SH Spotlight A few angry (but sort of funny) notes people sent me about my mastering work, imagined defects.....

I guess she knows now.

 

At the time I would have agreed with her!

 

Some people really dive deep when they jump in the pool.

 

Yeah, I think it's a very fair post. Though if it's really a 3rd / 4th gen. dub versus an original master, then why not make the odd creative decision... It sort of makes a difference for an audiophile release. Then again, that crowd is the most anal retentive of customers, so who knows which route is preferable. With DCC, I imagine audio quality is number one. Plus there is something interesting about a good, dedicated mastering engineer, who is a music fan, making a few personal decisions like that. Just to get away from the faceless corporate approach a bit.

Still, the rational discussion posted by Jeffrey T. is unfortunately completely at odds with the list of returns complaints!

 

Better IMO than any real reunion could have been.

 

Must say I had the same reaction at the time. "Jive Talking" made me puke for a long while. I got over it

 

Too many notes.

 

I thought immediately about that quote but was too lazy. Thanks for bringing it up.

 

this is awesome and made me LOL

 

I realize that the "Steve Miller Greatest Hits 1974-78" collection is probably his biggest seller - and probably helped Steve Miller sell concert tickets well into his golden years but when the album hit the shelves during the 1978 christmas season I remember staring at in the store and thinking to myself that there was no REASON to purchase it because I owned the two albums that filled 44 minutes of a compilation that stretched for 47 minutes and change.

In my case, I also didn't need the three and half minutes that weren't on FLY LIKE AN EAGLE or BOOK OF DREAMS, because I already had that song on a good compilation LP called "The Best of Steve Miller 1968-1973".

http://eil.com/shop/moreinfo.asp?catalogid=518834

I always thought it was kind of funny that the earlier compilation seemed to suggest that "The Joker" was from 1973 and the later one suggested it was from 1974. I guess *both* were correct in some respect because the song was released in 1973 - but reached its apex in the charts in early 1974.

In any case, I had no clue that the 1978 compilation used some short edits - nor would I have wanted them - because single edits were mostly considered inferior - especially to the casual listener who seemed to be the target market for what seemed like a release that concentrated on too few albums and contained some songs that weren't hits (on the charts or on the radio).

"Serenade", "True Fine Love", "Dance Dance Dance", "Winter Time", and "Wild Mountain Honey" could have easily been replaced by "Living In the USA", "Going To The Country", "My Dark Hour", and "Space Cowboy" without disappointing people who wanted to purchase the popular songs from 1976 and 1977.

But I can't argue with the longevity of the collection - as it came out. It's easily the ONE Miller album that most people own. Kind of like his "Eagles' Greatest Hits"... the collection that just keeps selling and selling and selling.

I don't have a problem with our gracious host putting the longer versions of the songs on his version. I suspect he actually would have gotten MORE returns from people complaining the songs are 'too short' if he had done otherwise. And apparently the only reason the shorter edits were used on the original LP was to keep the total length down to an acceptable amount.

In hindsight, perhaps using both the edits from the original LP and the longer album versions - would have been something that would have pleased all when the DCC album was mastered... except someone would have surely complained that they have to reprogram the track sequence to fit their preference. I'm guessing somewhere there's a bean counter who would have demanded a different licensing agreement for using "extra" songs.

As Rick Nelson once said: if you can't please everyone, you got to please yourself. LOL

 

I remember the song more from late 1973, as it was all over the radio and climbing the charts.

Collectors of edited 45s will disagree with you. The single version is never wrong.

Disagree with "Serenade" and "True Fine Love". Those songs were all over radio when they were singles.

 

To quote Steve: ( abridged from Ezrin thread ) " We don't revise history, we don't change history ". This is not strictly true as he is changing history by substituting songs. I happen to love 45's and I want those mixes. They sounded great when I heard them and when I bought them. A lot of peoples exposure to an album is first hearing the 45 so why change anything? If, as many believe, Steve can improve the sound on the original masters he then should be able to improve the sound on 2nd, 3rd gen etc. I should add I have " no agenda " here. I don't even like Steve Miller.

 

As, was my experience. Obviously, many people on this forum, especially, only listened to albums.

Well, Steve believes the best sound can be obtained only from stereo and mono 1st generation tapes, and he wouldn't be wrong. After all, he is an audiophile engineer. I do not know what he could do with higher generation tapes.

What I hate is the industry's general lack of concern about edited/remixed singles being released in the digital age unless it's those god-dammed 90s dance remixes. There is a huge market for 45 single versions in digital. If that were not true, there wouldn't be tons of collectors of 45s, and so much mp3 trading on the internet.

 

Geez,

One major complaint I have is the tape hiss on all your work.

 

So you're thinking the album should have listed the year range differently - so that at
least it would have matched the earlier collection.

I don't remember "Serenade" or "True Fine Love" on the radio in Philadelphia and I can't find evidence of "True Fine Love" released as a single. The song "True Fine Love" sticks in my head but I can't even remember what the other song sounds like - and I used to play BOTH of those albums often.

"Serenade" was apparently a single in the UK - and may have been here in the US - but my regular sources (discogs.com and 45cat.com) aren't listing it. Doesn't mean it didn't happen, because those lists are generally built ad-hoc...


I understand the desire for collectors to get single edits all gathered together - but that wasn't where my head was when the album was new. And I wasn't aware that there WERE single edits for either.

"Fly Like An Eagle" was one of my first album purchases because it had multiple hits on it. It was when I made the leap from 45s to 33-1/3 LPs.

 

I feel very sad for those of you who only listened to albums. All those Beatle's b sides you missed. Also, people trade in flac my friend.

 

Looking at wikipedia, and comparing track times listed for the original "Greatest Hits" LPs with track times for singles - and LPs - it would appear that 4 of the 10 tracks on the 14 song "Greatest Hits 1974-78" album were not the same as the original album.

I see shorter times for

Swingtown (3:27 for GH, 3:54 for BoD)
The Joker (3:36 for single, 4:26 for album)
Fly Like an Eagle (3:00 for single, 4;42 for LP plus 1:15 for space intro - if that's considered part of the song)
Jet Airliner (3:33 for single, 4:25 for B0D) N.B. "Threshold" intro is on BOTH BoD and GH albums


All of the other times look to be identical to the album.

I couldn't find a track time for a 45 version of "Swingtown" - but I'm assuming the GH version was not specifically created for the GH album.

I can't speak for separate mixes - because I don't own any Steve Miller 45s or the Greatest Hits albums (the original or the Hoffman remaster).

I do think that most singles were justed edited for time during the mid-70s - not remixed - with many of them not
having either done...

During that era, I basically used to search out 45s for b-sides... and I was only aware of differences for some songs.

For example, I'm pretty sure the 45 for "Silly Love Songs" is missing a lot of the middle section that's on the album version
(the part where Paul, Linda, and Denny trade vocals). The album version never quite sounded right to me, but not enough
to send me out to buy the single. But I did buy every Macca 45 that had a non-album b-side on it. And there were PLENTY.
Including some 45s where BOTH sides were non-album.

Frampton's "Do You Feel Like We Do" probably did more to force people from top 40 singles radio to album oriented
FM radio than any one song. Kids in school used to just laugh when they heard the single edit on the radio - missing
many MINUTES from the LP version.


But going back to my original impression of the GH album, when it came out I had 36 Steve Miller tracks spread across three albums.

If I bought the 1974-78 collection, I was getting ZERO new tracks.

If I tossed my FLY LIKE AN EAGLE and BOOK OF DREAMS album into the trash, and replaced them with the GH 74-78 album, and kept the other 69 to 73 compilation, I would have had 23 songs spread across two LPs.

I thought I had the better deal, 36 songs spread across 3 LPs.

If I wanted the single versions for those four songs, I could have probably done it cheaper by just buying all four 45 rpm records. I have no clue if my 69 to 73 compilation has the single edit or the album version of "The Joker".

I'm pretty certain I bought the earlier 69 to 73 compilation cheap in a cut out bin at Sears.

 

The stated year is the year of the copyright of the recorded work. So, "The Joker" would be copyrighted in 1973, but the album comp would be whatever year it was copyrighted in. I don't know the story on why "The Joker" would have two copyright dates. All I know is that it charted in both years, but that should have no impact on copyright dates.

The were both played on hit radio out here. It happened sometimes that radio would play a Bubbling Under single, or an album cut thought to be released as a single. Many times a radio station would get a single that failed to gain traction, or one that was withdrawn by the label before it had a chance to climb the charts. Sometimes popular "B" sides are deemed popular or worthy to be included on greatest hits comps, too.

"Serenade" was issued as a single in 1977, but did not chart.

I find that the vast majority of Wiki entries originate in the U.K., so they will usually have that perspective. It would be nice to see more Americans add to, or create pages to add the American perspective.

Starting in the late 60s, we had a growing gulf between two music fans, the ones who listened to hit radio and bought singles, and those who listened to AOR and bought albums. The two camps can't seem to make peace.

I bought both 45s and albums. Why should it be one or the other?


I must say that this thread has taken on a whole new topic of discussion!

 

Here in the States, we were a little luckier regarding Beatles singles: Several of the American Lps of the early '60s had some single releases on them, mostly because Capitol decided that they could make a few extra bucks by dropping a few of the songs off the UK albums and combining those and a few singles to make up an "extra" album. The Beatles' Second Album and Something New come to mind immediately. I remember reading somewhere (perhaps this forum) that The Beatles intention was that anything released as a single wouldn't make the cut on an album, mostly because each Lp was supposed to be all new music. So, here in the US some of the singles ended up on the albums ("She Loves You" is on The Second Album, for example, but not on any UK release until Past Masters, IIRC.)

 

I know. Don't ask how I know!

 

Ummm...the commercial 45 was the exact same as the album. There was a promo 45 that contained an edit, but radio played the long version.

No, kids at my school didn't laugh. If you liked the album, you bought the album. If you didn't want the album, you bought the 45s or listened to the radio. Both co-existed nicely! There was never this war.

I was never a huge Steve Miller fan, so the greatest hits album served me just fine. And, I had the "Rockin' Me" 45 which had "Living In The USA" on the flip, so I was set.

 

I don't like how they make my other CDs sound bad.

 

Pretty sure Serenade was issued as a 45 in the US.I think with Steve Miller,it was more a case of editing a song for the single,rather than remixing it.

 

45s ALWAYS make CDs sound bad!