Rhino / Wea
2004
Beyond Description (1973-1989)
About This Album
Beyond Description (1973-1989) is a companion set to 2001's 12-disc box The Golden Road (1965-1973), which collected all of the Grateful Dead's albums for Warner Bros, adding bonus tracks to each album, along with a double-disc collection of early pre-Warner recordings called "Birth of the Dead" for good measure. Beyond Description picks up the story after the Dead started their own label with 1973's Wake of the Flood and runs all the way to 1989, when they released their last studio album, Built to Last. Like The Golden Road, each album here is enhanced with bonus tracks, running the gamut from as little as three (on Built to Last) to has many as 16 (a full-length bonus disc added to 1980's live acoustic Reckoning), but there's nothing quite as enticing as "Birth of the Dead." Indeed, "enticing" is not a word that's frequently associated with the albums in this collection. Even among Deadheads, these records, with a couple of noteworthy exceptions, aren't highly regarded, and the additional studio outtakes, demos, and live tracks don't necessarily help matters either; after all, if the foundation is shaky, it's hard to add an expansion.
Track List

Disc 1 (try tracks 2,5,6 and 8)

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Disc 2 (try tracks 4,7,8,10,12,13,14 and 15)

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Disc 3 (try tracks 3,5,6,9 and 13)

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Disc 4 (try tracks 5,8,10 and 12)

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Disc 5 (try tracks 2,4,7,8,9,10 and 12)

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Disc 6 (try tracks 2,8,9,10,11,13,14 and 15)

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Disc 7 (try tracks 4,6,8 and 12)

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Disc 8 (try tracks 1,3 and 15)

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Disc 9 (try tracks 2,5,8 and 15)

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Disc 10 (try tracks 2,4,5,7 and 9)

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Disc 11 (try track 8)

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Disc 12 (try tracks 4,6,8,10 and 12)

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