Well - not that bit - his legacy has nothing to do with SQ. I think successive remasters have tarnished the reputation of mastering technicians though. I'm sort of losing respect for and trust in the whole business really (SH is not included in my assessment because he does a good job), but virtually every remaster that comes out has problems. It's becoming a joke. It used to be so easy in the 70s! They have all the technology but use it to make IPhone standard audio. There's no excuse - it can be done if they want to and take a bit of care. Look at that recent remaster of Joni Mitchell's Hejira - everyone agrees it's better than the 1976 original.
I don't doubt what you say and write here but in the real world outside forums like this and audiophiles, very few even know or understand the concept of mastering. But it is interesting reading about it here....
yes, yes. Bad choice of word, I concur. I wasn't sure how to describe the bare drumming of that album in English
Yep. That's why I say there's no real point in getting wound up about it anymore. Nobody really cares except about 33% of the people on this forum and maybe a few measly others elsewhere whose opinions don't really count. What sells is not sound quality or even unreleased material, but it's repackaging that makes all the difference. We will just have to accept what we're given because our opinions are not going to make a blind bit of difference to Parlophone or Mr Visconti, and the trend is for loud, so really we're anachronistic and trying to alter a different time to recreate our own.
I wouldn't call it a "conversation killer" but after reading your post, 3 forum members left suicide notes on their Bowie box sets and leapt out of high rise windows.
(Not to tangent, but I don't think Bowie started this trend... for example, Brian Wilson was performing Pet Sounds in its entirety by at least 2000. And then there's those Phish Halloween shows going way back...)
i think just once on CD (Ryko/EMI 1992), which is NOT the 1979 single mix but their own inferior one. the single mix is in quite wide stereo with some interesting panning/placement. Ryko narrowed it to near mono. they also extended the silence before the drums come in by cutting and pasting... very amateur. this same crappy master was remastered for the 40th anniversary iTunes EP. as is often the case you need the original single to get the music as intended. remains to be seen which master Ray Staff uses in the next box.
Just because I've enjoyed these remasters, doesn't mean I'm pro-brickwalled CD's. It's not a black and white world - I think some people are looking for things to complain about, rather than looking for some joy. Having said that, it's ridiculous how some of these titles have not had the SE treatment. The Berlin trilogy is crying out for it. There's so much potential for a 5.1 mix of Low and Heroes, for example. It just gets ignored time and again. Still, it make sense to concentrate on what we are getting. This new box contains my favorite Bowie period, so of course I'm psyched.
Oh please.. Complete and utter rubbish spoken by a snobbish audiophile. You are in a minority of not even 0.1% of Bowie fans or fans of any music. I can picture you now in your 'music room' with your piled high system of ugly separates listening to the RCA's, glowing in your superiority over the rest of us stuck with our EMI or Ryko's as you hear thing that only bats and cats can hear.
Something I find kind of weird when the conversation about audio quality comes up is this idea that "most people not caring" somehow matters for the trade. Color me old fashioned (I'm sub-40, so I think I can get away with this without being obligated to scream at clouds), but the public at large being ignorant of the quality of a product or piece of work shouldn't really have any relationship to the quality of the product itself. Nobody would say, for example, "Well, the deli might be rife with bacteria and cross-contamination, but because I don't have lab equipment to test it, it doesn't matter to me!" More visceral than the audio quality of a master, but why not put out something that checks all the boxes whether you're listening on those grubbly little air pod things Apple thinks are so neat or on $3k speakers in a tuned room? It lifts everyone up to have a quality product to start from, so even the iPhone plebes benefit here. Anyway, some may disagree, but I see two separate ideas being connected when there isn't necessarily justification for it. Getting back to the matter at hand, I went through my EMI copies of the albums covered by this set (even with that mastering, these albums are phenomenal...) to whet my appetite for the box and I think I may have finally gotten a foothold on Lodger, which was always my least favorite of the set by a large margin. When you judge it by its neighbors, it's an incoherent mess - all of the art with none of the intent. However, if you jump forward a bit in Bowie's discography and compare it to Outside, suddenly the pieces click into place. In a lot of ways, I see Lodger as a precursor to Outside, with its abstract "narrative," characters, soundscapes, etc. The other Berlin albums have enough structure and form that they never feel like they're about to go off of the cliff. Lodger, on the other hand, feels like a fever dream you're not sure you're going to wake up from. Overall, I'm pleased to have at least a foothold on the thing as it'll leave me well and truly prepared for two versions of it in the coming box.
I was looking through my excellent but ancient (and held together with sellotape) copy of David Bowie An Illustrated Record by Roy Carr and Charles Shaar Murray written in 1981, two years after Lodger. Their review of Lodger is really positive, and the last paragraph reads: "Lodger - like Diamond Dogs - may have to "grow in potency" over a few years, but eventually it will be accepted as one of Bowie's most complex and rewarding projects. Take it from us."
Good to see a few of us are still looking forward to this box with an open mind. I'm looking forward to it also.
That wasn't intended to be snide at all. Sorry if it seemed that way. I'm looking forward to the whole thing actually. Glad there are others who still feel the same.
I'm looking forward to it too, but at the same time I sympathise with those who've been unimpressed with the mastering quality and the inconsistencies of the box sets so far. Bowie does deserve better.
Looning forward to this box very much. Would have loved to have the Baal EP as a separate disc in this set.
Interestingly, Apple has been the only company speaking up about the QC of what they're getting handed to them to sell, hence their "Mastered for iTunes" program, which is designed to not have a polished turd on hand after they've converted the source into AAC. Box3 continues the tradition of these Parlophone boxes of including non-MFiT content in the Apple store's MFiT box. Specifically, the 44.1/16 Re:Call discs. (Nothing says "We really don't give a tuck..." more than just reusing extant 44.1/16s from God knows where.)
Off topic, I've just cancelled my pre-order for the Dylan Jones book after seeing the vile crap that has been spread all over the internet. It's not just the Daily Mail and The S*n 'newspapers', it's the NME and even Australian News website. Jones is not taking any responsibility for it, blaming the nature of the media, but he worked for GQ and must know more than anyone what they're like. It's his fault for raking up that unsubstantiated crap and publishing it in his book. He should take responsibility for it and any self respecting Bowie fan should put his muck-raking piece of trash on their blacklist to discourage other hacks from stooping to this sort of gutter level money-grabbing behaviour imo. Just my opinion.
