Roxy Music debut album, Deluxe/Super Deluxe Edition (March 2018)

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Super Deluxe Edition
Product Description
Roxy Music’s ground-breaking debut album is expanded in an exclusive super-deluxe package featuring rare and previously unavailable material. It represents the first time Roxy Music’s archives have been opened, offering rare and genuinely never-heard-before material outside Roxy’s inner circle. Compiled with the group’s involvement, the 3CD / DVD 12” X 12” box set includes the original album including ‘Virginia Plain’, the demo tape that led to their first record deal plus the legendary BBC Sessions that saw the group hone their craft. There’s also an entire disc, exclusive to this format, of previously unheard studio outtakes prepared exclusively by Bryan Ferry and producer Rhett Davies including alternate session versions for every album track and ‘Virginia Plain’. The original album is presented in the 1999 Bob Ludwig master, while the reminder of the audio has been mastered by Frank Arkwright at Abbey Road. The DVD includes promos and BBC TV appearances as well rare footage of Roxy at the Bataclan Club in Paris in November 1972, the only surviving capture of this line-up live on stage. To round the audio/visual elements of the set off, lifetime admirer Steven Wilson has mixed the album into 5.1 DTS 96/24 and Dolby AC3 Sound. Seven years in the making, the box set also contains a 136-page book printed on hi-gloss 170gsm paper curated by Bryan Ferry, containing many rare and previously unpublished photographs, and an essay by Guardian journalist and author Richard Williams, the man who first wrote about the group in Melody Maker in 1971.

2CD Edition
Product Description
This 2-disc deluxe edition of the ground-breaking debut from Roxy Music includes the original album (including ‘Virginia Plain’) in its 1999 Bob Ludwig remaster plus, for the first time on an official release, an entire second disc of BBC sessions mastered at Abbey Road by Frank Arkwright. Attractively packaged in gatefold card, there’s also a 24-page fully illustrated booklet including an essay from Guardian journalist and author Richard Williams.

 

What happened to the 2015 Roxy Music Super Deluxe Edition Box Set?

 

Lossy DVD 5.1 is disappointing. It's fun but still disappointing. The compressed 1999 Ludwig re-master should have been left on the server.

 

Yes, I thought they were going to use the same master that had been used for the studio albums box set

 

Disappointed that the SW remix will not be on the 2CD version. We don't all have £150, or whatever it is, to spare for the box. If the Jethro Tull reissue programme can release 4-disc sets for c.£26, accompanied uisually by single CD remixed album options, we have to wonder why Bryan ferry can't. Does he need the money?

 

So...no Steven Wilson hi-res stereo mix? I'm probably out then. Also ridiculous that they're using the Ludwig master when there's a better sounding (and more recent) version out there.

 

I think the price will drop a bit. I'm sure that having a hard-cover book in high-gloss paper has something to do with the price too.

 

Minor (really minor) complaint: the album features the US configuration with "Virginia Plain" as the fourth track. I would have included it as a bonus tracks with "The Numberer".

 

Really how hard is this stuff. Digipaks like Depeche Mode. CD/SACD on one side, Region Free DVD-Audio/Video on the other side.

CD has stereo remix and and if time permits related singles and out-takes.
SACD layer has surround remix, stereo re-mix and if time permits related singles and out-takes.
DVD-Audio layer Lossless surround remix, stereo remix and if time permits related singles and out-takes.
DVD-Video layer Lossy surround remix, high resolution stereo remix, related singles, out-takes vintage videos, concert clips, television lip sync, new interviews.

Is the cost of format licensing and authoring really that high, or are the product managers that oblivious? I think they're obtuse when they refer to Dolby Digital as AC-3?

 

Oh god so they really reused the 1999 remaster for the album?!
Remix only in the £100+ "super deluxe" edition?
No stereo remix? No lossless remix for that matter?

What a shame. I hate this kind of "super deluxe" editions.

They should take a hint or two (or three) from King Crimson, Jethro Tull, Yes, Gentle Giant, XTC...

 

I’ve been waiting for Wilson’s 5.1 mix for years, which is how long ago he completed it. While not my preference, I can live with DTS. Definite purchase, now let’s get a 5.1 mix of For Your Pleasure.

 

Yes. I have been waiting for this for a very very long time. Now let's hope they continue the serie with the other albums.
VIVA Roxy Music.

 

I thought the Steven Wilson stereo mix was going to be include. It would have been nice.

It would be great to have a Roxy box per year, wouldn't it? Imagine an expanded Viva!...

 

As I explained elsewhere on here, Universal has a preferential relationship with the BBC re: using its archive, audio and video, in relation to artists on Universal-owned labels - including Roxy/Island Records. The BBC content is effectively not a cost consideration here. The main costs will be in the high-end book specs, which is fair enough. But there would surely be enough additional content in the box set (book, DVD, bonus audio...) aside from the SW remix for the SW remix to be released on the 2CD version.

 

The DTS 96/24 ES or whatever they call it sounds fine to my 51 year old years. I'm sure Mr. Wilson work won't be damaged by the compression, but how much more does it cost to author and manufacture region free DVD-Audio discs that still play in any DVD-player in the world. One inventory sku for everyone.

 

Hang on... re-reading the blurb, is it reallythe case that the SW remix will only be available in 5.1, not stereo even in the box set? Madness.

 

Ahhh VIVA expanded. That would be great! Let's keep on dreaming.

 

Unfortunately, that's the way it seems to be.
I love that expanded "Ladytron" that was released for a RSD some years ago.

 

Yes, I have that too. Perhaps some kind of remix standalone format will trickle out in due course. But I doubt it.

 

“7 years in the making”...but the mastering on the main album is from 18 years ago.
Brilliant.

 

Maybe it's the mastering that suits Ferry's ears best.

 

It's the Same Old Scene. I was expecting More Than This.

 

Maybe they didn't want to pay for another one.

The flat transfer of the SHM-SACD/CD will stay my favourite version for now.

 

That's the one included in the studio albums box set, isn't it?

 

Looks like they just saved me some money. I’m not buying the 1999 mastering again.