I've just had an email from Amazon saying how much I saved with their preorder price guarantee, well that's just fine and dandy but how about delivering the sodding set then?! Grrrrr snarl foam...
I ripped my set with no issues and have been playing it pretty much non stop. All the extra tracks sound wonderful, no digital copying problems at all. And they all 'breathe' like real recordings! The mastering wisely takes her voice as the whole point of the recordings and is built around that, not the whack of the snare or the throb of the bass.
Just listened to some on youtube...can it be that the so-called "demo" of Courtyard is simply the final track stripped down (or undubbed) to vocal and guitar?
Well I'm going to be cancelling Prime because of this, order back in July with Prime and mine's not due for delivery until Tuesday, the same with a Terry Callier reissue that came out yesterday, I think I'd actually get them faster if I didn't have Prime, complete waste of money.
Yes, I've had the same problem with preorders made months in advance that on release day give an estimated delivery of the following week. Whereas if I'd ordered them on the Friday release day, they'd be delivered the next day.
Sorry to hear that. Have you checked the discs? Are there any scratches on it, maybe from the packaging? Maybe try to exchange the box for another one? Amazon is usually very generous with that. I'm happy with my box set, it was just my computer drive which had problems reading the discs. Any other audio CD player I tried, is playing them fine.
Both my orders have been upgraded to delivery tomorrow, I'm still arguing the point that I'm paying for Prime so should have got them on Friday. One month's free Prime as well, better than nothing I guess, but it does look like they screwed up a lot of Prime orders for this release, get complaining people!
The discs play fine when I listen to them in real time on my pc with windows media player (which I never use but it seems to be the default player for audio cd's), it's just ripping them which seems to be problematic (I assumed they were using some strange type of copy protection, but probably not because why would they only do it on the final few tracks? Perhaps some nonstandard type of error correction which EAC can't handle?). Solution - I just ripped cd 2 with windows media player and there don't appear to be any glitches.
I was hoping to get this today or yesterday from Amazon, but it should be here tomorrow. No problem though, I'm at work tonight and was yesterday and also have a backlog of music to listen too.
Amazon did not delivery either of the two (although i only require the one) i watched the progress of my delivery and then according to the update while it was still four stops away i had already refused the delivery and the order was to be returned to sender. A somewhat animated conversation with customer services later and the item has to be re-ordered my end, irony being i have already spent £130 for a £67 boxed set and the refund won't appear for another week meaning i can no longer afford to buy another copy until the refund appears in my account. £10 off when i can order it but it should had been delivered yesterday and will possibly go out of stock during the interim. Prime - suspect.
In answer to Folkfreak above post. I've used a Samsung SE-208 portable DVD writer for years it's ripped thousands of my CDs. My son has been using one for years also. No problems ripping my set yesterday.
Hi Andreas, This is where the sleevenotes would be helpful for you to make sense of things- some of Bobbie's demos became the basis of the final track- Courtyard is one of those; despite recording it again she never bettered the original demo, so the instrumentation is dubbed onto that first recording.
Am I glad that I bought this set! It is truly magnificent. Some of the previously unreleased tracks are sheer magic.
I'm a bit surprised that two mono edits of Fancy exist. The single version and the Radio edit. Hadn't four-minute singles become more common by 1970?
Just listening to ‘Ode to Billie Joe’, sounding very good to me. The book looks great, haven’t properly delved into it yet, though.
Apologies if this is mentioned in the boxset's booklet, but what's the story with this? I listened to the Raven CD and noticed this is the only track on there in mono. Why wasn't the stereo on the original release? Especially as the mono LP is suspected to be a fold-down, as it is.
I've just opened it and looked through the book. This is very special and I haven't played any of it yet. A wonderful looking set with an excellent in depth essay and lots of beautiful photos of Bobbie. I'm very impressed.
This set is fantastic, it's the loveliest box set in the world. Good work @AndyB! I'm keeping my Bobbie Gentry signed card in the book now [/smug].
This is a wonderful box. I have read the entire accompanying commentary in the hardback book and I have to say Andrew Batt has to be commended for his thorough appreciation of an artist who may have been in danger of being forgotten. With this set I think that will not happen in for the foreseeable future. I can remember the BBC TV series being broadcast when I was a child. Listening to the albums has taken me back to those half remembered times when everything filters into the mind magically, only bubbling up many years later when a snatch of melody plays on the radio or crops up in a cover version. Buying this set and having these albums has made Bobbie Gentry a very real artist to me, not just a half remembered ghost.
