Bob Dylan & Bruce Springsteen...

In this day of catalog overhauls, why hasn't Sony redone the Dylan & Springsteen catalogs? Oh sure, you can get Dylan's Greatest Hits 1 & 2 remastered, but the classic albums stand alone(except, of course for Steve's Highway 61 and the supposed "Master Disc" of Blonde On Blonde, which did NOT sound all that great). Why haven't these artists been given their proper due? Why are the crappy '80's Columbia discs still on the market?

 

I think Columbia wants to, but Dylan is holding things up, supposedly because he's got big plans (like writing new liner/booklet notes, etc.) and it's taking him a long time to do all of it. As for Springsteen, I'm not sure what's going on. Bob Ludwig once told me he's mastered/remastered the entire catalog over the last couple of years, but little has surfaced (outside of "Greatest Hits," the Mastersound CD, etc.)

 

If I'm not mistaken, both Dylan & Springsteen have some control over their back catalogs. Dylan & his people are currently licensing rights to Sundazed for vinyl reissues. Dylan & Springsteen both continue to release LP versions of their new albums. In the case of Miles Davis and Simon & Garfunkel, Sony seems to be reissuing everything from the Columbia vaults. Maybe Dylan & Springsteen are adopting the Neil Young approach and waiting to see how the higher resolution digital formats take hold. After all, Sony now seems to be devoting most of their attention to SACD reissues.

 

Dylan did allow "Street Legal" to be remixed and remastered, and it's amazing. Really needed it, and I guess that one was bugging him. Too bad, more of his albums' current sound quality isn't buggin' him.
If Dylan decided to let 3 more of his albums to be remixed and/or remastered: which three would you pick?
(in order of priority)
Desire
Blood On The Tracks
and tough choice...I love "Nashville Skyline", but I guess the nod would have to go with...
Blonde On Blonde

James

 

I asked Bob Irwin about the Springsteen catalog last year and he said that Springsteen wouldn't let Sony overhaul his catalog. Go figure.

As for Dylan, there have been endless rumours about a remastered catalog, although aside from remastered Greatest Hits, Biography and remixed & remastered Street Legal, nothing has surfaced -- on CD at least (the Sundazed vinyl released have already been mentioned in another post).

 

Just bought Dylan's Another Side Of. Another amazing effort on the part of Sundazed. Get them all.

 

Bob Dylan did not stop the remaster, expanded reissue of Freewheeln and Blood on the Tracks. He started writting notes for the project and he decided to expand that into a book. The release of any new materal is on hold until his little boy releases his band's next album in September and until the book is released soon thereafter. At least that was the plan last week. LOL. I have been working on some people in management to reissue all of Bob's early mono/stereo stuff on a hybrid SACD format with both mono and stereo mixes. I'm not suggesting that anyone hold their breath.

 

Yeah, when I was at HE2002, I lobbied Bob Irwin on that very same point. I noted how ridiculous it was that the SACD of Blonde on Blonde did not include both the original mono mix and the stereo remix of the album. If an SACD can hold both a stereo and multichannel mix, then obviously there's plenty of room to accomodate a stereo and mono mix.

Of course, Nashville Skyline, Desire and (I think) Planet Waves were released in quad, so hopefully by the time they get around to releasing those titles on SACD, they'll include a 4.0 mix. But I think it's a no brainer that all of the titles up through and including Blonde on Blonde should include both the mono and stereo mixes. (Although a mono LP of John Wesley Harding was released, it is a fold-down of the stereo mix.)

 

All I can tell you is that there are some very big Bob fans at Sony Music and they are also big SACD fans. If you don't see any more SACD releases it is not because Sony Music is against the idea. I guess the issue of double royalties for including mono and stereo mixes would have to be worked out. Does Steve Hoffman have any insite into this issue?

 

I thought that in the US, royalties were paid out once per song per album, regardless of how many times the song appears on that album. At least, I remember reading something along those lines regarding the Beach Boys box set. If I remember correctly, the comment was that they were able to keep the list price of the box down, because the fifth disc contained all alternate versions of songs that had already appeared elsewhere on the box, thus it did not add to the cost of royalties.

 

I can't see how a mono/stereo SACD would be any more expensive, from a royalties standpoint, than a stereo/multi SACD. And considering the cost of creating a new 5.1 mix, a mono/stereo SACD would certainly be cheaper to produce than a stereo/multi SACD.

 

Agreed. Surprisingly good.

Most absolutely, definitely. But I'd reverse the priority.

I have that on SACD. Not required in my book.

Regards,
Metralla

 

Well, since I have Steve's Highway 61...

Blood on the Tracks
Blonde on Blonde
Freewheelin' Bob Dylan

Bringing It All Back Home is close on Freewheelin's tail, but the Blood and Blonde are certainly my top two...

Shalom, y'all!

L. Bangs

 

I never did replace all of my old Springsteen vinyl with CD's, but some of the older CD's sound fine to me. "The Wild and The Innocent" sounds like a pretty flat transfer, and I always liked the murky mix of "Darkness" (apparently I'm in the minority on that one). I have the Gold "Born to Run", no revelation there, but it sounds like it should. I guess that's the bottom line with all 3 of those discs - they sound like they should. I fear an attempt to modernize the sound (y'know - boost the high end and compress the **** out of it) will Ruin it. I think the mixes on these albums really never had "hi-fidelity" in mind.

The River on CD is an absolute mess, and Born in the USA has always sounded a tad bright to me. I guess some improvement can be made on those 2, but I fear the River will require some SERIOUS work, and BITUSA woud benefit from a "less is more approach" that isn't in many engineer's toolboxes these days. I don't spin "Lucky Town", "Human Touch" and "Tracks" too often, so I wouldn't spring for a remaster anyway. I still rely on vinyl for the rest of it, and don't really have any complaints. I wonder if they gave his catalog the "overhaul" we would all start seeking out the original CD's? Just some food for thought.

 

You go for the Phil Spector sound, you can't be thinking of hi-fi.

The Nebraska CD sounds alright, too, obviously never meant to be hi-fi either.

If the remastering ends up sounding like Greatest Hits, we should be okay, I think.

 

I wonder if the new one used DSD... Why not give us a dual layer hybrid so we could hear him on redbook & SACD?

If it turned out right, maybe Springsteen would be encouraged to get into some previous material.

 

Bob and Bruce no longer wander into a Columbia Records recording studeo to record. They are essentially independent and merely hand over the finished product produce the CD's. Sony Music does the CD mastering. Some of Bruce's stuff is scheduled for single layer SACD release in the next few months. Sony Music does not issue any material on hybrid disk. I can only speculate as to why that is.

 

For his new album, "The Rising", Springsteen reportedly wanted to change his sound a little bit so he recorded it with producer Brendan O'Brien at Southern Tracks Studio in Atlanta. If I'm not mistaken, his new album, as well as some of his most recent work has been mastered by Bob Ludwig at Gateway Mastering in Maine.