WHAT IS A JAPAN "MINI-LP-SLEEVE" CD?

Have you ever lamented the loss of one of the 20th Century's great art forms, the 12" vinyl LP jacket? Then "mini-LP-sleeve" CD's may be for you.

Mini-sleeve CDs are manufactured in Japan under license. The disc is packaged inside a 135MM X 135MM cardboard precision-miniature replica of the original classic vinyl-LP album. Also, anything contained in the original LP, such as gatefolds, booklets, lyric sheets, posters, printed LP sleeves, stickers, embosses, special LP cover paper/inks/textures and/or die cuts, are precisely replicated and included. An English-language lyric sheet is always included, even if the original LP did not have printed lyrics.

Then, there's the sonic quality: Mini-sleeves have dedicated remastering (20-Bit, 24-Bit, DSD, K2/K2HD, and/or HDCD), and can often be superior to the audio on the same title anywhere else in the world. There also may be bonus tracks unavailable elsewhere.

Each Japan mini-sleeve has an "obi" ("oh-bee"), a removable Japan-language promotional strip. The obi lists the Japan street date of that particular release, the catalog number, the mastering info, and often the original album's release date. Bonus tracks are only listed on the obi, maintaining the integrity of the original LP artwork. The obi's are collectable, and should not be discarded.

All mini-sleeve releases are tremendously limited editions mainly pressed on future orders only and once released immediately out of print. This fact along with other latter features we've mentioned make these titles rare collectibles that sell in the collectors markets for $100's of dollars apiece.

LIVE 1975 TO 1985 BOX SET -

Detailed item info

Track Listing
1. Thunder Road
2. Adam Raised a Cain
3. Spirit in the Night
4. 4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)
5. Paradise by the "C"
6. Fire
7. Growin' Up
8. It's Hard to Be a Saint in the City

1. Backstreets
2. Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)
3. Raise Your Hand
4. Hungry Heart
5. Two Hearts
6. Cadillac Ranch
7. You Can Look (But You Better Not Touch)
8. Independence Day

1. Badlands
2. Because the Night
3. Candy's Room
4. Darkness on the Edge of Town
5. Racing in the Streets
6. This Land Is Your Land
7. Nebraska
8. Johnny 99
9. Reason to Believe

1. Born in the U.S.A.
2. Seeds
3. River, The
4. War
5. Darlington County
6. Working on the Highway
7. Promised Land, The

1. Cover Me
2. I'm on Fire
3. Bobby Jean
4. My Hometown
5. Born to Run
6. No Surrender
7. Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out
8. Jersey Girl

Album Notes
Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band: Bruce Springsteen (vocals, acoustic & electric guitars, harmonica); Steve Van Zandt (acoustic & electric guitars, background vocals); Nils Lofgren (acoustic & electric guitars, background vocals); Clarence Clemons (saxophone, percussion, background vocals); Roy Bittan (piano, synthesizer, background vocals); Danny Federici (organ, accordion, glockenspiel, keyboards, background vocals); Patty Scialfa (sunthesizer, background vocals); Max Weinberg (drums).
Flo & Eddie: Mark Volman, Howard Kaylan.
Miami Horns: Stan Harrison (tenor saxophone); Eddie Manion (baritone saxophone); Mark Pender (trumpet); Richie La Bamba (trombone).
Producers: Bruce Springsteen, Jon Landau, Chuck Plotkin.
Recorded live between 1975 and 1985.
The Japanese special-edition release features a vinyl-inspired design.
CD comes in Jpn LP Sleeve.
Recording information: Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ; Los Angeles Coliseum; Record Plant Studios, NY; Right Track Recording, NY.
There's one song from a 1975 show, which makes the title of this box set true in the literal sense, and eight from a 1978 appearance at the Roxy in Los Angeles, but in essence this is Bruce Springsteen in the '80s--physically huge, politically charged and desperate to connect. You get the sense this is no accident. LIVE/1975-85 easily could have been a celebration of Springsteen's rise to rock & roll fame, instead, it's a concerted effort to make something of it. Almost all of LIVE/1975-85 was recorded in arenas and stadiums and almost all of it is intent on spreading a message.
The cover song that resonates most isn't the party encore "Raise Your Hand"(from 1978) but the anti-war chant "War" (from 1985). The most astonishing sequence of songs is all acoustic and almost all angry: Woody Guthrie's protest song "This Land Is Your Land" and Springsteen's own "Nebraska," "Johnny 99" and "Reason To Believe." With its reverberant keyboards and a haunting intro that quotes the soul classic "Nowhere to Run," even the love song "Cover Me" sounds like some sort of protest. There's lots of celebrating and rocking here, too, but mostly there's lots to think about.