The Jayhawks - Rainy Day Music Remaster

It's not often you see a remastered CD that is quieter than the original CD. But that's the case with the new reissue of The Jayhawks' 2003 album Rainy Day Music.

Waveform for "Tailspin" from Original CD (2003)

 Waveform for "Tailspin" from Remastered CD (2014)

Kudos to the Jayhawks and remastering engineer Vic Anesini for getting it right this time. The music really does sound much more natural now. The quieter remastering suits the gentle grace of the music better than the louder original mastering.

The album was originally recorded and mixed to analog tape by Ethan Johns and (from what I understand) the upcoming 2 LP reissue will may or may not be cut from analog tape. In the meantime, the new CD sounds really nice, and has 6 bonus cuts.

The vastly underrated Smile and Sound Of Lies have also been reissued on CD with bonus cuts, and will also be subject to 2 LP reissues. Just don't expect the same substantial sonic upgrade as with Rainy Day Music.

Could Pono Really (Really) Make Digital Music Sound Better?

In my last post about PonoMusic I expressed skepticism about whether their music files would actually sound significantly better, and criticized them for what I consider misleading advertising as it pertains to "high-resolution" digital recordings. I also promised to keep an open mind, and today I want to entertain the possibility that PonoMusic might end up being a good thing for sound quality despite my skepticism.

So far all of Pono's marketing as it pertains to the sound quality of the music they will be selling has focused on the sampling rate and bit depth of digital recordings. Again from their FAQ:

IS PONOMUSIC A NEW AUDIO FORMAT? WHAT ABOUT PONOMUSIC QUALITY?

No.  We want to be very clear that PonoMusic is not a new audio file format or standard.  It is an end-to-end ecosystem for music lovers to get access to and enjoy their favorite music in the highest resolution possible for that song or album.  The music in the PonoMusic.com store is sold and downloaded in industry standard audio file formats.  

The PonoMusic Store uses FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec) audio format as its standard, for compatibility, although the PonoPlayer can play most popular high-resolution music formats from other sources.  PonoMusic has a quality spectrum, ranging from really good to really great, depending on the quality of the available master recordings: 

•    CD lossless quality recordings: 1411 kbps (44.1 kHz/16 bit) FLAC files
•    High-resolution recordings: 2304 kbps (48 kHz/24 bit) FLAC files
•    Higher-resolution recordings: 4608 kbps (96 kHz/24 bit) FLAC files
•    Ultra-high resolution recordings: 9216 kbps (192 kHz/24 bit) FLAC files

In short, what this is telling us is that Pono will not be offering any kind of breakthrough in digital music technology. 192 kHZ/24bit PCM digital audio has been available in some form or another to consumers at least since the introduction of DVD-Audio nearly 15 years ago. There are already other digital music retailers that offer high-resolution digital music files for download. Likewise, the FLAC format is something of an industry standard for lossless compressed audio (although someone might want to alert Apple to that fact).

This is actually a good thing. The last thing we need at this juncture is a new digital format that isn't compatible with other players or current stereo equipment. Pono has not reinvented the wheel here, and there is no reason why they should. The music from their store will likely work with the equipment you already have (if you are an iTunes user you'll need to convert those FLAC files to something like AIFF or Apple Lossless files, but that is a topic for another day). In addition, their player will play the digital files you already own, as they have promised support for most varieties of PCM based audio files, including the kind Apple currently sells. In my view these are both sensible choices.

So if PonoMusic will not be offering anything new under the sun, why do I hold out hope that their product might actually lead to better sounding music for consumers? The answer, ironically, lies with the precedent set by Apple with their "Mastered for iTunes" program. Mastered for iTunes is a set of tools and best practice standards that Apple has made available to labels to create better sounding iTunes music files. I encourage you to read PDF Apple has made available on mastering music for iTunes, as it contains a set of common sense guidelines without excessive marketing hype. It suggests to me that Apple has a very good understanding of what some of the real problems with current digital music are: namely, excessive use of dynamic range compression and digital clipping. It has been my experience that the care that goes into making music sound its best at the mastering stage matters more (much more) than the eventual sample rate and bit depth delivered to the consumer.

It has long been my view that the mastering process is the critical phase in music production that really needs to be addressed and improved. By and large it is at the mastering stage where sound quality is really getting messed up these days. I applaud Apple for taking steps to address this problem.

If Pono were to issue a similar set of guidelines to labels on best practices for mastering audio for PonoMusic, I think there is a real possibility it could result in better sounding digital music releases. Were Pono to leverage its influence to urge labels to ease back on dynamic range compression, avoid digital clipping, and not apply excessive frequency equalization, it would result in audibly better sounding music and differences that really could easily be heard even at CD level (44.1kHZ/16bit) resolution. Perhaps they could create some catchy name like "PonoApproved" for digital albums that meet their sound quality standards.

Now, to be clear, I don't have any special reason to think this will happen, and given Pono's exclusive focus to date on sampling rates and bit depth as the drivers for better sound quality, I am not particularly encouraged. But some precedent for this kind of thing does exist. Also, if PonoMusic is successful, it could push other digital music retailers like iTunes to offer higher quality, lossless, downloads as an option for consumers. All these things would be very welcome developments, and I'm happy to wait and see how things shake out before issuing any final judgement on Pono. I remain skeptical, but I wish Neil Young and Pono luck in their stated goal of making digital music sound better. If they are serious about it they must take steps to demand better sounding masters from record labels, and if they succeed in doing so we all stand to benefit.

Loudness War Research

There's an interesting article up on Digital Music News about the Loudness War in popular music (i.e. the tendency for released music to have less and less dynamic range over the years). While this is a topic that has been written about quite a bit over the past several years (including a lot of bellyaching from yours truly), most of the assertions about loudness and popular music are merely anecdotal in nature with little hard data to back them up.

Two graduate students at Rutgers University, Shaun Ellis and Tom Engelhardt, are looking to change that, having recently released a trove of data related to chart-topping songs dating back to 1960:

They scanned an exhaustive range of attributes related to top-ranked songs, including tempo, time signature, key, and chord progressions.  The Echo Nest offered quite a bit of data, algorithms, and API-related assistance.   

Unsurprisingly, lots of hit songs share common attributes, especially elements like verse-chorus-verse and 4/4 time signatures.  But since the 1960s, there's been a clear march towards louder, fuller, more blaring music. 

Ellis & Engelhardt chart the rising volume of popular music. (From Digital Music News)

The chart above shows Ellis and Engelhardt's data relating to the average dB of popular songs from 1968 to 2010, and the relatively linear increase in volume is clear.

The chart is interesting to me because if the data is accurate, it does not support many of the conventional assumptions about the loudness war (including my own). The main culprits in most explanations as to why music has gotten louder over the years are usually related to technology, and especially the advent of digital recording, mastering and playback. However, the data here doesn't fully support such explanations. If anything, you can see a slight (albeit temporary) dip in volume levels during the early years of the CD era (the years 1990 to 1998 are the only sustained period where the actual data falls below the averaging curve). And the biggest jump occurs between 1998 and 2001 just before the iPod was introduced. If anything there's been a slight dip in volume levels since the introduction of the iPod in 2001 (which was the loudest year for popular music according to Ellis and Engelhardt's data).  Looking at this chart makes me think we ought to be cautious in accepting any explanation that blames a particular technology (be it CD, CD changer, iPod, etc.) because the rise is fairly consistent across a long period of time that saw various technologies come and go.

It's also interesting to note what looks like a sharp drop in volume between 2009 and 2010. This might represent a reaction to the numerous complaints about the loudness war from consumers, music critics and bloggers, or it might be a momentary blip. Given the consistent rise in volume since 1968, despite year to year variation, at the moment I would consider it nothing more than a bit of statistical noise. I'm certainly not ready to declare the loudness war "over" based on what I see here.

Now with that said, there are a number of questions about Ellis and Engelhardt's methodology that I would want to know the answers to before coming to any serious conclusions based on their research. First and foremost I would want to know how they measured the average dB of the songs they selected, as well as the methodology for choosing which songs to measure in the first place. At the moment it does not appear as though they have released this data. It's fairly easy to get data like this from a CD release, but it's much harder to get it from an LP or 45 RPM single. Further, the same songs were often more compressed (louder) on 45 RPM single releases than they were on LP versions. Which versions did they choose to measure, and was this done in an organized and consistent way?

Another thing to consider is the data represented in this graph only apparently relates to hit songs, not to reissues of older music, which is one of the things about the loudness war that bugs me most. It's one thing for new hit music to be recorded, mixed and mastered to have little dynamic range, but it's another thing when older music gets the dynamic range sucked out of it to keep pace with current trends. The data also presumably only relates to charting songs, not full albums or less popular music.

Nevertheless, whatever its limitations, Ellis and Engelhardt's data is interesting, and provides some welcome quantification to a phenomenon that has been greatly discussed, but is probably still not well understood.

Fables Waveforms

It's been a while since I posted any waveforms here, but with the controversy over the mastering of the 25th Anniversary Edition of R.E.M.'s Fables of the Reconstruction, I thought I'd give it another crack.

The first waveform is a screen shot of the track "Cant Get There From Here" taken from my needledrop of the original 1985 LP. (For technical details, see comments).

"Cant Get There From Here" (1985 LP Needledrop)

The next waveform represents the same song taken from the original 1985 IRS/MCA CD.

Some have criticized me in the past for comparing waveforms taken from LP needledrops to those taken from CDs. The argument against doing so is that the manifold noise and distortions inherent to LP playback make any such waveform comparisons invalid. But as you can see below, the needledrop and CD waveforms look remarkably similar. In terms of dynamic range, I found less than 0.5 dB difference between these two tracks, so whatever distortion LP playback adds to the picture here, it is of a low enough order not to have a tremendous impact on the track's dynamic range.

"Cant Get There From Here" (1985 IRS/MCA CD)

That is not to say the two tracks sounded identical. While similar in terms of dynamic range, to my ears the CD track sounded somewhat thin and bright compared to the LP sourced track. This is not to say that the CD sounded bad, but to my ears it lacked the depth and fullness of the needledroped track.

Finally, we come to the remastered 2010 version of "Cant Get There From Here." As expected, the remastered version is louder than the other versions, around 8 dB louder on average. With an average RMS value of approximately -12 dB, this is hardly the most compressed remaster I have seen (that distinction belongs to Iggy Pop's remixed Raw Power, which averages around -4 dB). For a more reasonable point of comparison most tracks on the recent Deluxe Edition of Exile On Main St. average around -10 dB.

"Cant Get There From Here" (2010 Capitol Remaster)

So, how did the remaster sound in comparison to the other tracks? Well, most obviously it was louder. A lot louder. I had to turn my stereo way down when switching to the new remaster. In order to precisely match sound levels I needed the help of my computer. Once I matched levels and compared tracks it seemed the remaster had a slightly hollow sound compared to the other tracks, and tonally I thought it was brighter than either the older CD or the LP. I also noticed that Michael Stipe's vocals seemed to be boosted slightly in relation to the instruments. The remaster did not sound bad, but I did prefer the two earlier versions.

It's been my experience in listening to compressed remasters that the most regrettable consequences of compression only reveal themselves over time, not in quick back-and-forth comparisons. As I have noted before, heavy compression tends to take a sense of excitement out of the music, resulting in albums that do not hold up to repeated listening.

So while the remastering of Fables could have been worse, it also could have been better. A lot better. Ironically, in 2010 if you want to hear a really good sounding digital version of Fables Of The Reconstruction, you'll have to digitize your old LP.

Newsweek Calls Out R.E.M.'s "iPod Ready" Fables Reissue

I was very surprised to see the so-called "loudness war" get a mention in Newsweek, where Seth Colter Walls criticizes the recent 25th Anniversary deluxe reissue of Fables Of the Reconstruction for having been mastered too loud (Shiny Happy Remaster?). Colter Walls rightly points out that the atmospheric Fables is not the sort of album that particularly lends itself to today's pumped up, super-compressed mastering aesthetic.

Having compared the remaster to my original LP, I agree that the remastering was louder than it should have been, and I definitely preferred the sound of the original LP. (I have never heard the original CD, so I can't offer any insight on that). That said, I also thought the differences I heard were more subtle than is often the case with contemporary remasters, and this album is far from the worst remaster I have heard. As I noted in my original post, "I suspect only the very pickiest of audiophiles would seriously object to the sound quality of the remaster." It seems I was wrong about that, as Colter Walls clearly does not consider himself an audiophile but nonetheless had serious issues with the sound quality of the reissue.

There are a couple things I would take issue with in the article. First, I disagree with the author's contention that recently remastered CDs are typically the safest bet when looking for good sound, and Fables represents something of a special case exception. In general, I have found that the more recent the remaster, the more likely it is to sound bad, although there are enough exceptions that I would hesitate to take things on anything other than a case-by-case basis. Second, I'm not so sure that the increasing loudness of CDs can be so tidily pinned on the iPod. After all, the iPod does feature a "sound check" function that normalizes the volume of all songs on it without effecting dynamic range (although I have no idea how many people use it). Beyond that, the movement toward louder CDs predates the iPod, it's just that we've seen a steadily escalating situation.

For what it's worth, here is my take on why we are seeing louder and louder remasters: There is a strong incentive for labels to produce remasters that sound "different" from what has come before. And making a release 6 or 7 dB louder than previous CD issues will give a lot of people an initial "wow" factor if they don't understand the need to carefully match volume levels in order to make a valid comparison. If you compare the exact same track but only turn the volume up, 9 out of 10 people will immediately say the louder version sounds "better" even if there is no difference at all. So a louder remaster can initially "grab" the listener and give him or her a false sense that what they are hearing is "better," when really it is just louder.

With careful work and using the best current analog-to-digital converters and other equipment it is certainly possible for today's mastering engineers to create remastered CDs that surpass the sound quality of CDs produced ten or twenty years ago. However, if the original CD was well done (not a safe assumption) the improvement in sound tends to be subtle, and not the type that will hit you in the face immediately. To hear the improvement you'll need a decent stereo system and have to know what to listen for. But let's face it, that describes a tiny percentage of the possible market for a reissue like this. It's so much easier for a record company to just to make a remaster louder. Most people (music critics included) will hear that difference instantly and assume it is a change for the better.

In other words, you can fool most of the people all of the time, and the the rest will just complain about it endlessly on blogs and internet discussion boards in such an arrogant and dismissive manner that the rest of the world will assume they are the equivalent of coffee connoisseurs who will only partake of coffee beans that have been crapped out by animals.

That's the unfortunate reality, and I don't see any way around it. I try to educate on my site, but I think that can only help at the margins, and maybe help people who already understand these things to make an informed purchasing decision. So it's good to see the problem being addressed by someone outside the confines of blogs and audio discussion boards, and I hope Colter Walls continues to listen carefully and draw attention to this problem.

It has come to the point with CD reissues where I pretty much just ask myself if I am willing to pay the price of admission for the bonus tracks, because I assume in the end I will not like the remastered sound as much as what came before, especially if I have a decent copy on LP already. The 25th Anniversary reissue of Fables of the Reconstruction is hardly the worst offender in the ongoing loudness war, but there is no doubt in my mind that it would have sounded better had the mastering engineer applied less compression than he did. Perhaps with journalists like Seth Colter Walls drawing more attention to the problem we can have reason to hope for a better sounding deluxe reissue of Lifes Rich Pageant.

R.E.M. Fables Of The Reconstruction 25th Anniversary Edition

In his excellent (albeit brief) liner notes to the new edition of Fables Of The Reconstruction, Peter Buck attempts to clear up the misconception that the members of R.E.M. do not actually like the album that was yesterday honored with a 25th Anniversary deluxe reissue:

"Over the years a certain misapprehension about Fables Of The Reconstruction has built up. For some reason, people have the impression the members of R.E.M. don't like the record. Nothing could be further from the truth. It's a doomy, psycho record, dense and atmospheric. It creates its own strange little world, illogical but compelling. It's a personal favorite, and I'm really proud of how strange it is. Nobody but R.E.M. could have made that record."

Fans of R.E.M. might be forgiven for thinking the band held the album in less than the highest regard given all of the ambivalent to negative comments certain band members have made about the album over the years. But Buck goes on to make the very important point that the way the band feels about the album is inextricably tied to the circumstances surrounding its creation:

"All four of us were completely out of our minds at the time. We had just spent four straight years on the road; we were tense, impoverished, certifiable, and prime candidates for rehab. And it was cold. My main memory of that period is making the hour commute to Wood Green on the Tube and then walking for twenty minutes through invariably inclement weather, usually sleet."

Likewise, how the average R.E.M. fan feels about Fables Of The Reconstruction is no doubt inextricably bound to the circumstances under which they first heard it, and their memories of that time period.


I had just turned 16 when I picked up Fables at my local Sam Goody. I have a memory of listening to the album on my walkman as my Mom drove me home. I can still smell that "new cassette" smell if I concentrate hard enough when listening to the opening chords of "Feeling Gravitys Pull." Personally, Fables is my favorite R.E.M. album. But then it was also the first R.E.M. album I bought, and the strange and compelling "dense and atmospheric" music contained within it opened up a whole new world of music for me.

Soon after I purchased Fables, I picked up R.E.M.'s earlier releases. After that, there was a virtual cascade of intriguing new music finding its way into my walkman. Peter Buck played mandolin on "I Will Dare" by The Replacements, so I picked up Let It Be. He produced The Good Earth by The Feelies, so I got that. I heard Wire and The Soft Boys were an influence on R.E.M., so albums by those bands were soon in my collection as well. Those purchases drove me in a hundred new directions that I am still branching out from today.

But for me, R.E.M.'s Fables Of The Reconstruction is still there at the root of it all. I don't think it is any kind of exaggeration to say that the album changed my life. And I still regard Fables Of The Reconstruction as one of the finest rock albums ever made. I like it as much or more than anything recorded by The Beatles, or anyone else.


The 25th Anniversary edition adds a bonus disc of demos that were recorded in Athens, GA before the band left to record Fables with famed producer Joe Boyd in London. Buck remembers the band as being hard up for new songs after exhausting their stockpile of songs on the first two albums, and feeling "dangerously unprepared" as the band departed to London, a view he was forced to revise upon listening to the demos again. Maybe R.E.M. really were exhausted, drugged-out and low on inspiration at the time, but from the audio evidence available from the demos they sound like a band in complete control of their destiny and bursting with musical ideas. Perhaps they were receiving divine guidance. Most of the arrangements for the songs were already worked out, and I suspect Boyd's role in shaping the album was minimal, more along the lines of helping the band realize the sound they were searching for than providing direction.

R.E.M. would never again record an album remotely like Fables Of The Reconstruction, and for me personally their music would become less compelling over the years as their commercial fortunes expanded. Don't get me wrong, I've enjoyed much of the music they've created since Fables, it's just that I never again loved it or was fully captivated by it in quite the same way. Perhaps that would have been asking too much, especially considering that their music could never again be new to me in the same way.

The remastered sound of the new CD is yet another example of the trend toward excessive dynamic compression of reissues. The reissue is around 7 to 8 dB louder on average than the original, although it sounded fine to me while listening to it in the noisy environment of my car. However, I'm a little skeptical that the sound quality will hold up as well for me on my home stereo. Perhaps the best part of the beautifully executed box that the remastered set comes in is that there is room in it for a CD-R needledrop of the album.

Update: After listening to the album on the stereo I suspect only the very pickiest of audiophiles would seriously object to the sound quality of the remaster. Despite the fact that it is more compressed than what I would consider ideal, the overall result is still very good.

Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers - Mojo (Play It Loud)

I recently picked up Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers' new album Mojo on LP. I was curious to see that unlike the Mudcrutch album and most of the other recent Warner Bros. LPs I have bought, Mojo did not come with a bonus CD. Instead it had a coupon for a free download.

What's that you say? "How dare Tom Petty only offer a crummy, lossy compressed MP3 download instead of a 'full resolution' CD?"

Not so fast there mister.

Yes, you can download lossy compressed (and dynamically compressed) 320kps MP3s, but Warners also gives you the option of downloading the album in the Apple Lossless (ALAC) format, and this gives you resolution that is identical to the commercially released CD.

Okay, I hear you now. "Oh great, so I can get the album in CD resolution, but it will still be dynamically compressed just like the commercial CD."

Just a second there Mr. Complainy Pants, I wasn't finished.

While the ALAC version is the same as the dynamically compressed CD, Warners has also made a 24 bit/48 kHz FLAC download available. The FLAC version not only features a higher bit and sampling rate than is possible with CD, it also contains the dynamically uncompressed master that was used to cut the LP (and the BluRay release). In effect, Tom Petty and Warner Bros. are allowing you to download the original album master so you can hear the music just the way the band did in the studio.

"Well that's all fine and well," you say "but why didn't they give us a higher resolution version recorded at 96 or 192 kHz?"

Okay, I have to say, you are really starting to get on my nerves, but the answer to your question is that the album was recorded (totally live in the studio) at 24 bit/48 kHz, so this is the highest resolution available (and it sounds amazing by the way).

I was able to download all three versions of the album (MP3, ALAC & FLAC). I compared the LP to the 24/48 digital files, and they sounded pretty near identical to my ears. I guess that means that my turntable is doing its job pretty well, since the LP was cut from those files. I listened to the MP3 version in my car, and it sounded very good in that environment. While the CD and MP3 versions have been dynamically compressed compared to the LP, BluRay and FLAC files, it should be pointed out that even in that state Mojo still has a large amount of dynamic range relative to other contemporary rock releases.

Of course sound quality wouldn't matter in the least if the album didn't deliver the goods musically, so the really good news is that the music on Mojo is terrific. Petty seems to have been energized by the Mudcrutch reunion, and Mojo was recorded completely live in the studio just as Mudcrutch's "debut" was. The songs lean heavily on the blues, and one track sounds just like prime Led Zeppelin (albeit with Petty, not Plant on vocals). I don't want to give a blow-by-blow account of the album, so suffice to say if you are a fan of Tom Petty, I doubt Mojo will disappoint you. If you are not a fan of Tom Petty, Mojo probably won't be the album to win you over either (for that, go pick up Wildflowers).

Once again, Tom Petty has put together a really nice LP package that shows that he is one of the few contemporary recording artists who both really cares about sound quality and has the clout to deliver great sounding recordings to his fans. So do I have any complaints? Just one. I wish Warner had made the hi-rez, uncompressed FLAC files available to those who purchase the CD as well so they can hear what they are missing out on.

Exile In Pixelville

Do you see anything wrong with the image below?


I see plenty wrong with it, and any visual artist I know would absolutely hit the ceiling if their work were reproduced in this way. The image is, of course, the iconic cover to the Rolling Stones' Exile On Main St album that features a Robert Frank photograph of a photo collage that he discovered on the wall of a tattoo parlor. This is a scan of the new deluxe edition artwork. Resolution issues aside (which are partly the fault of my scanner), the first thing I noticed about the new cover is that the color balance is off. The whole cover has a reddish tint, while the original LP had no tinting whatsoever. To my eyes the tinting looks "wrong," although I admit it could be considered a legitimate artistic choice. But as you will see below, there are some other things about the way the image was manipulated that are very hard to understand.

More annoying to me is the fact that to fit the original square-shaped cover to the rectangular dimensions of a digipack, someone has done a Photoshop hack job on the image. Take a look at the blue highlighted selections below. Do they look familiar?


They should, as they've simply been cropped out of the original image and repeated. See the areas highlighted in red below to see the parts of the image that have been duplicated.


Once I noticed this repetition of images, I found it incredibly distracting. My eye is continually drawn to the elements in the image that are repeated. I understand that they needed to do something to fit a square image to the rectangular dimensions of a digipack, it's just that I feel they found the worst possible way to do it.

Here is a photo I took of my Exile On Main St LP cover using nothing more than a Canon Digital Rebel SLR camera with stock lens:


I cleaned up the image slightly in Photoshop then cut the text to a separate layer. Next, I used the "desaturate" adjustment to make sure the cover was truly black and white. This probably took me around ten minutes.

Once I started looking at the original cover, I noticed something interesting: I had originally assumed the repetition of images for the deluxe reissue was needed to prevent cropping the image, but in fact someone cropped a significant amount of material out of the original image to create the deluxe artwork. See the highlighted areas below to see what was cut out:


This makes the choice to repeat material even more mystifying to me. Somebody actually chopped off some of the horizontal information, which makes no sense if you are trying to transform a square image into a horizontally aligned rectangular one.

If they had merely cropped the image in the way you see it below, it would have fit the dimensions of the digipack perfectly with no need for repeating images. Yes, some of the original cover would have been lost, but no more than was cropped out anyway.


If they wanted to keep the entire original album cover intact, they could have added some sort of sidebar, as I often see on such deluxe reissues. I created a possible example below, although I am sure someone more creative than me could do something much more interesting. But at least this way none of the iconic album cover is lost.


I didn't spend very long manipulating any of these images, and I admit they are far from perfect. If I had better equipment, a better source, and more time I could have done a lot better. Nevertheless, I think the options I've presented here would have been preferable to the very strange and unappealing artwork that was created for this deluxe reissue. Of course if they had chosen to go with standard jewel case packaging, none of this manipulation would have been necessary in the first place. I personally don't believe digipacks are mandatory for deluxe reissues, although they do seem to be the norm.

Okay, I realize there are bigger problems in the world than botched CD reissue artwork. I'm honestly more puzzled by this than anything: the more closely I looked at the artwork, the more questions I had, and the less sense any of it made to me. I'd be interested to hear possible explanations for what I consider some very strange choices. But considering how iconic this album cover is (John Lydon has admitted that it was a huge influence on the visual aesthetic of punk rock), I think it is a real shame to see it treated with so little respect.

If I haven't said anything about the music on Exile On Main St yet, it's because I assume you know it's great: a near perfect fusion of rock, blues, country and gospel. It is the fullest realization ever of what Gram Parsons envisioned as "Cosmic American Music" despite the fact that it was (mostly) made by five Brits living in France.

The deluxe reissue is worth picking up for the bonus disc, but not, in my opinion, for the remastering. Target is selling an exclusive "rarities edition" that is just the bonus CD for $10. It's refreshing to have an option not to repurchase the original album but still be able to get the bonus tracks for a reasonable price.

I know Exile is supposed to be a "bad" sounding recording, but if you find a good copy on LP and play it back on a decent system, it is actually a very lively and real sounding recording. The warts and all sound shocked a lot of people back in 1972 because the Stones chose not to adhere to the post-Abbey Road norm of slickly produced multi-track rock music. The album sounds all the more vital today because of that fact.

Unfortunately, the new remaster does adhere to today's norm of dynamically compressing older recordings, which to my ears ends up emphasizing the murkier aspects of the recording. For the best sounding Exile on CD I recommend finding a used copy of the 1994 Virgin reissue that was remastered by Robert Ludwig. Better yet, find an Artisan pressed original UK or US LP, as none of the CD reissues have bettered it sonically.

Update:

I looked at the non-deluxe edition CD in a record store today, and the cover art on that also features some strange repetition of images, even though the image is rectangular. Some of the images that were cropped from the bottom of the original cover reappear, but there is another band of repeated images at the bottom. Weird.

The Feelies - The Good Earth Reissued

I wanted to provide yet another Feelies update now that my vinyl reissue of The Good Earth has finally arrived.

I will admit to a small amount of consternation when I first learned that the vinyl reissues of Crazy Rhythms and The Good Earth would not be mastered from the original analog master tapes. Now that I have actually heard them, I will also admit that any sense of concern about that was totally misplaced and misguided. Major kudos are due to Andreas Meyer from Tangerine Mastering for the magic he has worked in remastering these albums for vinyl.

In my previous post I noted that I was hard pressed to hear any differences between a Stiff original pressing of Crazy Rhythms and the Bar/None reissue. I could hear differences between a Coyote/Twin-Tone LP pressing of The Good Earth and the Bar/None reissue, and they were mostly in favor of the reissue. First off, the reissue is a better, quieter pressing than the Coyote original, which is a helpful thing because there are some long quiet passages on the album. Beyond that, the reissue has a subtly crisper, more open sound without changing the essential sonic character of the album in any way.

I also had an original Coyote CD on hand for comparison, but the less said about that the better, because it is an absolute sonic disaster. The old Coyote CD turned an album with a warm, inviting sonic character into something shrill and unpleasant. The old CD only reminded me of why I hated CD sound for such a long time.

As with Crazy Rhythms, I downloaded the album plus bonus tracks in WAV format, and once again, while they sounded good, it was obvious they were slightly dynamically compressed compared to the LP. Nevertheless, the new digital version sounds far better than the original CD. The download-only bonus tracks are not quite as interesting as was the case with Crazy Rhythms. The two covers were previously available on the No One Knows EP, and a recent live version of "Slipping (Into Something)" once again proves the reconstituted Feelies have not lost a step.

The only quibble I have with the reissue (and it is a minor one to be sure) is that about ten seconds of silence present on the original LP between "Tomorrow Today" and the album closer "Slow Down" has been removed. I always kind of liked the way "Slow Down" came in after such a long quiet period ("Tomorrow Today" also features a very long, slow fade out). Curiously, this silence is also not present on the original Coyote CD, so it's arguable whether it is necessary for the sake of "authenticity." I always kind of liked the effect, but its absence is not enough to prevent the reissue from becoming my new "go-to" version of the album.

Finally, a few words about the music itself. If I haven't said much about it to this point it's because I assume you know it's great. Crazy Rhythms seems to be the album that has gotten the most attention over the years, probably in part because it has been out-of-print longer. It would be a shame if The Good Earth were overshadowed by the earlier album, because its charms are at least equal to those of its predecessor.

The Good Earth showcases a less jumpy and nervous version of the Feelies. The rhythm section of Brenda Sauter (bass), Stanley Demeski (drums) and Dave Weckerman (percussion) was less aggressive than the Crazy Rhythms-era combo of Anton Fier and Keith De Nunzio. This, combined with a greater amount of strummed acoustic guitar, led to a more relaxed, pastoral sound which is beautifully reflected in the cornfield photo and earth-tones on the album cover.

Despite the more laid-back vibe, there is still plenty of interesting stuff going on rhythmically, but it emerges from the mix in a more subtle fashion than previously. Some of the songs reflect Mercer and Million's longstanding interest in Brian Eno's ambient music, but the influence of country and folk music is just as clear. All-in-all, it makes for an entirely unique, and highly appealing sonic concoction.

I simply cannot recommend both of these long-overdue reissues highly enough, even to those who already own the albums in other forms. The LPs sound absolutely gorgeous, and the digital tracks sound very fine as well. Both albums, as well as a limited edition 7" of "Fa Ce La," are available directly from Bar/None.

Step into the wayback machine...

For a little perspective today's The Beatles reissues, check out this article published in The New York Times in 1987; "Beatles On CD: Yeah, Yeah, Nah." Reviewer Allan Kozinn grumbles about the fact that both the mono and stereo mixes were not being made available for each album, but in general he is very complimentary of the sound quality of the CDs:

On the four CD's just issued, the sound is magnificent - solid, crystal clear, beautifully textured and fully detailed. One hears very little in the way of tape hiss or extraneous noise; heard side by side with their equivalent mono Parlophone LP's, the CD's sound, for the most part, as bright or brighter on top, and a good deal richer in the bass.

As much as people have complained (rightly to my mind) about the sound of the 1987 remasters in the ensuing years, as far as I remember at the time of release, the original Beatles CDs were considered state-of-the art. Most reviewers commented on what a revelation it was to finally be able to hear the music of The Beatles in the shiny new CD format.

Anyway, it's worth keeping in mind how perspectives can change over the years as you read contemporary reviews of the new remasters.

Finally! Feelies Reissues Coming Sept. 8!

You might remember that I passed on the news that The Feelies classic first LP, Crazy Rhythms, was going to be reissued by a label called Water Records back in early 2008. To the disappointment of many, that reissue never materialized (although a worthwhile reissue of the group's third album, Only Life, appeared in its place). But good things come to those who wait, and I am very pleased to announce that The Feelies first two albums are going to be reissued by Bar-None Records with full approval of the newly reunited band.

I made an inquiry with the band's management and got the following details about the upcoming reissues.

First of all, the really important part:

Release date for both The Feelies re-issues on Bar None: September 8, 2009.

No fooling around this time, this is really happening (honest).

The albums will be reissued on both CD and LP. Bonus tracks will be download only:

Both albums will be issued in original sequence with download cards included in each package that will give purchasers access to bonus tracks as well as the original albums. The band felt that the original records functioned as discrete works on their own that should not be compromised with additional tracks not part of the original sequence, hence offering bonus tracks thusly

Crazy Rhythms CD/LP reissue track listing:
Side One:
1. The Boy With The Perpetual Nervousness
2. Fa cé-La
3. Loveless Love
4. Forces At Work
Side Two:
5. Original Love
6. Everybody's Got Something To Hide (Except Me And My Monkey)
7. Moscow Nights
8. Raised Eyebrows
9. Crazy Rhythms
*** NOTE: Their cover of "Paint It Black" was left off the reissue as per the band's request. A&M added it without the band's permission and it was a recording from the late 80s with a different line-up than what was the "Crazy Rhythms" line-up.

Crazy Rhythms bonus tracks:
1. Fa cé-La [single version] - originally released as a 7" on Rough Trade.
2. The Boy With The Perpetual Nervousness [Carla Bley demo version]
3. Moscow Nights [Carla Bley demo version]
4. Crazy Rhythms [Live] - From the 9:30 Club (Washington D.C.), recorded March 14, 2009.
5. I Wanna Sleep In Your Arms [Live] - From the 9:30 Club (Washington D.C.), recorded March 14, 2009. Modern Lovers cover.

The Good Earth CD/LP reissue track listing:
Side One:
1. On The Roof
2. The High Road
3. The Last Roundup
4. Slipping (Into Something)
5. When Company Comes
Side Two:
6. Let's Go
7. Two Rooms
8. The Good Earth
9. Tomorrow Today
10. Slow Down

The Good Earth bonus tracks.
1. She Said, She Said - originally on the "No One Knows" vinyl EP on Coyote Records through Twin/Tone Records (US). Beatles cover.
2. Sedan Delivery - originally on the "No One Knows" vinyl EP on Coyote Records through Twin/Tone Records (US). Neil Young cover.
3. Slipping (Into Something) [Live] - From the 9:30 Club (Washington D.C.), recorded March 14, 2009.

Download cards will be included in each respective CD & LP reissue. The full album + bonus tracks will be included on each. Domino will be the hosting site for the downloads as they have the rights to the albums outside the U.S. & Canada.

I have heard some grumbling about the fact that the bonus tracks will not be included with the physical packages, but I agree with the band's decision. The Feelies have always had their own way of doing things, whether it was only playing holiday and weekend gigs in the early years, taking 6 years before releasing their sophomore album, or refusing to sell t-shirts ("because a t-shirt is something you wear under a shirt"). The band is very sincere about not wanting bonus tracks to interfere with the artistic integrity of the albums. Some might find it pretentious, but the band really thinks of their albums as complete artistic statements (and having listened to these albums hundreds of times over the past decades, I happen to agree). The Feelies probably consider offering bonus tracks as downloads a pretty big artistic compromise.

Personally, I have always found The Feelies' absolute commitment to their artistic vision (even if it meant less money) refreshing, and inseparable from the their overall appeal. If this is the way they want to present their work to the public after it's been out-of-print for so long, I respect that absolutely. Just because there is space on a CD for bonus tracks doesn't mean they belong there, and these albums really do work best as cohesive entities, or "discrete works," if you prefer. Just because it sounds pretentious to say so, doesn't mean it isn't also true. I also agree that "Paint It Black" was best left off Crazy Rhythms altogether. It never made any sense to include a track recorded so much later by a different line up. I always strongly suspected that A&M tacked the track onto the album without approval from the band, and we now have confirmation that was the case.

I also got a few details on the vinyl pressings:

Bar/None's LP reissues were mastered by Andy VanDette at Masterdisk in NYC
www.masterdisk.com
Pressings will be handled by Rainbo Records and will be 180 gram
www.rainborecords.com

Now for a little bit of bad news:

Original tapes were unfortunately not found. Andreas Meyer from Tangerine Mastering used digital files for both.

Tapes obtained from the band were used for the Fa cé-La [single version], The Boy With The Perpetual Nervousness [Carla Bley demo version] and Moscow Nights [Carla Bley demo version]. The live tracks were recorded by their live sound engineer Andy Peters.

It's disappointing to know the original analog tapes for these albums could not be located, but if mastered properly (and Masterdisk usually does a good job) they should still sound very good. Honestly, I've always felt that because of the extremely quiet and long intros, that Crazy Rhythms was best appreciated on CD anyway (that's not something you will hear me say often by the way). I also really appreciate that the band's management was so forthcoming with information about the sources used for the reissues, as that is not always the case.

Collectors will want to keep their eyes open for a limited edition reissue of the "Fa cé-La" single:

Insound will be exclusively carrying a limited
edition 7" reissue of the original "Fa cé-La" single.
Side A:
Fa cé-La (single version)
Side B:
Raised Eyebrows (album version)

Pressing for this single will also be handled by Rainbo Records.

Steet date for the single is October 8, 2009, and it is available for pre-order from Insound now.

All in all, this is fantastic news. Not only are two of the best albums of the 80s finally being reissued, but long-time fans can also get some interesting bonus material.

Crazy Rhythms and The Good Earth are two of my favorite albums and it is great to see that they will be available again after being unavailable for far too long. I only hope that the reissue of Crazy Rhythms does not overshadow the reissue of The Good Earth. The first album has acquired more critical cache over the years, and the band will be performing it live in its entirety at an upcoming All Tomorrow's Parties event. But perhaps because it was my introduction to the band, but I've always felt The Good Earth was the artistic equal of its more celebrated predecessor. The album has its own pastoral charm that stands as a nice counter-balance to the jumpy nervousness of the debut.

Elvis Costello - Secret, Profane & Sugarcane CD vs LP

Here's another comparison of compression levels from a recent CD and LP release, this time the new Elvis Costello album, Secret, Profane & Sugarcane. When I compared tracks on Mr. Declan Patrick MacManus' last album, Momofuku, I noted that the CD appeared to be considerably more compressed than the LP. That is not the case with the new album. True, the CD looks to be slightly louder, but that is probably just due to a stray peak or two on the LP. Overall, these look (and sound I might I add) quite similar. If anything, the CD probably has a bit more dynamic range due to the lower noise floor, which is as it should be.

This is good news, because neither the LP or the CD suffer from over-compression, something that would have really done serious damage to the largely acoustic music on the album. So score one for the good guys in the ongoing loudness wars.

The LP does have a couple of bonus tracks, so it's still the version to get however.

"My All Time Doll" CD Version

"My All Time Doll" LP Version

Bob Dylan - Together Through Life

If you're trying to decide if it's worth shelling out for the new Dylan double LP versus the cheaper CD, these pictures might help you decide.

"Beyond Here Lies Nothing" CD Version

"Beyond Here Lies Nothing" LP Version

I've kind of burned out on talking about what these differences mean (see previous posts tagged "loudness wars" for my thoughts on this subject). On average the LP version of this track has about 4 dB more dynamic range than the CD. This despite the fact that technically (as I've mentioned before) CD is capable of around 30 dB more dynamic range than the LP.

The difference between the two versions isn't as dramatic as I remember it being with Modern Times, so perhaps we're seeing some progress. But at around -11 dB average RMS the CD, while not the worst offender in the loudness wars, is still (in my opinion) too loud to sound really good. By comparison, with the peaks normalized to 0 dB, the LP version is around -15 dB average RMS, which allows for a more exciting, dynamic presentation.

The pressing quality of my LP was pretty good with only a few stray clicks and pops. I could quibble with the packaging: shoving two 180 gram LPs into a single, flimsy cover will quickly lead to seam splits. For $26, a gatefold cover would have been nice, but at least the CD is included as a bonus (if you can call it that).

BTW, I'm really loving the music. Dylan just keeps reaching further and further back in time for musical inspiration. But you don't need me to tell you Uncle Bobby is great and that he's on a serious late-career roll.

Working On A Dream

A couple questions.

First, why is it that every time I buy an LP from a major label that promises a bonus MP3 download, the download doesn't work? I've purchased dozens of LPs from indie labels like Sub-Pop, Merge and Matador, and never had a single problem downloading the MP3's. But with nearly every LP/MP3 package I've purchased from Universal or Sony, there has been some problem with the download (Warner and EMI are apparently still too afraid of big bad MP3's to even pretend to offer them with their vinyl). The zip file I downloaded for Springsteen's latest, Working On A Dream, was totally corrupted and couldn't be decompressed, despite the fact that I tried with several different applications.

It's no big deal I guess; I'll just rip the LP when I get a chance. And considering this is Sony we're talking about, I may be lucky the file didn't work because it might have turned my computer into some sort of evil spy-bot for the RIAA that would, in the fullness of time, rise up against its master and destroy him. But considering I'm one of the few people left on earth willing to shell out $25 for a new album, I think I should get what I've been promised.

Second, what the hell is up with Bruce Springsteen's album covers these days? Born To Run, Born In The U.S.A., Nebraska, Darkness At The Edge Of Town... those albums offered iconic images that carried nearly as much force as the music inside. The cover for Working On A Dream, on the other hand, looks like it was done by an eight-year old who just discovered all the wicked cool things you can do with filters in Photoshop. And his past few albums haven't looked much better.

Unfortunately, the same over-reliance on technology creates a problem for the music too. Brendan O'Brien's production sounds sterile and stitched together in ProTools just as surely as the cover looks like a Photoshop monstrosity. (I hope Springsteen works with a producer he's a little less comfortable with next time.) But, as was the case with 2007's Magic, their are some really good songs here if you can listen past the production. It's not impossible, and perhaps even worth the effort.

It's a nice, quiet, 2 LP pressing anyway.

UPDATE: The support team at Hip Digital Media (the company Sony outsourced the download to) were very helpful and responded to my emails right away (an all too rare occurrence these days). It turns out the problem is that most unarchive utilities on the Mac are incompatible with the zip file, but they found one that worked, called The Unarchiver. So if you've had a similar problem and have a Mac, download this utility, and it should solve your problem.

The other good news is that the MP3s are encoded at 320kps, and at first glance do not appear to suffer from the overly-aggressive dynamic range compression that plagued Magic. Perhaps we really are nearing the end of the loudness wars. Also, it was nice of the Boss to name the eight-minute lead-off track after me. I'll have to thank him for that (and gently take him to task over the cover art) next time I see him.

End of the Loudness Wars?

Could the end of the loudness wars be in sight? Perhaps. Check out this interesting post on Guns N' Roses' Chinese Democracy by Ian Shepherd at the Mastering Media Blog. Shepherd speculates that Metallica's much maligned Death Magnetic may have been the straw that broke the camel's back.

Shepherd's interesting comparison between the Death Magnetic LP and CD is also worth reading. It's similar to some of the comparisons I've attempted to do here, only done by someone who actually knows what he's talking about.

Reading Shepherd (who is a mastering engineer) drives home just how hideously out of my depth I am in attempting to comment on these things at all. Still, despite my lack of technical expertise, I think it's helpful. I try to be as honest as possible about the things I don't understand, and when I'm engaging in pure speculation. I'm sure I get a lot of things wrong, but the more people who complain about over-compressed releases (and praise the good ones) the better. Besides, technical expertise aside, I know what I hear.

My Favorite Albums of 2008

Here are my ten favorite albums of 2008. As I mentioned before, I really have no business compiling a "Best of 2008" list considering how much I haven't heard (still haven't heard Fleet Foxes, although I at least have the album on order). So this is just a list of some stuff I happened to dig this year.

1. Teddy Thompson - A Piece of What You Need
Last year I was the only blogger to list Teddy Thompson's Up Front And Down Low on their year-end "best of" list. So what does the usually non-prolific Teddy do? He releases an even better album in 2008. A Piece Of What You Need finds Teddy in about as upbeat a mood as you can imagine from the young man for whom "End Of The Rainbow" was written. Producer Marius de Vries (Bjork, Madonna) adds enough pop flourishes (handclaps!) to keep things bright, even if he can't stop Teddy from turning the gun on himself. A Piece Of What You Need is simply a brilliant album that takes Teddy out of his famous parents' shadows once and for all (Richard & Linda who?).

2. Duffy - Rockferry
My wife likes to listen to our local pop music station in the mornings. Because I'm a good husband I only complain about this semi-incessantly. One morning something really weird happened. I actually liked a song they were playing. This was a good song. No, actually it was great. "Who is this?" I asked (they never say who they're playing on pop radio, you're just supposed to know). Soon enough I figured out it was a young British woman known as Duffy. I picked up the CD at Starbucks that very day (remember when Starbucks used to sell music?). Later I picked it up on LP too, not because the CD sounded bad, but because the music was so good I just wanted to own it on LP. As I noted in a previous post, Rockferry (on CD or LP) has lots of dynamic range relative to most contemporary productions, proving that an album can be massively successful in 2008 without having every last bit of life compressed out of it.

3. Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend
I don't think I need to say much about Vampire Weekend. This will be on every other blogger's list. This might be the most over-hyped album of the year, but that doesn't mean it isn't also good.

4. Mudcrutch - Mudcrutch
Mudcrutch's debut album was already the subject of much discussion on this blog.

It's an iconic story. A rock band torn apart by external forces over thirty years ago reunites to see if they can recapture the old magic. Against all odds they do, and the now middle-aged rockers find their belated debut album on the bestseller charts. It's a story that would carry the force of Greek Mythology were it not for the inconvenient fact that one of the members (a guy named Tom Petty) has a day job as one of the world's most successful rock-stars, and two others (Mike Campbell and Benmont Tench) punch the clock as members of his long-running backing band the Heartbreakers. Guitarist Tom Leadon and drummer Randall Marsh haven't kept quite as high a profile over the past thirty odd years, but from the sounds of the album they have lost none of their considerable chops.

If you can still find a copy, it's worth the extra money to pick up the LP with bonus "uncompressed" CD.

5. Neil Diamond - Home Before Dark
Neil Diamond has never made music to impress rock critics, and in return rock critics have never been very impressed by Neil Diamond. But Home Before Dark sounds like a different kind of Neil Diamond album. No, it doesn't sound like it was made with the approval of rock critics in mind (heaven forbid), but it does seem to be an attempt to make a "serious" album in the way that even his previous collaboration with super-producer Rick Rubin, 12 Songs, did not. It's a quiet album intended for intimate listening. I don't see how these songs reach the back rows at a Neil Diamond show. Nevertheless, the songs are full of the kind of drama and showmanship that characterizes Diamond's best work, it's just a quieter, more subtle kind of drama than we're used to from Neil. Unlike Rick Rubin's other big production this year, this album is emphatically not a victim of the "loudness wars." There's oodles of dynamic range on this album, and those shifts in dynamic range really are an essential ingredient in allowing the drama inherent in the songwriting to unfold. Congrats to Neil on the first number one album (and perhaps the best studio album) of his career.

6. Beck - Modern Guilt
This is another album I wrote a bit about already. At the time I was more interested in writing about the novelty of the album being offered on LP with an MP3 download sourced from vinyl than the music itself. Now I'd like to say a few words about the music: it's terrific. (I realize that technically this statement only counts as a few words if you consider the contraction "it's" as two words, but I believe it is legitimate to do so.)

7. She & Him - Volume One
I do not care that "She" is a pretty actress. I do not care that "Him" is M. Ward. This is very enjoyable classic pop music. If you've ever found yourself with a lump in your throat while listening to The Stone Poneys' "Different Drum" you need to add this album in your collection.

8. Orchestra Baobab - Made In Dakar
Hey kids, are you interested in checking out the roots of Vampire Weekend's Afro-Pop influenced sounds? Well, you won't find them here (for that check out Paul Simon's Graceland). Senegal's Orchestra Baobab came roaring back to life in 2002 with the release of Specialist In All Styles, and Made In Dakar suggests they are back to stay. Orchestra Baobab present a potent mix of Afro-Pop and Afro-Cuban sounds. Honestly, I'm not knowledgeable about this kind of music to say anything intelligent about it (that never stopped me before), but I really enjoyed this skillfully played and passionate album.

9. Mudhoney - The Lucky Ones
Twenty years into their career and Mudhoney are still the loudest thing going on. The secret to their longevity? Clean living. Mudhoney doesn't offer anything groundbreaking with their latest album; maybe their primal fuzz sounds a little wiser with age ("the lucky ones have already gone down"), but never sounds grown up. Mudhoney still offers retrograde, knuckle-dragging, loud fun. When Mudhoney debuted twenty years ago, few would have predicted they'd still be going strong in 2008. Even fewer would have predicted the long playing record album would still be going strong as well. But here it is 2008 and I bought Mudhoney's new album on LP with a code for a free MP3 download and a bonus 7" single that includes covers of Pere Ubu's "Street Waves" and The Troggs' "Gonna Make You." This is almost as much fun as collecting limited-edition, colored vinyl Sub-Pop 7" singles circa 1989.

10. R.E.M. - Accelerate
R.E.M.'s most exciting music in years was definitely a victim of the "loudness wars." On CD Accelerate sounds like total crap. Eric Zimmerman at REMring diagnosed the problem with this album quite effectively. The expensive 45 RPM double LP sounds better than the CD, but the relative lack of dynamic range (while made worse by CD mastering) seems to have been a choice made at the recording and mixing stage of this production. Pity, because there are some really good songs here. Personally, I think they would have sounded better with a little more room to breathe.

R.E.M. - Murmur Deluxe (Compressed) Edition

R.E.M.'s "Deluxe Edition" of Murmur has been getting a lot of good notices, including a rare 10/10 review at Pitchfork. Most of the reviews I've read, in addition to praising the original album and the killer 1983 live set included as a bonus, note that the remastered CD is a distinct sonic upgrade over previous editions.

But as BangSplat notes, mastering engineer Greg Calbi was fairly liberal in his use of dynamic range compression on this reissue. According to BangSplat's measurements, on the original CD the first track, "Radio Free Europe," averages -19.73 dB and -20.85 dB (left and right channels, respectively), while the remaster clocks in at -12.76 dB/-12.93 dB. In other words, the remaster is around 7 dB louder on average than the original. I recently transcribed the album from vinyl and after normalizing "Radio Free Europe" to 0 dB got a result that looks very similar to the original CD (-19.1 dB/-19.6 dB). You can see what the difference between the LP and remastered CD looks like below.

R.E.M. - "Radio Free Europe" LP (1983)

R.E.M. - "Radio Free Europe" Remastered CD (2008)

So what does the difference sound like? Not as dramatic as you might think. I hate to admit it, given the obvious application of dynamic range compression, but the deluxe edition sounds pretty good to my ears. Whatever peaks got compressed out are (in my opinion) not entirely essential to enjoying the music. I would have preferred a reissue that matched the original master tape a little more closely, but sonically the new version is decent.

In fact, I'm not at all surprised that many of the reviews of this set claim the deluxe edition is a sonic upgrade over previous editions. Compared to the original domestic CD, it almost certainly is an upgrade. The original CD of Murmur (released sometime in the mid-eighties) was a nasty sounding thing. It featured a harsh, grating midrange that made it all but unlistenable to my ears. I sold my copy a long time ago. It was exactly the kind of poorly mastered CD that forced me to the conclusion that "perfect sound forever" was a big lie. It was my repeated experiences with crummy sounding CDs like Murmur that made the idea that CDs are inferior to LPs something of a sacred cow for me.

But whatever the original CD's problems were, lack of dynamic range was not among them. As you can see from BangSplat's measurements, the original CD pretty closely matches the LP in terms of dynamic range.

Listening on headphones on my computer or my iPod, the new deluxe edition sounds particularly good. The version I ripped from LP also sounds good, but (after adjusting for volume differences) the new version sounds slightly more focused. I've always felt like there was a slight gauzy haze that hung over Murmur, and I hear less of that on the remaster. The version I ripped from LP sounds kind of like the album cover looks; like everything is in soft-focus. The remastered CD brings everything into sharper focus without really changing the way the album sounds too dramatically (don't worry--you still won't be able to figure out what Michael Stipe is singing).

But when I compared the two versions on my stereo it was a different story. The CD-R I made of the version I ripped from vinyl sounded far more appealing to me than the remastered CD. While listening through speakers instead of headphones, the remastered CD did not sound harsh or fatiguing in the way that overly-compressed CDs often do, but the LP sourced CD-R bettered it in ways that are difficult to quantify. The LP sourced version sounded bigger and more involving, and the gauzy, soft-focus quality of the album sounded both less noticeable and more appealing than it did through headphones. I'm honestly not all that inclined to pick apart the differences in sound quality between the two versions, the fact was the LP sourced CD-R was the version I wanted to keep listening to.

Honestly, I'm at a bit of a loss to explain why I preferred a version of the album sourced from an LP and digitized using an $80 analog to digital converter, but I don't think it had anything to do with dynamic range compression. Some of you will no doubt think I'm either nuts or deaf, but I know what I heard; at least when played through speakers, my LP sourced CD-R sounded better than the remaster done by a professional with access to the original master tapes. A lot better to my ears. I can think of a few possible explanations for this, but none of them involve me being some kind of sonic wizard; I'm just a nerd with a semi-decent turntable and a cheap USB analog to digital converter.

Analog and LP boosters are often quick to dismiss digital sound altogether, but my experience with digitizing music from vinyl has convinced me that there is nothing inherently wrong with digital sound. Even resolution limited 16 bit, 44 kHz CDs are capable of fantastic sound quality. This experience has forced me to the (inescapable?) conclusion that some aspect of LP playback adds something to the sound of music that I happen to find appealing, but which is not strictly speaking "hi-fi." And whatever that LP magic is, it can be captured digitally (or at least most of it can).

To sum up, the deluxe edition of Murmur will likely sound like a major sonic upgrade to anyone who is only familiar with the original CD. Those familiar with the LP (or Mobile Fidelity's mid 90s audiophile reissues) might feel differently. Oh, and sacred cows make delicious hamburger meat.