The Now Spinning/Recent Purchases Thread

[dostros]

I'm really enjoying "The Brass Are Comin'" right now. Talk about "reworking" songs! I'll Be Back by the Beatles is barely recognizable and beats the original by a mile. "I'm an Old-Cowhand" is another great arrangement. This album takes a few listens to grow on you but it's really worth it.

 

[Harry]

It took me years to appreciate the brilliance of "Anna", with its complex rhythms. It's an album favorite, along with "I'll Be Back".

Harry

 

[Captain Bacardi]

I just received a book/LP/CD combo of Prestige Records Album Cover Collection. It has all of the LP covers of the era. Some really cool covers. This came out in 2009.

Capt. Bacardi

 

[Rudy]

Plenty of new vinyl coming across my desk lately.

Update on Rumer's latest: Rumer posted on Twitter with a link to contact her management regarding replacement of faulty vinyl. After my second copy arrived no better than the first, I had pretty much written it off. Once they do a second pressing run at a second plant, they will send us out some replacements.

Anyway, I have a batch of Simply Vinyl releases that will be reviewed soon. One of their more recent releases is the film soundtrack for West Side Story, and musically it has been a lot of fun to listen to. It has now expanded to a double LP, including four tracks that were not on the original LP release. The full gymnasium sequence is now present on the album. Sonically it sounds as good as you can get from soundtrack elements. The vinyl, though, is flat and quiet, and my copy is one of the numbered, limited editions pressed on red vinyl. It is also the first colored (or non-black) vinyl I've received that has a quiet background.

I've also received the Analogue Productions pressing of the RCA Living Stereo release of Pictures At An Exhibition. The RCA SACD release from several years ago still sounds quite good, but the Analogue Productions vinyl version is very revealing. (They also have their own SACD version as well, but I have not heard that one yet.) I will not do a review until my refurbished panels come back for my main speaker pair, but I can already say that I am hearing more details on this version, little things in the orchestra that only another musician would notice.

I was going to mention Depeche Mode's Violator LP (another Simply Vinyl title), but mine was somewhat damaged in shipping. Awaiting a replacement.

 

[AM Matt]

I just bought by home delivery from the Barnes & Noble store, the first 4 Toto CD's from Culture Factory which came out last year!! Those CD's sound as louder than ever!! The song "You Are The Flower" (from their self-titled 1978 debut) has 7 seconds short at the end of the song. Also Rock Candy also reissued their self titled 1978 debut which also has the disco version of "Georgy Porgy" as a bonus track but I do not have that one though. On "Turn Back" (from early 1981), the song "A Million Miles Away" at the end of the song, has a scratch. Matt Clark Sanford, MI

 

[AM Matt]

I can't wait for Toto XIV (their 14th album) in which I am getting the CD/DVD deluxe version (on Frontiers Records) which comes out March 24th. Problem is, former singer Bobby Kimball is NOT on the CD. Matt Clark Sanford, MI

 

[jfiedler17]

Yeah, that chair in the group just seems to keep rotating all the time. Kimball, Fredericksen, Joseph Williams, Jean-Michel Byron, Kimball again, and now Joseph Williams again. On the bright side, original bassist David Hungate (an extremely underrated bass player, IMO) is back on board for the first time since Toto IV, so that's cool news. I really like Toto myself, so I'm pretty excited to hear the new record.

I've picked up a lot of really interesting items lately. In the way of vinyl, I recently picked up near-flawless copies of the Mobile Fidelity Sound Labs pressings of Supertramp's Crime of the Century and Jackson Browne's The Pretender for three bucks a piece at a local antique shop; I've usually skipped over audiophile editions of albums in the past, but at that price, I couldn't resist, and I've been pleasantly impressed, particularly with the Supertramp disc.
I also found an original copy of Styx's The Serpent Is Rising at a local antique shop, which was one of the few Styx albums I'd still yet to come across a copy of (only Styx I and Man of Miracles continue to elude me). It has a reputation for being a really bad album, and even Dennis DeYoung has gone on record as saying he's absolutely embarrassed by it, but for myself, I felt like it was a pretty fascinating album to listen to for the first time if you're only familiar with the A&M material. It does admittedly have some embarrassing stuff on there (and the closing minutes of both sides of the album are just flat-out bizarre), but there were enough good songs on there ("Winner Take All" and "22 Years" being my favorites in the bunch) to make it a keeper.
I've also been on an Earth, Wind & Fire fix lately and have picked up a quite a few of their albums, which are all very excellent but also very head-scratching because there's so much inconsistency on the packaging. The copy of Gratitude I picked up has three or four tracks that are properly listed on the labels but are not mentioned on either the album cover or inner sleeves and two other cuts with incorrect song titles, and the copy of Spirit that I got has a wildly incorrect track listing on the back cover. The songs aren't even remotely in the right order. I'm not sure if I just got extremely early pressings of these albums or what, but the number of errors are unreal. Anyone else here have copies of those albums with the same problem?

And in the way of CDs, I've recently made some really cool finds at - of all things - library book sales. I've found a couple autographed copies of Robert Lamm solo albums I didn't even know existed, for one thing, and found several out-of-print titles that I'd been trying to hunt down for a while, including a copy of Sting's The Living Sea soundtrack still in the original wrapper! Not the easiest of his albums to find. And I went to a fill-up-a-bag-themed book sale just a week or two ago where I found the entire Corrs discography, live records and all, in the CD section. Naturally, they all went into my bag.

 

[Rudy]

@jfiedler17 I've seen those Styx albums locally in the recent past--I still have a set of the reissues with the restyled covers. Not really authentic, but they work for me--they sound pretty good, with quiet vinyl surfaces. Thing is, I bought them new in the early to mid 80s, and the only way you can get these albums now is on a remastered two-CD set (which is actually a pretty good set). I should take a peek at some of the local shops to see what's out there. As for DeYoung being embarrassed, I for one am more embarrassed to see the current band using the Styx name. Not a bad group by any means, and nothing against Young or Shaw (well, maybe a little, as they still have that DeYoung chip on their shoulders) but it sounds like a Styx cover band.

There's a NM copy of Miracles (the reissue) on Discogs for under $4, plus shipping: http://www.discogs.com/sell/item/215356167 . A NM copy of Styx I (reissue again): http://www.discogs.com/sell/item/151708409 .

The Mobile Fidelity pressings are a mixed bag from that era--most are good, but there are a few clunkers in the batch. First one I ever owned was John Klemmer's Touch, purchased at an audiophile show right around the time when Mobile Fidelity got into the half-speed business. The Supertramp is good. Gino's Powerful People is better than the CD by a wide margin. Yet Steely Dan's Katy Lied is very, very dull. It's also rare, so don't bother looking for it (the going price by some sellers is through the roof). Neil Diamond's Hot August Night is another keeper.

No idea on the Earth Wind & Fire LPs. I just looked, and my Spirit has the tracks in the correct order. Gratitude has a "stylized" back cover, so the tracks are maybe not meant to be in order (it's like they arranged the track titles to look attractive). I kept all the other EWFs from when I originally bought them except for I Am, which I'd bought in its half-speed mastered edition that sounded terrible. (Long story, but most of those Columbia/Epic Mastersound half-speeds should be avoided. The first batch or three were all cut with incorrect equalization.) If I can find a sealed I Am and Best of Vol. 1 (which was another half-speed trainwreck) I'd be happy. The original LP pressings all sound quite good. I may not have one or two of their earliest on Columbia.

 

[Rudy]

@AM Matt A shame those Toto CDs are so loudly mastered--I thought we were getting over that brickwalled compression. The dance version of "Georgy Porgy" is not that much different from the LP version, but it (along with "Child's Anthem") do make for an excellent sounding 12" single. Always liked "Georgy Porgy" due to Cheryl Lynn's vocals on that one. In fact, one or two of her albums from that era are essentially Toto with her as lead vocalist--well worth seeking out IMHO. "Got To Be Real" and "Star Love" are probably two of her best known they played on.

Are you saying you hear a scratch at the end of the song on Turn Back? Or, you see a scratch on the disc and it's skipping? If you hear one, sad to say those might be some dirt cheap reissues that were made from needle drops. That is an annoying trend lately, and I can't recall if that coincides with all those expired copyrights in Europe, or whatever the heck is going on. Thing is, most who do needle drops throw them through cheap, crappy software to squash all the scratches and make the sound ear-gratingly bad. (Professional plugins cost hundreds, if not thousands, and even those aren't totally artifact-free.)

There are original CD issues of all of those Toto albums--I don't know why they just wouldn't use those.

 

[Rudy]

My replacement of Depeche Mode's Violator arrived--nice and quiet, and undamaged. I cannot say this digitally recorded album is a sonic gem, but Simply Vinyl did a nice job in transferring it to vinyl. It is a bit less harsh than the CD version, and is about on par with the SACD, so it's a winner. This album has "Personal Jesus," "Enjoy The Silence" and my favorite "Policy of Truth." I also have Music For The Masses I have yet to spin all the way through, and I am going to get Ultra when I get a chance next month.

Being a recent Depeche Mode fan, I didn't realize that Vince Clarke was part of the early incarnation of the group. He was also part of the synth group Erasure, and many will remember him as the synth/music half of Yazoo, which had the wonderful Alison Moyet on vocals. "Situation" and "Don't Go" were huge airplay and club hits locally.

Another Simply Vinyl title I have is Sade's Love Deluxe. I had been seeing an original vinyl pressing but they were imports, and very expensive. This version sounds quite good, and like the other Simply Vinyl titles, is very flat with quiet surfaces. Her tracks on here are hit or miss at times, but one of my very favorites, "Tattoo," closes out side one. I purchased her earlier three LPs last year--two sealed, and one looking and sounding like it was never played, so I'm quite well set. Stronger Than Pride is my overall favorite album. All of these do sound quite good.

 

[AM Matt]

When I heard Toto "A Million Miles Away" (from 1981 "Turn Back"), I heard the scratch pop on the headphones at the end of the song!! Matt Clark Sanford, MI

 

[AM Matt]

I just bought the first 3 Toto CD reissues from Rock Candy (Toto, Hydra & Turn Back) which is based in England & bought as home delivery at Barnes & Noble. The sound quality on the debut sounds okay or maybe it has tape hiss throughout the disc which I heard on headphones. As I mentioned before, the debut CD has the bonus disco track of "Georgy Porgy" which runs 5:05. The Rock Candy reissues does not contain the lyrics sheet but has liner notes on each CD. While Culture Factory CD reissues has the record sleeve with lyric sheet on all 3 CD's & the "Turn Back" CD has the poster of the group. Rock Candy has not reissued "Toto IV" as of yet. Matt Clark Sanford, MI

 

[Rudy]

I have the SACDs of Hydra and IV, and an original Columbia reissue CD of Toto, so I'm set. Hydra is probably the best sounding of the bunch, and the "Georgy Porgy" remix not far behind--both are on vinyl here. (I stupidly traded in IV years back when I believed Sony's "Perfect Sound Forever™" lie. ). It wouldn't surprised me if the early CDs sounded better than some of these recent releases, although Hydra I first had as a Japan import, many years before it was reissued here.

 

[jfiedler17]

Oddly enough, for a guy who frequents record shops on a regular basis, you know where I've spent the most on music lately? Thrift shops.

Thrift shops typically have a very predictable stash of vinyl and usually in beat-up condition, but for some reason, the Goodwill store near me always seems to have some fairly interesting items on vinyl (even fairly obscure stuff like John Martyn or Nick Drake), and even more surprisingly, a lot of them tend to be in stunningly top shape, if they were ever even opened at all! Last week, I found well over a dozen new albums there - nearly all of them with the original wrappers still intact - for fifty cents a pop, a lot of them A&M titles, like Herb Alpert's Magic Man, Supertramp's Brother Where You Bound, Gap Mangione's Suite Lady, and Seawind's Light the Light. (I'd never heard anything by Seawind before, but I'm always up for trying anything on A&M or one of its subsidiaries, so I had to grab that one.) Among the other ones I picked up there in top shape: Icehouse's Fresco, Brian Auger's best-of compilation on RCA from '77, War's first best-of, Chicago's Hot Streets, Cliff Richard's I'm No Hero, Doobie Brothers' Minute By Minute, George Benson's In Flight, Ambrosia's One Eighty, Boz Scaggs' Silk Degrees, Spyro Gyra's Morning Dance, Classic IV's first best-of, Johnny Rivers' first best-of disc, and Leon Russell's triple-disc live album (which looks like it was never touched at all). Needless to say, I've got a lot of new stuff to listen to!

 

[Rudy]

@jfiedler17 You had a good haul there! I haven't gone to many local thrift shops, but the few I've been in seem to have the rejects that other thrift shops turned down. At one, several years ago, I did find a few 12" singles that I had to rescue. Most were unplayable, but the few I picked out were in acceptable condition. My one prize was the Jack Jones LP Wives and Lovers, which looked practically brand new. The vinyl turned out to be a little noisy, but there was no wear.

I have been getting in a few preorders. Led Zep's Presence arrived weeks ago, and I just got the Rush Permanent Waves. I'm anxious to get Moving Pictures at the end of the month--I have the original RL pressing that is unfortunately noisy but has very good sound.

I've had varied success on new vinyl, however. I have a handful for the #VinylHallOfShame; in fact, in April, three of the four I bought were unacceptable. But some others have been really nice. I got the first two Ozzy albums on 180g reissues, supposedly from original analog tapes, and pressed at RTI. (Kevin Gray mastered? I have to check the rounout.) I picked up another early Genesis, Nursery Cryme, which is the Nick Davis remix which isn't so bad (the remixes from the Collins era are absolutely horrid though). Pallas pressing, nice.

My Depeche Modes on Simply Vinyl (pressed at the old CBS plant in Holland) have been fine, but I picked up a US Rhino pressing of Black Celebration that is warped and a bit noisy...now I need to reorder it from the UK to get it on Simply Vinyl.

One really bad reissue: Shorty Rogers, Wizard of Oz and Other Harold Arlen Songs. I have both an original mono and Living Stereo RCA cut of this one. This 180g reissue was on Speakers Corner. The vinyl is nice enough, but the mastering...this is one of the worst records I've ever bought. The label and jacket both say Living Stereo. The record, though, is in mono, and it sounds like they played back the stereo tape on a badly aligned mono deck. Unforgivable. The complaint to the label has not yet been emailed, but it's on the way soon.

And Crapitol needs to answer for the horrible 10" Songs For Young Lovers. Decent sound, although the endings have been clipped off. The quality control was horrible though--I've bought used vinyl with less noise! The second copy was far better but still...that first one never should have left the pressing plant: http://1drv.ms/1ITm5nj .

 

[Murray]

Rudy, reading the experiences of yourself and others, is what has scared me away from buying new vinyl. The odd defect might have been forgivable when a new LP was $5-$10, but not at the prices that are being charged nowadays for what is supposed to be an "audiophile" grade product!

 

[Rudy]

Rudy, reading the experiences of yourself and others, is what has scared me away from buying new vinyl. The odd defect might have been forgivable when a new LP was $5-$10, but not at the prices that are being charged nowadays for what is supposed to be an "audiophile" grade product!

I hit a string of bad luck, yes, but after a while you start to know which pressing plants have good output and which don't. GZVinyl is terrible, and I'm not the only one who has noticed--both of my On Every Street copies show physical evidence of mishandling. Rainbo is the plant that pressed the terrible quality Beatles stereo LPs here in the US, so much so, that most Beatles collectors ended up ordering in from the UK instead (as I did). Some labels also have mediocre product--it seems that anything Universal is remotely involved with is screwed up in some way or another, like the Back To Black series. One I mistakenly bought is on nice vinyl, but the mastering sounds very dull and dead (Zenyatta Mondatta...I bought it used, so the Back To Black sticker was not on the plastic sleeve).

Pallas for me is hit or miss--if the Led Zep reissues were pressed there, every one I've received has been flawless. Ditto others I've ordered from the EU. Yet the Fleetwood Mac Rumours 45RPM set was a little warped and had a few ticks in it, and Metheny's Kin is not very good either. For the most part though, they've been quite good.

Simply Vinyl has been excellent--all pressings I've received are flat and dead quiet, and the masterings all sound nice. Shipping damage is another story, but that's par for the course with my EU purchases (and Amazon gladly replaces them).

QRP (Quality Record Pressing) is usually pretty good although I had a hiccup or two over the years, but they're doing the Rush reissues and my copy of Permanent Waves is perfect.

RTI (Record Technology Inc) in California was a bit hit or miss earlier on, but lately, any product of theirs I've bought has been nearly perfect also.

For me it's a tradeoff and in some ways cheaper to just buy the new vinyl. I can spend probably $50 going through crappy used vinyl that is either noisy or worn, or more than that to get a known good copy. The wear is something you can't see with the naked eye, and I can't tell you how many I've had to toss that were IMHO too worn to be enjoyable. (It has also been called "groove burn".) Yet I could spend $20-$25 for the same record, newly remastered and pressed on far better quality of vinyl, and rest assured that is has never been played and therefore is not worn. Think of how many stoners have owned Led Zep LPs over the years--me buying them around $20 a pop is way cheaper than going through a dozen $5 copies and still not finding one playable, or paying $100+ for a highly desirable pressing that has been play-graded and is in known good condition. In that respect, the new vinyl saves a ton of money.

Even so, I have bought used vinyl that plays like new, and I even still luck across sealed copies of records as well (and I don't mind paying a couple of dollars extra for that). But I do find overall that the condition of used vinyl has been sinking in recent years, and have had more disappointing purchases in the past several years than I've ever had in decades of buying it. Recently, at least half the used records I buy are terribly flawed, yet look great to the naked eye.

In the end though, I still think I'd rather hear a bad LP over a good CD.

 

[jfiedler17]

Yeah, as off-putting as the pricetag for a lot of the new vinyl reissues can be most of the time, I'd have to say that there are some titles it just really makes sense to pick up that way. Like Rudy pointed out, Led Zeppelin albums, just as one perfect example, can be awfully difficult to find in any kind of decent shape and even the most beat-up copies will still cost you quite a bit these days (it's just sort of the norm at the flea markets around me to see dealers charging $10 or more for badly scratched copies of, say, Houses of the Holy), so the reissues are the better way to go for something like that. The same can be said for a lot of classic-rock titles. Back in Black by AC/DC is another that it seems like every single copy I run across is either scratched beyond belief or absolutely covered in dust.

Another one I picked up in the same haul was a copy - with the original wrapper still intact, too - of Earth Wind and Fire's The Need of Love, one of two albums they made for Warner Bros. before signing with Columbia. I'd never run into either Warner LP before, so I was very excited to find that one. Very fascinating listen, though it's much, much different from their later material. Cool curio piece, though.

 

[Rudy]

I have a digital version of those first two EW&F albums, plus a two-LP Warner set that I think is a bundling of those first two albums into one package. The LPs sound muffled compared to the CDs, but that's just the mastering. It's definitely different, yet on repeated listenings I'm hearing a lot of things buried in the arrangements that they would carry over to their better Columbia albums. I may spin those tonight, as I'm breaking in a new(er) cartridge I got in from the Dynavector distributor to try out.

Funny, I think I paid no more than $5 for Houses Of The Holy back in the 80s, used, and it plays fine. I also can't figure out why dealers just don't have any stock on certain artists. Led Zep is one. Miles Davis is another, except we see multiple copies of You're Under Arrest. (I went to Dearborn Music for Record Store Day, met a friend there, and joked about the poor Miles selections at the local stores, and that you'd usually find only You're Under Arrest...and sure enough, as the line wound its way to the register, I looked in the Miles bin and yep, same story! ) There are others I find almost nothing on, and back in the day, you'd see multiple copies of each. Not sure if the dealers are making a killing by selling them on FleaBay or if that's just how demand is shaping up...

 

[Rudy]

Actually, I may have been thinking of another album--these old EW&F things don't sound as muffled as I thought. This is a two LP set called Another Time that is made up of the tracks from the first two albums, but rearranged in track order. Not my preferred listening situation, but it'll do, since clean copies of those originals are hard to find. Bought this ages ago, probably in the early to mid 80s.

 

[jfiedler17]

Yeah, I've never even run across so much as a beat-up copy of that first EWF album. How does it compare to The Need of Love? You're right about there being elements in the production and arrangements that still identify the pre-Columbia EWF as being the same band - i.e. Maurice's trademark kalimba - so it's not a complete departure. I was amazed at just how experimental a lot of The Need of Love is - the first track ("Energy") sounds like full-blown free-form jazz in a lot of places. Being so used to hearing EWF in a more traditional song-structure vein, that track took a little getting used to, but it's pretty fascinating.
Interestingly enough, I just saw that Verdine White (who incidentally co-produced last week's AOTW on this forum, Level 42's "Standing in the Light," alongside fellow EWF member Larry Dunn) is also now on the Billboard Hot 100 for the first time this week as a solo artist, as one of two credited featured artists (the other being Robin Thicke) on the new Flo Rida single, "I Don't Like It, I Love It." I'm not a particularly big rap fan, but I do find it cool how some rap artists this year have managed to bring a handful of veteran names who have been MIA from the Top 40 for a very long time back to the charts again; up until a few months ago, Paul McCartney hadn't had a Top 40 hit since 1989, but he's had three of them this year as a credited featured artist on a trio of Kanye West singles, and now Verdine White appears to be on his way to having one as well thanks to Flo Rida!

 

[Rudy]

Neat about Verdine! I still wish Maurice could tour, but with his Parkinson's, it is too much for him. I was lucky to see them one time in concert, for the Touch The World tour, and it was one of the better concerts I've seen. Much as I like Philip and the rest of the band, it's not the same without Maurice up there in front.

McCartney performing with Nirvana was quite cool a couple of years ago also. Anyone who says Paul can't rock, needs to watch the live video.

The first EWF album is actually the slightly better of the two--that is where I hear more of the later influences. I agree that Need of Love is more free-form. While it was the second album, stylistically it could have been the first album, as that first album is more like their first one for Columbia (Last Days and Time). That might have been why Maurice revamped the group--the albums are both adventurous and have some solid songwriting, and they probably could have continued on in semi-obscurity like that. But I don't think he was happy with the formula, and changed it up for their move to Columbia.

If you do ever see the Another Time compilation, it's worth getting if you can't find the original LPs (which I've never found myself). It looks like all of the tracks are there, but rearranged. (I like the original album orders better, to be honest.) Even the CDs of these now are pricey, last time I looked.

 

[Dave]

It's organist Lenny Dee...

Little that I can find here, so a small collection, so far, of mostly favorites from late-'60's, to mid-'70's, most mail-ordered and even a few tunes I've video-ed...

(Have on Facebook, and would like to someday share here...)



-- Dave

 

[DeeInKY]

Paul Desmond's "From the Hot Afternoon".

 

[Rudy]

@Mr Bill , finally nailed one! NM copy plays like new. Is "Ain't This The Life" a different take than the one on the EP? Sounds different to me.