| Author | Message | ||
     Peter Unregistered guest |
I was comparing my 'expanded' 16LL reissue with the 'original' BB reissue - the cover photo shots are noticably darker with greater contrast on the earlier re-issues (this is also true for LB..). Er, can anyone with an original 16LL tell me what the original cover shot was like ? | ||
| Padraig Collins Unregistered guest |
Individual photos of the members at jaunty angles on the front and back of the vinyl version. It was John Wilsteed's idea. I just played the scratchy vinyl version last night. I have also bought it on tape and CD, and now I guess I'm going to have to buy it on CD again. Four versions of one album. Until the DVD-A version comes out anyway. | ||
| Greg Baker Member Username: Greg Post Number: 2 Registered: 10-2004 |
Coarse, low resolution, monochrome. The vinyl is surprisingly clean. Their pressings are usually very noisy, this one was exceptional for Mushroom. | ||
| Peter Azzopardi Member Username: Pete Post Number: 7 Registered: 09-2004 |
Peter, as far as I can tell just the Tallulah and Liberty Belle covers are lighter than the originals. 16LL looks fine to me, not that I have a problem with the new cardboard slip covers. My guess is this was a printing error though, not intentional. Such a small gripe for such wonderful packages! I received these reissues last week and have been waiting to talk about them. Firstly, the remastering really is remarkable: sparkling and full and glorious when up loud. I've said it on here before, but I thought the '96 mastering of Tallulah sounded so awful that I, a bonafide Go-Bs completist, didn't buy it. This time it sounds wonderful--as wonderful as the source allows, anyway (Tallulah was reputedly recorded at a sub-par studio). Jonathan Turner did a great job transcribing the lyrics of the bonus material (your transcription/interpretation of the buried vocals to "I work in a health spa" reads very well, Jonathan). As oppossed to the 2002 reissues, this lot's bonus discs play very well as a complementary albums (actually, the Spring Hill Fair disc provided great continuous listening). Of the songs I'd never heard before (Time in the Desert, Little Joe, Reunion Dinner, Doo Wop, Apples in Bed and alternate versions of album songs) nothing disappoints. "Little Joe" and "I Work in a Health Spa" are particularly interesting; they show Forster and the band really embracing a brash eighties sound, successfully too. Accusations of the Go-Bs ripping of the Smiths are, of course, bogus, but I must say that the chorus of "Little Joe" is Johnny Marr all over. "Reunion Dinner" is, I surmise, a drug addled experiment Grant and Richard Preston concocted one rainy afternoon at the Liberty Belle sessions. It's very theatrical; pretentious could be another word, but it's welcome for its ambition alone. Actually, it's my girlfriend's favourite of the set, along with "When People are Dead" (so great to have that one on CD). "Time in the Desert" is a slick, breezy gospel number reminiscent of Dylan's Slow Train Coming LP, minus the evangelical overtones. As a late eighties Forster lyric it is an anomaly for its plaintive imagery and earnest refrain ("and I'll hold you/all through the night"). "Doo Wop in A (Bam Boom)" is fun but slight. Well, I'm rambling and boring you so I'll stop here with my review. David Nichols asked me at the pub last Friday what was the best thing about the reissues (only a historian/journalist/corrector of bad spelling would ask such a direct question). I couldn't really answer, but, besides the addition of a couple of completely unavaible great songs to the Go-Bs long list, brilliant remastering and delux packaging, foremost they're yet another reminder of how versatile and consistently fantastic the eighties line-up was. |