Search - Lynsey de Paul :: Love Bomb

5 star album on a 2 star CD

bobby morrow | United Kingdom | 03/27/2010

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Lynsey De Paul enjoyed a run of success in the UK from the early to mid-70's. She was a talented songwriter who penned hits for other people as well as herself. Like similar girl singers of the time, such as Dana and Olivia Newton-John, though, she struggled to build up momentum. Despite plenty of airplay and numerous TV appearances, generally a hit single was followed by 4 or 5 flops until she struck gold again. Indeed, none of her albums charted and by 1977, her chart career was at an end.



This album is the best of the ones I own by Lynsey , superior to the preceding 'Taste Me... Don't Waste Me' and 'Surprise' and full of varied catchy pop tunes like her last top 10 hit 'No Honestly', the discofied title track, and the saucy, reggae-ish 'Hungry For Love'. She always had a way with a ballad too and 'Sugar Shuffle', 'Dreams' and 'Season To Season' fare best here making the best of her pretty but slight, multi-tracked voice.



I first bought 'Love Bomb' on CD 8 years ago from Japan. Like the majority of their releases it was a first class effort and sounded lovely. Only one problem, track 5 'Crystal Ball' was replaced by 'Rhythm 'n' Blue Jeans Baby' for some reason so when I saw this US reissue reinstating CB and adding 5 bonus tracks, I had to 'double-dip'.



First, let me say that I realise that not everyone who buys CDs expects (or cares about) excellent sound quality, but it has to be said that this Renaissance Records reissue of 'Love Bomb' is quite dreadful. Clearly the majority of it is lifted from a vinyl LP, a pet hate of mine, and even though it sounds like they've put it through one of those machines that are meant to 'eliminate' the 'crackles', 'pops' and abundant distortion you'd expect from a 35 year old LP, it still sounds awful. Even worse an 'effect' has been added to some tracks perhaps to try and hide the terrible reproduction but all this does it make it sound like Miss De Paul recorded the album in a public toilet. Strangely, though, the five bonus tracks have the best sound quality!



I think that in these days of fast-moving technology it's disgraceful that some low-rent record companies assume it's OK to simply put a crackly old LP onto CD (with no mention of this on the cheap, nasty packaging, of course) and expect no-one to notice! When CDs were first launched back in the early 80's they didn't do that then!



I feel sorry for fans who have waited years for this album to get a CD release and are now faced with this abomination. I would heartily recommend you don't buy this unless you really don't care about sound quality. Renaissance Records should be thoroughly ashamed and I'll make sure I'll never buy another of their releases.



One last thing, the song I bought this for, 'Crystal Ball', is absolutely the worst sounding track here. Typical!"