In “Reconfigured,” we take liberties with revisionism by reediting, reimagining, and resequencing a particular album or albums in an effort to reconfigure the work into a stronger whole. Without a doubt, Prince’s musical output in the 1980s remains one of the most consistently innovative runs in pop music history. The only artists that immediately come to mind as matching or surpassing consistency, quality, and volume of Prince’s 1980s output are the similarly legendary runs of David Bowie and Stevie Wonder […]
Reconfigured
Reconfigured: Guns n’ Roses, Use Your Illusion
In “Reconfigured,” we take liberties with revisionism by reediting, reimagining, and resequencing a particular album or albums in an effort to reconfigure the work into a stronger whole. In 1991, Guns n’ Roses finally reemerged with the first full length album’s worth of material since their multiplatinum 1987 debut, Appetite for Destruction. The four year gap proved to be a fruitful one, as the band simultaneously released two full length LPs, totaling 30 tracks spread between them. Although well received […]
Reconfigured: Bob Dylan, “Infidels”
By 1983, Bob Dylan’s mid-70s creative peak of Blood on the Tracks and Desire seemed very small in the rear view mirror. Divorce, money troubles and a declining sense of artistic purpose led him to embrace a particularly strident strain of evangelical Christianity, and his resulting albums sold progressively worse while alienating more and more listeners. Whatever his spiritual convictions, his professional pride was sufficiently wounded to spur him into making something of a comeback. The result was Infidels. Produced […]
