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By the time Duran Duran recorded Seven and the Ragged Tiger, the band had turned into international superstars. Touring kept them out of the studio, which meant little in the way of archival material.

The special edition of Seven and the Ragged Tiger does not hold any surprises for diligent fans who snatched up the singles boxed set from 2004 or the 12-inch compilations from the late ’90s.

"Is There Something I Should Know?" suffers from something of an identity crisis. US fans probably associate the track with the band’s self-titled debut, which shoe-horned the track in a 1983 reissue that came in the wake of the success of Rio. (I, for one, keep expecting to hear it after "Careless Memories".)

The track appears as a bonus, along with two versions of the B-side "Faith in This Colour". Of course, there’s "Secret Oktober" and the dance mix of "The Reflex", which is far superior than the album mix.

Very familiar territory for the schooled Duranie. That leaves the videos, which is where the true value of this reissue lies.

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Here’s how far I’ve fallen as a Duranie: I didn’t know there was a controversy surrounding the expanded reissue of Duran Duran’s self-titled album.

Yes, I thought it was odd the camera clicks at the start of "Girls on Film" cut out, and I thought I just made a faulty rip to my computer, until I discovered it was actually on the recording itself. I shrugged it off as a bad pressing but didn’t think too much of it.

I still have the remastered version of this album from 2004, and my aim in purchasing this reissue were for the extras — demos and videos.

Then I read EMI’s statement admitting to the glitch and standing by it. Andy Taylor, who left the band twice, gave his indignant reaction, and given what I know about Duranies, I didn’t bother to comb any Internet fan communities to gauge the consumer outrage.

Me? I’ve bought this damn album multiple times, and I have no shortage of versions to which I can listen. I’m not lacking in "Girls on Film" or "Planet Earth".

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In my early days of music collecting, Eurythmics was one band I filed under "must-own" — if the duo released an album, I made sure to get it. My enthusiasm for them, however, petered out before the release of We Too Are One in 1989. (Nor did I manage to get the 1984 soundtrack. In the Garden hadn’t been released in the States at that time.)

In reality, Eurythmics was a far better singles band than an album band. Of the vinyl albums I purchased in my youth, only two made the leap to CD — Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) and more recently, Savage.

Savage holds a strange position in the band’s discographic history. They went back to using synthesizers after having made a big effort to ditch them two albums earlier, nor did they tour in support of the album. The singles don’t have the chart-ready catchiness of their previous hits.

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In the wake of Music for the Masses and Violator, Depeche Mode clones came out of the proverbial wood work. First, Camouflage, then Red Flag and eventually, Cause & Effect.

Cause & Effect singer Rob Rowe, like Camouflage’s Marcus Meyn, bore yet another striking timbral resemblance to David Gahan, and those familiar string pads and synth basses thread through the Los Angeles duo’s songs as well.

Guitars were only starting to become a component in Depeche Mode’s music at the time, but they were part of Cause & Effect’s sound from the get-go. The opening track of the band’s self-titled debut album incorporated an acoustic guitar to great effect. The ringing riff that opens "Something New" is more New Order than DM.

Where Camouflage had a spiritual and aesthetic affinity with its England-based counterparts, Cause & Effect were far more willing to spin that sound for its own purposes. In short, they were nowhere near as dour.

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At the ripe age of 13, I declared to my family that ABC’s How to be a Zillionaire! was one of the best albums ever recorded.

Ah. Youth.

Of course, I would go on to expand my listening palette, and for a spell, I’d dismiss How to be a Zillionaire! as an exploratory detour of an immature music fan. Or was it?

How to be a Zillionaire! may not be the best album ever recorded — even less so compared to ABC’s bigger hit, The Lexicon of Love — but it’s not entirely bad either. Trashy, yes. Bad? Not really.

At the very least, the album cover art is pretty spectacular. (Best viewed in all glorious 12 inches.)

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The story of the release of Duran Duran’s Rio in the United States is circuitous. If you were a preteen in 1983 — like myself — this story would not reveal itself till the advent of the compact disc.

When I cross-graded my copy of Rio from vinyl (and cassette) to CD in 1992, I was shocked and dismayed by the music that came out of the speakers. It was not the one I spent my junior high school years spinning endlessly.

The arrangements of the side one tracks were thinner, and many of them were shorter. Surely, this mistake was made at the pressing plant? Actually, it wasn’t. (Ed note: And don’t call me Shirley.)

Capitol Records told Duran Duran the album had to be remixed to make it marketable to American audiences. For the CD reissue, the band opted to use the original UK mix instead. Over time, I would get accustomed to the original mixes, but they didn’t hold a candle to the album I studied at great length.

Today, I’m old enough to be a sucker for the reissue market, and yet again, I repurchased Rio, this time with the remixes I know and love.

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This entry is less a review and more of a reminiscence.

The first time I listened to this collection of Morton Feldman’s work was in 1992. I was on a student exchange program to New York City and having a rough time with homesickness. I was also nowhere near coming out of the closet, and on the night this album was playing on my boombox, a fellow exchange program participant approached me and said maybe I should come out of the closet.

That talk was the first time another person voiced what I had been thinking, but before we entered that discussion, he remarked the music sounded like some horror movie soundtrack.

The album, titled American Masters: The Music of Morton Feldman, was on loan from CRI, where I worked as an intern that year. I brought it back and considered buying a copy for myself, but I never got around to it.

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It was the cover article in Time magazine about U2 back in 1987 that got me curious about War. The writer repeatedly proclaimed it the band’s best album before The Joshua Tree. Being a neophyte U2 listener at the time, I sought the album, thinking I’d get the same transporting experience I got from The Joshua Tree.

No such luck.

I actually enjoyed Boy way more than War, and it was War that pretty much killed any curiosity I had about October or Under a Blood Red Sky. In short, I blame War for shutting me out of a pretty important part of the U2 repertoire.

But I was 15 at the time and not an experienced listener. Two decades should be enough time for opinion to change, right? I mean, Steve Reich’s Different Trains put me to sleep the first time I listened to it in 1989, but today, I hum along with the piece. Perhaps a remastered release of War in 2008 may reveal nuances I missed the first time.

So I listened to War again. And I still think it’s U2′s most overrated album.

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By the time I was introduced to U2, the band had become polished musicians and seasoned songwriters. The Joshua Tree left me with the wrong impression they were always thus. Boy demonstrated otherwise. The streamlined arrangements and simplistic riffs were a far cry from the atmospheric sophistication of The Joshua Tree.

My initial disappointment grew to glowing admiration, as the simpler songs allowed for more passionate performances. U2 of the Boy era exemplified the thematic youth of the album — enthusiastic, unbridled, open.

U2 cannot unlearn what it has learned, and the band’s latter-day works cannot help but be stadium efforts, super slick and ultra commercial. (They are the biggest band in the world, after all.) Retrospectives of the band’s work glosses over the early years in favor of the more widely popular. Must it be? It must not.

The deluxe edition of Boy reminds listeners of a time when U2 didn’t know what the fuck they were doing. It’s actually comforting to hear them actually, well, suck.

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Midnight Oil was the first band to teach me that a singer doesn’t need to sound polished, slick or appealing to be good. I could have learned that lesson from Bob Dylan, but the first Dylan performance I consciously encountered was "We Are the World". What an indictment on my generation.

The first time I heard "Beds are Burning", I thought, "Who the hell thought it was a good idea to give Peter Garrett a microphone?" Then my friends subjected me to the entire album, and eventually I gave in. The music was so urgent and awesome that I found myself championing the band.

When Sony Legacy remastered Diesel and Dust, I played it in excess all over again.

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