Joe Jackson "Night and Day" Deluxe edition on the way

N&D Reissues ... there's more than the Deluxe & the MoFi

Actually, Night & Day has a few editions on CD:
1. The original A&M pressing in the US (which has had 2 different catalog numbers at least)
2. The MoFi UD I (which came out in the late '80s)
3. A remaster that was released in the UK/Europe only in the late '90s (they also did "Body & Soul" at this time; these pre-date the I'm the Man and Look Sharp! reissues)
4. The new Deluxe Edition

I'm leaving out tons of compilations. And more than "Memphis" from MM has shown up; on some Euro 2 CD compilation was also "Laundromat Monday". I don't have it in front of me at the moment.

I don't own the original one anymore, but I do own all the other versions. I haven't done an A-B of all of them, but I remember being uninspired by the UK remaster. Cried zero involvement.

I always liked the MoFi, but it was a bit quiet for my taste. I know today the levels are WAY inflated usually, but it was also indicative of many of the MoFis IMHO.

The new remaster on 1st listening is pretty good ... I didn't have a problem with it. I do agree as a big JJ fan that I would have rather had the complete rarity collection from N&D (i.e. the other tracks from MM, the Spanish tracks, the 12" mix - all of which I have elsewhere, so it's not like I don't own them) than the 80/86 material. But it also says A&M will never remaster 80/86. So I guess beggars can't be choosers.

I personally liked the remasters of ITM and LS!, especially since you got (most) of the b-sides ... they're not complete again, but hey, decent remasters. The originals were never that bad tho.

Just my $.02. Overall, I think A&M/Uni/Chronicles has done a good job on the Deluxe Editions. Even if you hate some mastering, fans like me - and I do collect audiophiles and such - would rather have rare tracks officially on CD than deal with crappy Nth generation copies.

Getting anything from MM officially is a good thing, so thanks A&M. The demos - yay!

Allan

 

Re: N&D Reissues ... there's more than the Deluxe & the MoFi

Actually it came out in Nov. /90.

You are totally right on this one. There has been much discussion here on this syndrome referred to as "The smiley faced eq. setting".

Welcome Allan and post often.

 

The new Deluxe Edition is a mixed bag. If you believe that any use of compression ruins a CD, no matter how good everything else is (tape sources, A-D's, etc.), then don't bother with this one. Like the earlier CDs in this series, it does use some compression.

If you take a more balanced view of compression and view it as one of many variables you may like or dislike about a remaster - it's still a mixed bag. The original album on Disc 1 sounds good to me. It's definitely eons better than the wretched sounding original A&M CD (like listening to a performance from many blocks away). I've not heard the MoFi so I can't compare, but if you really like it, I suspect you'll prefer it to this release. I don't think I heard the mid-90's English Night and Day remaster, but I did hear the contemporary Body and Soul remaster. If Night and Day was similar, this new one would be preferable.

Things get weird on the bonus disc. The demos are interesting to listen to once, and have a better sequencing on CD than what's listed on the cover. The Mike's Murder tracks are over-compressed even to my more tolerant tastes. This album has a lot more dynamics than something like Look Sharp. When spare songs like Moonlight sound as loud as rock songs like Memphis, that's not a good thing. Needle-dropping may still be a better bet here.

And then the live tracks! The booklet says "All live tracks taken directly from the board mixes which were used as the final master for the original album release." Is this label-ese for "Oops, we lost the master tapes?" These don't sound anything like the original A&M CD. Obvious differences are less echo and greater harshness. This is reminiscent of Live Bullet in terms of the remaster being far and away worse than the original CD. If you disagree, I'd like to hear why. There's some extra between-song chatter that I think it was wise to edit from the original CD, which kept the good bits.

I love Night and Day so I'm glad to have it in much better sound than I did before. But I wish they had left it a single CD with perhaps a couple of the more interesting demo cuts as bonus tracks.

Anyone else hear it yet?

- Joe

 

Joe,

Thanks for the run-down. Looks like I'm gonna have to pass this one up.

 

Based on past bad experiences, I now mostly cringe upon seeing the word 'Deluxe Edition' on a jewel case. Deluxe Editions in my collection have largely become expensive Frisbees - that includes "Look Sharp!" & "I'm the Man." They might as well place Wham-o over every one. Oh, I'd put the ridiculous Who's "My Generation - Deluxe Edition" at the top of that list.

Whether Joe Jackson's sound was destroyed or not, I'll leave that for someone else to decide. But smooth (like the originals) & (the newness of) excessively loud aren't a good combination, and one has to eventually give.

What the hell was Erick Labson hearing that sounded so much different from reality? What instrument did Joe Jackson record that needed to be as audibly loud as a gunshot? And of course, 96k/24bit will give him more bandwidth to make it increasingly louder.

Forget a parental advisory sticker, I want one for excessive loudness!

Josh

 

I still think the Labson remasters of Look Sharp! and I'm the Man sound good, and far better than the original CDs. You can actually hear vocal and instrumental detail on them. It's the same for Night and Day, but it costs a lot more *and* you have a MoFi alternative. It's the "bonus" material that got shafted here.

I'm not saying they sound as good as possible - how would I know? But I also don't view compression as always evil. Like any tool, it's how you use it.

- Joe

 

That's like saying you bought a Ferrari (a nice stereo system), but you can only drive it in congested rush-hour traffic (compression). Sure, you got a cool car, but you're only going 17 mph!

I love the way my system sounds with an non-compressed recording (i.e. Steve's Creedance SACDs). Save the compressed stuff (Metallica's "St. Anger") for listening in the car, it sounds OK there!

 

But SamS, if the CD was made with an old 12-bit ADC masquerading as 16 bits, you have the same effect of lost dynamics. Combine it with a lousy tape source and you have a lot worse - you've lost a lot more music than the dynamics. I obviously don't know what was used for the original A&M Night and Day CD, but that's the way it sounds to me.

If you're phobic about compression, you're out of luck; it's been used in recorded rock music forever. It's signal processing and (assuming you end up in the digital domain like a CD) it's the same basic stuff going on in either analog or digital. Digital compression gives you more powerful tools to screw up, but it also gives you more ways to do nice work. Many people on this board say they're only against digital compression, but a whole lot of complaints I read here are complaints against analog compression used in the original recordings.

If you really want dynamics, listen to classical music rather than rock. Rock's use of dynamics is extremely limited in comparison, and usually very basic soft vs. loud contrasts. When you even lose those contrasts in a CD, as in the Mike's Murder tracks here, then you're indeed way over the line!

- Joe

 

We definitely have different opinions on the subject, but that's cool. And you're right; without the analog compression of individual instruments modern rock recordings would sound lifeless and dull. Used properly and these certain types of compression were often used to increase dynamics.

But the term shouldn't be confused with digitally maximizing and limiting the entire mix, precisely within peak amplitude, or hypercompression. It totally strips the recording of any headroom and tonality; in worst cases, effectively creating square waves. If you've ever listened to square waves for any length of time, then you know how irritating that can become.

And yeah, the best thing about newer converters is their increased linearity, lower noise floor, better quantization, and overall increased dynamic range. But many early digital recordings used the same 3M converters as Night and Day and sound truly excellent (Bop 'Till You Drop notwithstanding ) BTW, while the converters weren't a true 16-bits, they were effectively 16-bits - by using a 12-bit converter along with one-half of an 8-bit converter.

Josh

 

I agree with everything Josh sez.

Joe,

I realize that compression is used in the recording a mixing stage, that's no the problem. It's the use of compression, limiting and maximization to square off the peaks and making it sound loud and punchy when that's not the way the artist laid it down on tape. Fine for the car, hurts my ears at home.

I know that classical can have an amazing dynamic range compared to most rock. What a shame it would be for someone to take an amazing recording of Beethoven's 9th, compress and maximize it and say "well, this is the only version you have of it now....all others are out-of-print. Live with it." It would be a disservice to Beethoven. What you're describing sounds like a disservice to the work of JJ.