Music history is littered with rumored releases that never quite made it out of the gate. Bands break up, labels interfere (or collapse), a crucial band member dies unexpectedly–shit happens. Tracks from these sessions usually end up getting released in one form or another—in box sets, special releases, or bootlegs—but often never appear in their intended form. Albums That Never Were, a website created and curated by user Soniclovenoize, tries to correct that, realizing an alternate universe where Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young were able to actually finish their third album, Human Highway, and where Mick Jones wrestled more control of The Clash from Joe Strummer and released the double-album Rat Patrol From Fort Bragg instead of Combat Rock, among others.
The site’s author culls these “never were” records using tracks from anthologies, outtakes, compilations, and foreign releases to create reconstructions that are as close to the artist’s original intent and sound as possible, including detailed notes about the history of these lost recordings along with his process, edits, and reasoning in synthesizing these records. All of these “albums that never were”–including music from The Who, Velvet Underground, Nirvana and many more–are available for download in FLAC and mp3 format at soniclovenoize’s site.