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Ok, now worst remastered albums


craigh

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For worst remastered albums, I'll say

 

Layla - It's so muddy sounding

Most Frank Zappa albums (at least the work he did) - Don't get me started, especially "We're Only In It For The Money" & "Hot Rats". From what I understand there is a good version of Money out now.

 

Craig

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I beg to differ, mcmurray. Billy Joel's first ever solo album was mastered at the wrong speed. He's said he sounds like a chipmunk. The man's first effort, and they

mess it up, and distribute it like that with no re-release of the correct

one (till the 90's).

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_i7G7V_4Wx4&feature=related

 

Edit: The remaster of this album is still awful.

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I don't know about remasters. A lot of the recent remasters have done wonders to clean up classic albums and the fact that they waited until the technology was good enough has been a huge win for rock consumers like myself. This is extra true for albums mastered in the early nineties when digital mastering wasn't ready from prime time and soft, digital reverb went on *everything*. I am thinking of classic alt rock albums like Pearl Jam's Ten and Sonic Youth's Goo. Those mushy mixes sure benefits from another round of mastering.

 

New albums - I cannot listen to anything on a major label anymore. The redlining and compression gives me the worst headache and ear fatigue. Too bad because some of those records are pretty good.

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Wasn't it Blizzard of Oz and Diary of a Madman by Ozzy that had all of the bass and drum parts remastered?

What the hell were they thinking. I remember owning those back in the day and the originals rocked. The remastered albums sucked.

 

Rerecorded by other musicians.

 

The worst I've ever heard is INXS's Greatest Hits. It is so ridiculously compressed that it's unlistenable. I've never heard anything else with that much compression applied during mastering - and I've listened to some Limp Biscuit albums.

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Most Frank Zappa albums (at least the work he did) - Don't get me started, especially "We're Only In It For The Money" & "Hot Rats". From what I understand there is a good version of Money out now.

 

Apparently the tapes were so badly damaged when Frank finally got the rights to them that he could just save some of the tracks on the multitrack tapes, so he rerecorded most of the tracks with his current band. For WOIIFTM and Cruising With Ruben And The Jets anyway. Not sure with Hot Rats. That said, I don't care much for the remasters either. Apparently Frank wasn't the nostalgic type, so he had no issues with making a record from the 60's sound like one made in the late 80's. Too bad, really.

 

The good version of Money that's out now is from a copied mastertape they've found somewhere. It was done to print a censored version of the album for whichever country. The "don't come in me!" part is reversed and some other things are censored as well. It's nothing that bothers me too much, so it is worth looking up. My copy is from Ryko. But for Cruising you're going to have to look up old vinyl, or one of the pirated CD's made from the old vinyl release. Some of them sound ok, but many of them have been "remastered" from the old record by what appears to be hearing impaired monkeys. I just downloaded mp3's from some torrent site. That's enough for the occasions when I want to hear Ray Collins sing corny 50's love songs without 80's sytheziser sounding drums to back him up.

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Wasn't it Blizzard of Oz and Diary of a Madman by Ozzy that had all of the bass and drum parts remastered?

What the hell were they thinking. I remember owning those back in the day and the originals rocked. The remastered albums sucked.

 

That tops my list,

 

Sharon Osbourne written all over it after a rights dispute with the originla drummer and bass player.

 

The drums and bass sound so out of place...terrible, I am so glad I kept the original issue CDs.

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