Dynamic Joy Division-style goth - LOUSY mastering job
Winthrop Harrison | Seattle, WA United States | 11/16/2001
(2 out of 5 stars)
"I'll let the other review describe the music. If you're interested in buying this, it's crucial to know that Cherry Red Records UK have clearly mastered every one of these 26 tracks straight from worn vinyl, and not the actual recording tapes. Many tracks crackle subtly, but it gets worse. The included version of "Beating My Head" has bad pitch control, due to Cherry Red's screwups. "Monkey's On Juice" literally revs up at the beginning because they didn't prime the record(!?!) right. The track listing is inaccurate and out of sequence. The music itself - when it's mastered at the right RPM - is great and mostly unavailable elsewhere. Cherry Red should be ashamed of themselves. Does the Better Business Bureau apply to despicable English companies?"
Lousy mastering job? There was no mastering at all on this c
Troy Rexroth | Vancouver, Wa. United States | 11/29/2006
(1 out of 5 stars)
"I agree with both reviewers that the music on this cd is definately worthy of purchasing. But be very aware of purchasing this cd.
"winharrison" (the 2nd reviewer) was only partially informative about the horrendous quality problems inherent with this cd.
It's very apparent that all of the tracks were recorded straight from vinyl, some much worse than others. It's also true about Monkey On Juice being recorded while the record was being turned and you can get a good laugh at it "revving" up.
Another goof is that track 15 is listed as "Hold Yourself Down" but instead is "Spinning Round (Crash Mix). "Hold Yourself Down" is actually track 16 but the title of that song is "Regenerate" which I have never heard of before and it doesn't seem to exist on any RLYL single that I've ever heard of.
My other gripe is about the constant skipping on quite a few of the songs at the end such as: Jipp (Instrumental), Cut Down, Burning Fever, Pushed Me, Crawling Mantra, Hang Man, All The Same and Shout At The Sky. Thats every song from tracks 19-26. What a complete waste. It's possible that I might have a defective disc, but I highly doubt it considering all the other problems.
One other thing is that you are still missing 3 singles songs: "Russia" (on Hollow Eyes 12"), "Paint Your Wagon" and "More Jipp" (both on Paint Your Wagon 7"). Instead, you get a short version of "Hollow Eyes" and what sounds like the album versions of "Feel A Piece", "Walking On Your Hands" and "Which Side". These songs might have been on the singles, but why not include the other rare singles songs that haven't yet been released on cd.
But I take that back, the album "Talk About The Weather" has just been rereleased complete of course with the full album and all the singles that predate it including "Russia". Funny enough though, one reviewer has the same "mastering" complaints that seem evident on this and other Cherry Red releases (Anagram, which is the label this is released, I believe is a subsidiary of Cherry Red).
Also, be aware that there are 2 versions of "Beating My Head", the 7" and the version found on the "This Today" EP. You get the funky 7" version with the saxophone solo (which I quite like actually). The other version (minus the saxophone and a harder guitar sound) can be found on the best of compilation cd "Generation".
It's no wonder that this cd is now out of print as it should never have been released in such a degenerate form to begin with. It's a shame that companies like Cherry Red are even allowed to unscrupulously put out such shoddy quality products, but they do this on a very regular basis as they've made it a habit to purchase the rights to a lot of european bands that were on labels that went out of business and sold those rights. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem that they hardly ever (if at all) aquire the tape masters for any of these recordings. This is why they use vinyl as their recording source. Unfortunately they seem either completely ignorant or just plain lazy in the fact that you can actually remove a lot of vinyl imperfections using computers with decent enough audio editing software.
The only upside to buying this cd is that if you can get it for under $20, you are getting some hard to find and often semi-expensive singles for a moderate price. But just be aware that some of those more expensive vinyl singles might actually sound far superior to this cd!
"
Track Listings (26) - Disc #1