All Rights Reserved to the band Europe.
As written in “Set The Prisoners Free!” by Anders Tengner from OKEJ – No.19, 1991 and later translated to English by Stein-Vidar:
“… The “thinking” powers of the American record company suddenly thought it missed hit songs, something they obviously couldn’t decide upon after listening through the extremely well recorded demo tapes that they had available for a long time, which the choice of songs for the album had been based on. The release was cancelled and Joey went back to writing songs, both on his own and together with Eric Martin from Mr.Big and Jim Vallance, known from Aerosmith and Scorpions circles. During the time most people involved with Europe were uncertain. Now no one knew when the album would come, when the marketing could start or the tours could be started.
We, who at an early stage had heard both the demo tapes and the finished album, asked ourselves. What was so wrong? Europe had made a great album! And sure it had singles. Still, new songs were brought forward, and just in time for the earlier release date, Europe went back to the studio to record four new songs and remix the rest. Here they encountered a new dilemma. Suddenly they had too many songs, so the next problem was picking out the songs that would finally go on the LP. In the beginning the result was approved. Four songs from the original album had to go, among others highlights like “Sweet Love Child”, a amazing ballad, “Here Comes the Night” and “Mr. Government Man”. But the best ones were still left: “Yesterday’s News” – one of the most impressive compositions Europe ever recorded, “Break Free” and “Girl from Lebanon”. Advance tapes were made, the title was decided to be “Prisoners in Paradise”, named after the best of the newly recorded songs, and finally everything seemed to be ready.
… Then the bomb hit! The American record company made yet another decision that should be rewarded with whipping, if not strangling! With the explanation that the album would be too long (barely an hour, not at all unusual in these CD days), both “Yesterday’s News” and “Break Free” were quite simply removed from the international version. “Yesterday’s News” is only left on the Japanese edition… “Yesterday’s News”, now a well-known title that I have mentioned as the best Europe has ever done in earlier articles, has already made good PR for the band. It was played during the concert at the Milton Keynes festival in 1989 and made the big rock magazines “Kerrang!” and “Raw” for the first time appraise Europe as a serious rock band, not pretty boys with synth fanfares. The bootleg tape with the song from Milton Keynes made it all the way to Japan, where the editor of Japan’s biggest rock magazine “Burrn!” put it up on his “Best right now” list. An indication, if anything, but it was obviously only enough to let Japan get the masterpiece. “Break Free”, on the other hand, was the only fast song among EUROPE’s new material…”
Some songs have high quality audio because they were actually recorded in the studio. Others are taken from demo sessions:
00:00 Break Free
04:05 Yesterday’s News
09:32 Here Comes the Night
13:59 Mr. Government Man
17:37 Sweet Love Child
22:34 Long Time Comin
26:32 Rainbow Warrior
33:06 Wanted Man
37:54 Don’t Know How To Love no More
43:45 Blame It on Me
48:09 Wild Child
52:10 Never Gonna Say Goodbye
56:05 Stranded
1:00:41 Little Sinner
Enjoy =)
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