4 Abandoned Classic Rock Albums We Still Wish Had Gotten Finished

Some records just weren’t meant to be, but man do we wish they actually got a proper release. Let’s dive into four abandoned classic rock albums that were never officially released (except for one belated gift), but could have been truly incredible to hear!

1. Untitled Album by Mick Jagger and The Red Devils

This one hurts to revisit, especially for jazz fans. Mick Jagger and Rick Rubin got together back in the 90s with an idea for Jagger’s solo career. The Rolling Stones icon recorded over a dozen songs with The Red Devils and yielded what should have been a powerhouse jazz-adjacent album. 

Sadly, Jagger went in a different direction with his solo career, and his collab with The Red Devils was more or less abandoned before it got a proper release.

2. ‘Get Back’ by The Beatles

Abandoned classic rock albums tend to get shelved indefinitely, but much of what was recorded during the Get Back sessions ended up making it to The Beatles’ final album, Let It Be. Sadly, the overall vision that Paul McCartney had for Get Back will likely be gone forever. John Lennon didn’t care much for the project, especially since it involved being filmed constantly.

“We couldn’t get into it, and we put down a few tracks, and nobody was in it at all,” said Lennon of the project. “It was just a dreadful, dreadful feeling and, being filmed all the time, I just wanted them to go away.”

3. ‘Homegrown’ by Neil Young

Luckily for fans of Neil Young, this abandoned album finally got released in 2020. The whole of the album was recorded decades earlier in the 1970s, but Young opted to shelve it in favor of the more positive and energetic Tonight’s The Night. Surprisingly, Young even apologized to fans for keeping Homegrown under lock and key for so long.

“Sometimes life hurts,” he said. “You know what I mean. This is the one that got away. Recorded in analog in 1974 and early 1975 from the original master tapes and restored with love and care by John Hanlon.”

4. ‘Black Gold’ by Jimi Hendrix

Abandoned classic rock albums usually get shelved because they just don’t meet the standards of the musicians who created them. However, Black Gold never got a proper release because Jimi Hendrix had died in the middle of working on it. 

Years after Hendrix passed on, Mitch Mitchell found some of the tapes in the 1990s. The song “Suddenly November Morning” was released by the guitar god’s estate, but that’s about it. Mitchell passed away in 2010, and it’s unlikely that the rest of the unfinished project will ever see the light of day.

Photo by Roy Cummings/THA/Shutterstock

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