than A Beard of Stars; on most of the tunes, the electric guitars are more successfully integrated into the arrangements so they lack the jarring immediacy of "Elemental Children" or "Pavilions of the Sun," and Mickey Finn still wasn't using a full drum kit, so the tunes don't quite have the kick of a full-on rock band…

A new T. Rex box set called simply 1972 brings together studio recordings, broadcasts and performances by Marc Bolan and T. Rex and is available to pre-order in 6LP coloured vinyl and 5CD editions, with limited quantities being available with a print of The Slider SIGNED by producer Tony Visconti.

This 80 page 12x12 hardback book includes: 4 x CDs and 1 x DVD “Tanx” and “Zinc Alloy” and the contemporary singles remastered by producer Tony Visconti, Demos and outtakes, Brand new liner notes by Tony Visconti and acknowledged expert Mark Paytress, Plus photographs of ‘Tanx’ and ‘Zinc Alloy’ period 7” singles from around the world, previously unpublished photos, sheet music and press cuttings. Preceded by some of Bolan’s most fondly-remembered singles, “Children Of The Revolution”, “Solid Gold Easy Action” and the classic “20th Century Boy”, 1973’s Tanx was the first T. Rex album to make full use of the ever-expanding range of studio gadgets. And while the album represented a new musical departure, several tracks maintained a direct link to the old sound. Hit singles “The Groover” and “Truck On (Tyke)” preceded Zinc Alloy, which was released in March 1974, and included the follow-up hit “Teenage Dream”. The results of listening to black radio stations whilst touring the US during 1973 are apparent on this album, something of an oft-overlooked treasure trove.

German compilation features all the T. Rex A-sides released between 1972 & 1978 on disc one & 28 B-sides on disc two, 16 page colour booklet. First, full disclosure is necessary as to what's missing. Ready? On this glorious double-CD collection, there isn't one track from T. Rex's Electric Warrior. That's right, "Bang a Gong," "Mambo Sun," and "Jeepster" are all absent. Why? Simple: it appears Warner is recalcitrant to license that wondrous album to anyone in any form. It turns out that this is simply a small complaint because none of the tracks from Electric Warrior should be separated from its full corpus anyway – it is an album in the purest and more literal sense of the world. Getting to what is here, listeners do get tracks from that beautiful slab The Slider as well as Tanx, Light of Love , Bolan's Zip Gun, Dandy in the Underworld, Futuristic Dragon, and a slew of 45s never issued on LP.

By late 1973, Marc Bolan's star was waning fast. No longer gunning out those effortless classics which established him as the most important figure of the decade so far, he embarked instead on a voyage of musical discovery, which cast him so far adrift from the commercial pop mainstream that when his critics said he'd blown it, he didn't even bother answering them back. Or that's the way it appeared at the time, and today, too, it must be acknowledged that 1974's Zinc Alloy & the Hidden Riders of Tomorrow is not classic Bolan, even if one overlooks the transparency of its title.

Initially a British folk-rock combo called Tyrannosaurus Rex, T. Rex was the primary force in glam rock, thanks to the creative direction of guitarist/vocalist Marc Bolan (born Mark Feld). T. Rex's music borrowed the underlying sexuality of early rock & roll, adding dirty, simple grooves and fat distorted guitars, as well as an overarching folky/hippie spirituality that always came through the clearest on ballads…