[holden]

Personally, i quite like hearing the works in progress and collecting all the snippets and unreleased tracks. Sometimes, years later, they turn into something complete, like Biro the Leggy became Beautiful Burnout. Otherwise, it's fun for me to make the associations of sounds i know i've heard before in UW's special sneak peaks, reappearing in live tracks or on the album.

i don't mind so much if the finished version differs from the work-in-progress track, because i trust that the LP version is the one that Karl and Rick decided was complete, and it's how they wanted it to sound. If i've heard prior versions i liked better, fine, i have them on mp3 or burned to CD and can listen any time. The released CD is what it is, a musical photo album that will always have parts i like more or less. Further, even in the case of OWB, where we knew a number of the tracks ahead of time, there are always still surprises when first hearing the album. This is why i won't download leaks of the finished record- i'd rather have the real thing, mastered, hi-fi, artwork, in hand to make my opinion. (plus, it's paid for, but that's another huge debate that hasn't gone over well here or in this age of free downloads and entitlement).

So, yeah, a big thanks to UW for being so generous with sharing their creative process. We are lucky to hear so much, and the only frustration for me comes from wondering which tracks will carry on to album form!