Search - The Tubes :: Remote Control (Reis)

Appalled!! Where's Todd R.?

Richard A. Tucker | Pembroke Pines, FL | 10/31/2008

(2 out of 5 stars)

"The American Beat Records company should be avoided at all costs. I bought their re-issue of The Tubes Remote Control and I'm warning all others to reconsider this purchase. The sound is terrible. It has no depth, no resonance, no power, it's like someone copied it off the radio in 1979 and then had a digital processor to clean it up. The midrange even fades in and out in the middle of songs.

Is it terrible?

Well, no, but it is poor. It's like something made for a restaurant's background music. My original vinyl sounds so much better, but it is a German pressing that I bought in a record shop in Kaiserslautern back in '83. The German record companies routinely used virgin vinyl and their quality was incredible all the way to end of records. This re-issued disc sounds like one of those 4th generation knock-offs that swamped the American market by MCA and other cheap companies who flooded the market by the early eighties with re-issues pressed on recycled vinyl. They were as tinny and dull as this disc.

This is one of my top 100 albums and to see it get such shoddy treatment is appalling. Evidently this company is banking on the nostalgia market. And with today's inferior audio being all about the thud and womp factor (can it shake my review mirror off it's base?) they're likely to get away with this inferior product.

I'm just broken hearted that such a great album has been reduced to such audio mediocrity.

Why isn't their a reputable company with a solid reputation for audio integrity re-issueing this cult hit?

Todd Rundgren, this was your baby. How can you stand to let this happen?"

Horrible audio quality

Jeff Pittman | Durham, NC USA | 10/18/2008

(1 out of 5 stars)

"I love the Tubes. I love Todd. I love this record, but this CD rendition is so sonically flat that it is almost unlistenable. NO highs. NO lows. Muddy (at best) midranges. I had this in my car CD changer on a road trip and it followed Completion Backward Principle and Love Bomb, both of which kick hiney at volume. When Remote Control came on I thought my player had malfunctioned. A *major* disappointment that didn't have to be...the material is magic, but this representation of the material is just beyond poor."