THE BEST SOURCES FOR THE BEST SUPREMES SONGS

"I Hear A Symphony"

a)1986 Anthology: Stereo, "in your face" imaging including anormally good sounding vocals
b)1986 25th anniversary: Single mono version, with the typical treble bad sounding vocals
c)1995 Anthology: Single mono version with a lot of compression

- "In And Out Of Love"

a)1986 Anthology: Stereo, the only Supremes master I felt warmth from, but there are clipping problems
b)1986 25th anniversary: Stereo, full of treble
c)1995 Anthology: Mono, full of treble

- "Someday We'll Be Together"

a)1986 Anthology: Stereo. Weirdly treble and full of air. Interstingly the song works better in this bad sounding version cause the drum funk is all captured
b)1986 25th anniversary: Stereo. Technically perfect
c)1995 Anthology: Mono, too much bass


- "Stop! In The Name Of Love"

a)1986 Anthology: Stereo. Bad imaging and zero bass.
b)1986 25th anniversary: Stereo. better imaging and bass but bad treble sounding vocals too
c)1995 Anthology: Mono, too much bass and compression

- "The Happening"

a)1986 Anthology: Stereo. major tape problems, wrong speed and the vocals keep walking from left to right
b)1986 25th anniversary: Stereo. not good imaging but the only listenable version
c)1995 Anthology: Mono, too much bass and compression

- "You Can't Hurry Love"

a)1986 Anthology: Stereo. Horrible imaging and no bass
b)1986 25th anniversary: Stereo. bad imaging, better bass but typical bad sounding vocals
c)1992 Motown box: not so good tonality and a little bit of compression. the only listenable version
d)1995 Anthology: The best tonality but the compression messes up

ps.: Had 2004's Number Ones remixes not used so much compression, would have won every comparison. The same maybe could be applied for the 1995 anthology

 

I agree that some of the monos on the 1990s Anthology have too much bass, but to tell you the truth, that's also how some of my 1960s Motown vinyl sounds. These songs are on dozens and dozens of CDs, so it's awfully hard to narrow it down, given the different source tapes and mastering decisions made over the past 25 years.

The original 1980s John Matousek-mastered CDs sometimes have a lot of hiss and hum in them, so my suspicion is that the master tapes might have been 3rd, even 4th-generation.

BTW, don't forget the Complete Motown Singles mono boxed sets, which have a controversial reputation around here. Me personally, I think they're a bit overcompressed. The best stereo tracks (to my ears) are on the Motown Year by Year CDs supervised by Al Quaglieri in the 1990s; there's some great-sounding stuff on those discs.

One comp I would avoid is Motown's Forever Diana, which is a real mess. Hissy, noisy, phase problems, dropouts... lots of flaws on that set.

 

86's anthology has no credits, but the 25th anniversary from same year was mastered by Matousek. I don't know about generations, but they were definitely from different tapes. Maybe one of them used Holland-Dozier-Holland 67 mixes and the other the older ones, and I would bet the HDH was from Anniversary. BTW, never heard about this year by year CD comps, i'll check out. thanks

 

Mattered or won a quick democratic election among many other half-hour-made equally mattering ones?

 

I personally like the Someday We'll Be Together with the unique percussive intro. Forget which set it's on.

 

the mono is the only. there's also a piano note finishing that count-in not present in the other versions.

 

I dunno. A lot of that hum and noise seemed to go away on subsequent releases. I can't believe all that was just from the playback decks John was using for the Command Performances CDs in 1986. The stuff seemed to get a lot cleaner in the subsequent 1990s releases -- even if it was more compressed.

No question, the mono Motowns are better mixes through the late 1960s. What was the story on the mono Motown masters? Bill Inglot told me 20 years ago that a lot of them were thrown out, and safety copies were made on 1/2-track tapes (with two songs on each track). That's unless I imagined that conversation... or maybe the real masters weren't found until years later.