A dazzling week

The week I think was characterized by the heroic activities of the emergency services fighting to prevent the town of Whalley Bridge, Derbyshire from being wiped off the map by flood waters, not that some places near here faced risks in individual areas.

Here, we saw an influx of various Butterflies, such as about seven on one bunch of lilacs locally when I was out walking earlier on in the week and it has kept up like that to the point I counted a good number only last night in our front garden.
The combination of warm and rain has also lead to the blackberry bushes here growing to the point they are intruding on the pavements, well covered in fruit.

I have been remaking a couple of Mp3 albums I originally downloaded in late 2012 from various 'hush hush' sites which didn't sound so good while listening to my collection of OMD albums on my personal digital music player.
Dazzle Ships wasn't well received upon release in April 1983 as it mixed use of sound effects such as radio identification tunes and had rather less vocal harmonies than its predecessor and featured the single Genetic Engineering.
 

Alpha by Asia is now on SACD

Followers of the other blog tm will be aware I actually won't be around when I normally post but away on one of my middle/little weekends away so as I'll be through the door at about Twenty past Seven tomorrow morning which is why the post is today.
That's so I can get the links posted out.
In the past I have written a bit on both blogs about speciality remastered editions of albums and today I will return to an artist I last wrote about here on June 16 2010 which is a mighty long time ago and before we worked through what this blog was about.
Asia, the group were a supergroup formed musicians associated with deeply unpopular at the time progressive rock bands of the nineteen-seventies and comprised of Carl Palmer of Emerson Lake and Palmer, John Wetton from King Crimson, Steve Howe and Geoff Downes from Yes.
In 1982 they issued the album Asia yielding hit 45's in the form of Only Time Will Tell and Heat Of The Moment that was re-issued on 24 Gold cd in 2010 and reviewed here: Asia 24kt AF Gold cd

After touring to great acclaim with Asia, the band booked time in the studio to record the follow up Alpha which was released as I well recall in July of 1983 with the lead off 45 being the opening cut, Don't Cry with non album b side Daylight making the US Billboard top ten.

Single and album art was by Roger Dean.
A second 45 was issued The Smile Has Left Your Eye but while the album sold well, it didn't sell nearly as well as the debut did plus in some circles the highly produced heavily synthesizer lead production garnered criticism. The repercussion of all of this was John Wetton was edged out of the group.
Personally I put more score on the reverb heavy production which even on the lp version I bought cut using the true master tapes and pressed in the Netherlands was for the time loud and unrelenting. As well while the first lp side wasn't as immediately grabbing the quality of the songs is certainly quite high not least in My Own Time (I'll Do What I Want)
The original cd issues of this were no where near as satisfactory as the lp where the remastered version sandwiched with bonus tracks on Anthologia - the 20th anniversary Geffen Years compilation  were even louder!
On September 15th 2017, Audio Fidelity issued a sacd also playable on regular cd remastered version mastered by Kevin Gray which while not perfect (only remixing it could cure some of the issues) offers better bass extension and improved dynamics.
In my opinion at last we have a listenable version for regular and super audio cd players of this ignored album.  

Simple Minds Glittering Prize revisited

While the political business is being worked through which I'll post about next week, I thought I'd post about an album I recently rebought.

Simple Mind's Glittering Prize 81/92 album is a compilation originally released in 1992 that only covers the commercially successful period from 1981's Love Song to 1991's Real Life album.
I did buy this on tape but the tape became worn plus I needed to make a copy for my portable digital music players.
While other more complete double compilations exist, the strength of this is that it hasn't been made artificially louder than it needs to be which is common problem on newer compilations and as the 1985 45 Don't You (Forget About Me) which was featured in The Breakfast Club movie and originally slated for Billy Idol to sing is on her in really good quality.
This is as well as the track was not issued on 1985's Once Upon a Time album sandwiched between such hits as Promised You a Miracle, Up On the Catwalk, Alive and Kicking and Belfast Child.

Digital copying 
I use dbPoweramp a paid for program from Illustrate as it is very effective, has a wide variety of databases to add song titles etc and is easy to correct any odd mistakes that may creep in before making your digital file.
File formats:
If you have a device that will play lossless files, I'd recommend using Flac as it will give you full cd quality with nothing removed.
If what you are using that doesn't do or isn't intended for super critical listening on high quality headphones, using so-called lossy encoder will make a small file that will sound 'good enough'.
I have gone back and forth between the Mp3 and Aac lossy file formats and feel on balance a Mp3 file made at 320 kbps using the LAME encoder is the best option providing high quality and universal compatibility. 
I find the Aac files I've created myself either in iTunes which isn't a good 'ripper' by the way or using the fdkaac Aac encoder in dbPoweramp tend to squash the soundstage leaving it flatter and less involving compared to the same disc ripped in the LAME mp3 encoder at 320. Louder passages tend to sound bleached for want of a better expression.

R.I.P David Bowie (1947-2016)

Like most of you I woke up, Monday (1/11/2016) around a quarter of Seven to the shock news that David Bowie had dead at the age of Sixty-Nine something the shocking for Blackstar, his last album had only been released Friday to glowing reviews. 

I'm feeling rather numb even now about this but in looking at his achievements, the first thing I would say is he seldom if ever repeated himself, sometimes to a fault, always reinventing himself and working with new ideas and exploring whole different genres.
His catalogue could never be described as being in anyway samey, indeed you find some fans have one period they major on although perhaps basic I have a more wider interest in music and music-making I'm not in that camp.
He broke new ground in the topics he sang and wrote about, brought new sounds to the mainstreams ears...and moved on to the next.
I could never just pick a half dozen of his albums although Hunky Dory, Aladdin Sane, Diamond Dogs Station to Station and Scary Monsters sure would feature.
The other area I'd say was outside of music, he was a proper actor who did star in three films not least The Man Who Fell To Earth and in several stage productions, did understand the importance of creating personas, costumes and staging  which in conjunction with the use of music videos which he was a pioneer of, provided the total package. It's quite probable that the American Hard Rockers Kiss were influence by aspects of his work, the story telling and that total package from Hunky Dory and Ziggy era.
The other area was in being open about his sexuality, exploring gender presentation together with  Lou Reed and to an extent Elton John collectively they opened up a conversation around what it means to have a sexual and gender identity, how we express it and how that differs for all of us. 
For anyone who was Lgbtqi in the 70's and 80's you don't need me to say just how being himself, David give us space and aided the greater toleration of difference. We owe him that regardless of our music tastes and I suspect for a good number of the depth of feeling we have in mourning him is influenced by that, it has a personal quality to it.
He also to his credit took on MTV in its lack of music of black origin in it's early days and even of the faces of People of Colour from its programming and got that changed.
Rest in Peace David.

Hold on tight

The Electric Light Orchestra and I go back in time buying the 45's back in the day and later on getting a good number of their albums on cd.
Like with a number of other artists, recently their has been an attempt to bypass some of restrictions of conventional cds, a technology that goes back the late 1970's by issuing in higher resolution 24 bit downloads and I obtained a number recently.
When it comes to compilations there's been a good number starting from 1979's Greatest Hits that in some ways is remains the perfect summary of the 1973-77 singles and double or even triple cd sets.
The one I remember getting in 1997 was Light Years a mid price British double which was jam packed full of material including edits, in no particular order and suffered from being too consistently loud and bright so I relented and got the original Greatest Hits album on a cheap cd.

That did leave missing a selection of the later hits as most miss off anything from the  Zanadu soundtrack that gave us three hit singles and to which the title song had been re-recoded in 1991 for the Flashback cd  box set that was criticized for it's sound quality and chopping off the very start and ends of a number of tracks.
The one pictured above most would consider the best of the bunch having most of the essential tracks including the very early tracks and was very well mastered by Vic Ansini in 1995 who did excellent work on a number of Columbia projects like the Simon & Garfunkel remasters.

It was only issued in North America and recently I've ordered a copy to fill those gaps and having the European Zanadu soundtrack, the missing tracks from it aren't so much of an issue with me.

Kim Wilde Part II

Following on from last weeks entry, one bugbear for many cd based fans is that her first three albums have only had sporadic available in cd form and the last set of individual remasters done by Cherry Pop severely reduced the contrast between the softest and loudest sounds and many of bonus tracks were sourced from less than clean records.

I had bought the first album as early as 1990 on cd issue but it took ages to track down a copy of 1982's Select and when I did it was the German edition with what looked like a photocopied front insert inaccurately cut out.
In late December of 2014 as part of Warner Bros acquisition of the Parlophone catalogue of EMI, they embarked on operations to monetize it and added a series of Three cd boxed editions from the catalogue and Kim's original Rak albums featured in it entitled The Triple Album Collection.
I was interested to hear how they would sound as they had been last mastered around 2009 for EMI but only issued as downloads, the cd rights going to Cherry Red who did there own.
Actually have just gotten them they are good and it is a real pity they have just two sided card covers.
Catch as Catch Can sounded much smoother and less harsh with better dynamics on this edition compared to the Cherry Red disc of 2009 and further testing of the other two should they while sounding slightly different  to my original cd issues, did sound very close indeed with the small high frequency drop on Ego on the Select album being corrected keeping much of the original dynamics.
While this set lacks any bonus tracks such as b sides and singles versions, I feel this is really good value for money being available for around GBP £10 from Amazon Marketplace sellers.
The quality is very good indeed.

Kim Wilde

I'm getting this post done like now cos I'm gonna very busy in the next few days with things that are of greater importance to me to do.
Of the many female vocalists that I grew up, none was better timed that that of the rise of Hertfordshire, Englands, Kim Wilde whose career I followed in magazines, tv shows and on record that in time gave way to newer formats.
By around the late 80's some of her recordings from the early 80's had come out on cd, firstly with that most useful set of 45 mixes The Very Best of issued on vinyl in 1984 and gaining it's cd debut in late 1987 that included Boys that wasn't on her first album.
By 1989 the first two had come out but most places didn't stock 1982's Select but carried her 1981 debut "Kim Wilde" that contained the hit 45 that started it off, Kids In America which I bought on sight being very impressed by how it sounded although the system I had wasn't as good as my current ones but it took more years and persistence to track down a German copy of Select on cd for View From a Bridge, Take Me Tonight  and Cambodia.
I bought the 2009 Cherry Red re-issue of Catch as catch Can which remains elusive and extremely expensive in it's 1990 EMI Fame issue.
The 1984 through 1992 era on MCA was easier as I bought these during the mid 80's in the UK although one went sticky on the top layer but plays fine, 1986's Another Step in it's 1987 second issue with bonus tracks and a different cover.

To me that's the album and I also saw the lp version with a bonus 12" packed in with it at the time and even bought the 80's tastic VHS stereo video album which is 'hot' at 15 certificate rated!
1988's Close was never off my cd player and copy on Maxell's XLII type II tape lived in my Aiwa auto reverse portable tape player while on the move.
That album contained Hey Mr Heartache, You Came and the smash hit Never Trust a Stranger.
That cd also became sticky but wouldn't play right so after several years my UK Nimbus pressed copy got replaced by a Japanese one which did play but sounded thin.
During the last week I've been transferring her albums to micro sd card to play on the Fiio so took a chance getting a used European MCA copy.

This sound pretty much like my Nimbus UK pressed copy with the tight deep bass and depth in the sound I so missed minus the sticky top coating so it's that version that's now on sd card.
For £1.59 including mailing, it's the cheapest upgrade I've experienced in eons!

What a feeling!

Okay, so I'm a little late with posting this week but given how long it's bin since I first set my eyes on this it don't matter.
Summer '83 for me is wrapped up with seeing Flashdance, the movie several times and an infatuation with the songs featured.
I've had this 12 single since it first came out but there's a pressing fault actually several such as  being off centre, a pressed mark at the end of the track and so on.

Finally I've gotten a replacement copy!
In my opinion this was one of last truly great 12" remixes  totally transforming the song.

That was the original Chromedioxide pre-recorded tape of the soundtrack album I bought back then that sounded pretty amazing for a tape back then that by the late 80's had gotten worn out so I bought the cd version that remains one of the best sounding early cds.

You are in my system

Well, after last weeks shocking revelations regarding his recently remastered cds,  I decided to pick up this compilation originally issued in 1989 that takes in his work from 1978 to 1988 covering much of the period of his music I liked at the time.
Best of all it only set me back a penny!
Apart from his solo work, this does cover one song from his work with that side project of Duran Duran during 1985, Some Like It Hot as performed by Powerstation.
As sound goes it's a pretty decent compilation and in 1990 a follow up volume was issued giving you a nice rounded view into this British soul performer.
Also coming soon is Shaking The Tree, the 1989 Peter Gabriel compilation featuring such smashing songs as Biko, Salisbury Hill, Shock The Monkey and Sledgehammer.

We have it taped!

How we stored music certainly has changed over the decades and this came back to me a few days ago
When I was little to store music you used a machine using magnetic tape and back then it was on reels of different sizes as well as lengths and the very first machine I had was a small portable recorder that took up to 3 and a quarter inch reels which were popular for taking out in the summer or sending voice recordings thru the mail with. Radio Shack did the tapes with mailers too.
It wasn't long though that I wanted something capable of better sound using a faster speed and necessitating larger reels so I acquired this:

Made by Tandberg of Norway, it was a part tube, part solid-state stereo recorder with a built in speaker for portable use that took the larger 7 inch reels.
For music I generally used the 19.1 cms (7 1/2 inches per second) speed setting for quality and as was my want this was a 'twin track' machine using just two tracks to record in stereo meaning you only could record on one side of the tape just like professional machines in studios do.
For the technically minded it gave you less noise, less bleedover between the tracks and critically made editing using a splicing block complete with splicing tape easy as you'd cut at 90 degrees without affecting anything else on the tape.
You set the record level using the ganged control of the  far left toward the front checking with the 'magic eye' indicators above the 'Stereo' logo they were not distorting.
I recorded radio concerts getting otherwise not on album performances as well as putting my favourite lps on tape to help preserve them from wear and damage by either two or four pawed life forms. I was using this until February 1997 when because of my severe disabilities, I was no longer able to use it and bought a digital MiniDisc recorder. 
Back then it was fairly easy to get tape and typically I paid around £5.99 for a 2,400 ft reel of Maxell UD that gave me an hours recording time at 7 1/2 I.P.S. in stereo where as today Maxell no longer make reels of tape and the limited numbers of people that do only supply the professional users such as studios charging over £20 per reel.

Segregated education

I'm not feeling that brilliant today to be honest but I felt like talking just a little around education policy today.
Education in the UK is something of a hodge podge between ownership (private, independent and local authority), structures (age ranges, selective or comprehensive admissions), specialisms (arts, IT, sport etc) and so on thanks to considerable parental choice and alternating national and local government ideologies support by pet theories.
One point of considerable and sometimes very bitter controversy is about how children with disabilities should be taught and with many things often their are agendas.
For a long period, certainly going back to the Victorian era in so much that education in general was considered back then if a child didn't fit in well with the school system then it either wasn't educated and maybe placed in some institution or send to a  'special school' such as schools for the blind to learn Braille and a skill.
Since 1945 a system of special schools was established in many authorities to cater for the needs of different groups of disabled people such as those with physical disabilities (70's no longer approved term Physically handicapped), what was then classed as Educational Subnormal (aka a 70's term 'mentally handicapped') and a loose category for what is termed emotional and behavioural needs that from the outset didn't exactly co-relate to prevailing definitions used by medical authorities and other arms of government.
In the 1970's increasingly the model of separate provision was questioned as for the most part the need for special schools for physical disabilities often had more to do   inaccessible buildings,  deliberate exclusion from any kind of pe never mind not in many instances being prepared and entered for regular national examinations in everyday school subjects.
Because you maybe lost a limbs function doesn't mean you lost your brain!
Equally it could be argued that differences in intelligence span are part of the human condition and that comprehensive intakes were supposed to take account of.
Not unsurprisingly the combination of opponents to special provision and those who often saw the budgets including the transportation budgets as money that could be better spent meant many schools were either shut down or had their categories for admission altered.
One area of considerable discussion is around the handling of children who exhibit behavioural and emotional difficulties as increasingly reports came out suggesting that the trend toward integration with such children in mainstream schools was causing difficulties when it came to holding efficient classes with incidents breaking out and high levels of support by classroom assistants for such children.
Recently the National Autistic Society has got involved in projects to establish 'free schools' specifically for those with Autism and Aspberger's syndrome one of which will be a few miles away from me in currently redundant 1970's Elementary school building where unlike schools in the 60's thru late 1980's children will follow a standard school curriculum but with a lot of work around understanding and relating to everyday social skills and structures.
It may be step away from total integration but if it helps to realize the gifts those with Autism/Aspberger's have and better enable them to use them in the so-called 'normal' world to everyone's advantage then maybe taking a step back from a theory can be step forward.

No sound!

Just as the going was good with a couple of 24kt Gold Searchers cd reissues that were part of a series of two discs containing their first four UK albums remastered arriving here, disaster struck.
I went to put the disc in the player and it made a few noises , said "No Disc" and stopped. Cleaning the lens that reads the disc didn't do nothing so my I thought the laser unit has gone upon a brief check by a service man was proved correct plus a display board low voltage rail issue causing overheating and the display to take ages to come on.
You see, the last time I bought a cd player for my stereo - a set of Hifi separates - was apparently March 13th 2003 which is ten years and  two weeks ago and apart from a celebrate instance when the drawer you place your cd on jammed once, this £350 NAD player had performed extremely well on regular and HDCD encoded discs, for once sounding close to my record playing systems quality on a decent disc (a rare thing to find on mainstream releases today but that's a whole other issue).
It had been a fit and forget feature of my stereo not being subject to irritating software upgrades of the sort you find with computers and blu-ray players. You just powered up, shoved a disc in and pressed play.
In the mean time I plugged an ancient cd player I had since the middle of 1986 that although getting rather long in the tooth, sounds rather sweet in to spin discs with while I consider looking for either a nice sounding used player or taking some money out of my savings for a new one. I'm also experimenting with a co-axial digital lead between the digital output of a dvd player and the digital input of my MiniDisc recorder using that to convert the naught and ones to analogue sound.

The ethics of free downloading

Humble apologies here at Caroline's place  but I do feel a rant (not a grnat!) coming on today.
Every so often you'll find on most forums a set of individuals posting a series of highly pious comments on a topic that has not one hint of grey between the black and white rigidity of their take.
Take downloading for instance.
No one can dispute if you take something currently available for free, you are depriving the owners -the record company- and artists money potentially although you may well recall taping your friends albums and if you liked it, then you'd buy your own copy in the days of lps and tape recorders.
But when it gets more complex is when a recording (or version) isn't actually available new because if you bought a used cd then the label and artist still are not getting anything  from the sale  and if you downloaded it for free at that level regardless of what the law may in certain territories say, it's the same outcome. The only person who makes any money from selling a used cd is the vendor.
What then if there is no cd out of a title but someone has 'digitized' the old tape or lp version that is out of print. Is there anything wrong with downloading that to listen on your iPod or replace a unavailable new damaged copy?
I wouldn't encourage people to download for free everything but the picture isn't so clear cut especially as many labels sit on catalogues that they show on balance sheets as assets and yet only issue a tiny fraction of them yet they will take  a person to court alleging they lost $***** amount of sales from it! If you have to download for free something, please consider attending a show or buying authorized merchandise so you share some love with your favourite musics creator.

Nipper has lost his bark!

After last week, she said trying desperately not to come over all smug, it's finally happened, music retailing has moved from the high street.  Poor ol' Nipper.

Well okay, I know that's Birmingham Bull Ring, not Broad Street, but you know what I mean -our town and city centres - with the shock announcement late last night the national music and video retailer HMV was planning on going into administration following poor Christmas sales.
Sounds familiar,eh? And rather like with Jessops they also were being bankrolled by the suppliers who provided much of the January 25% off "Blue Cross" sales stock as did two state owned banks who to put things with my usually matter of factness, want their money back.
Some other similarities include high rents, failure to capitalize on online sales, poor in store stocks (I mean just seven studio albums by the Stones in the branch in a large city branch near me???), uncompetitive online store pricing (Amazon often cheaper).
HMV potentially could of gotten into downloading but after a brief messy store attempt, partnered up with 7Digital who run that for them which would be fine except 7Digital are a big brand in their own right so most would of gone straight to them.
As much as I feel for for all the staff I'm expecting nearly all the branches to go simply because it seems to me you can't run a big chain anymore because of the overheads and also your immediate best sellers, new albums, are stocked by both supermarkets such as ASDA and Tesco cheaply and the likes of Amazon for those who want cds but many more  prefer to download and these can obtained cheaply from the big three Amazon, iTunes and 7Digital.
You can do niche cd selling from a small side street location with an internet presence backed by a warehouse.
Hmv failed also to capitalize on the "Vinyl revival" by stocking few new and re-issue titles that many who like a physical album buy which was the tipping point for me becoming fed  up of having to order run of the mill cd titles only to return later at my expense to collect, getting an account at Amazon  ordering from them. I guess I wasn't alone in that!
I get the nostalgia many are feeling, remembering the first time I visited HMV Oxford Street London and the Manchester store still having those records and the many BritPop vinyl  titles on 7" and 12" lp I bought new that are most collectible.
I just feel by years end the high street will be that much the poorer.

Charred past

11 followers at Daytime Office Girl Crisis and only a tiny handful of you even know the history of this unique blog! It was underground for quite a period when I was avoiding places I felt rather uncomfortable at but now it's back out in the open.
If you clever people were wondering what this weeks title is referring to, unless you were on Mars, I'm talking about a major public scandal in the UK (that strange place that gave us English) that centres around the deceased disc jockey and tv presenter Sir Jimmy Saville who worked for a long time at a veritable UK institution, The BBC.
If you'd been in the UK for over 15 years, you'd of know of him presenting such shows as the pop music show Top of the Pops, radio shows like Saville's Time Travels, the Old record club, his past as a club MC in Leeds, Yorkshire and his charitable works and he did raise an awful lot for places like the  spinal injuries unit at Stoke Mandiville.
No one would dispute his achievements as an entertainer, indeed many of us us watched and listened to his shows.
There is no nice way to say this - and I wish I didn't have to - but he had another side a very hidden one from the public and it was he enjoyed having sex relations with children  15 or under something general morality aside, is against the law.
Some of these at least were clearly 'forced', they involved boys as well as girls, either on BBC property or in accommodation provided for his charitable work.
A good number were invited backstage from shows such as Jim'll fix it or Top of the Pops to his dressing room arguable with some knowledge from associates where they were abused; in others they were taken from Hospitals or Corrective Schools. It also has been said he attempted to interfere with some during the filmed dancing at Top of the Pops when he was on the show.
If this wasn't enough earlier this week I read a harrowing account of how even a niece at 13 and 15 of his was molested and abused.  I cried reading it.
I can't presume to speak for everyone that may be reading this blog, but there are a couple of things that come to mind of which the first is I feel a part of my past has been sullen not least for seeing people on a show and then finding out what happened later to them.
The other is why it was he was allowed unaccompanied access to minors to the point even of being given a key to one hospital that he kept with him. Thinking back as a 13 or 14 year old, at the time I'd loved to met my idols and gotten their autograph but you'd of expected someone to be over that person you were seeing not least for their own protection.
It also appears a number of people were aware of his 'interest' in minors but didn't act. Was this because he was viewed as too important to the BBC and various charities to tackle?

Don't Go

Frankly I'm dogtired, unwell and you might be feeling like say, get your %^* in bed young lady and take a rest but I'm not cos I'm a bit stubborn at times even though I'm not related to a donkey!
But anyway I'll be good and not spend so long on this!!!
The early 80's for those of us around at the time were a pretty amazing period to live through musically and one of the big things was the synthesizer what could make pretty much any sound you cared to program it and it was possible to for the frist time to remove the traditional structure of the rock band or backing group completely.
This freed up the options and one very popular synthesizer group option was the Duo examples of which are Soft Cell, the Pet Shop Boys and Erasure but that latter group had someone who came from a group that was famous for 15 minutes - well okay two years - before splitting up and getting together again a few years back.
That group was called Yaz or Yazoo if you're a Brit who came from Basildon, Essex with Vince Clarke being a previous member of the highly successful Depeche Mode with Alison Moyet who came from the same school.
They had two hit albums Upstairs at Eric's named after a nightclub they went to and You and Me Both and a number of hit 45's Don't Go, Only You, Nobody's Diary, The Inside of Love and Situation (at least in North America).

Recently Music Club Deluxe issued this double album with those hit 45's most of the bands two albums and some hard to find 12" mixes which I got as a pre-order for a fiver as I don't have any Yaz on cd.
Alison had a successful jazz/blues solo career with Columbia records issuing a compilation in 1995 while Vince had a quite a time of chartoppers Erasure with hits like Sometimes, Stop! and the Abbesque EP all featured on their 1992 compilation Pop! which isn't available to download so you'll need to get the cd and rip it for your music player! (Groans)

Rod The Mod

If you were around in the 70's you could not of escaped Rod Stewart, the UK singer-songwriter responsible for many of decades top selling records but where do you start if you're not a rabid fan of his given many compilations have been issued in the passing decades most of which had cd re-issues?
I did have the 2004 Changing Faces set but it was mastered rather loud and my copy wasn't playing to well for some reason so a while back I did some investigations on what to replace it with.
At the risk of sounding like a boring old fart, I feel his best solo material was recorded for Mercury between 1969 and 1974 taking in such gems as You Wear it Well, Gasoline Alley, Reason To Believe and unforgettably, Maggie Mae.
While some of these albums have been re-issued by specialty labels such as Audio Fidelity and Mobile Fidelity, these discs will be dear to track down regardless of sonic merit  so I'd suggest most would be better of getting new a 3 cd set called "Reason To Believe -The complete Mercury studio recordings " having all the albums and some bonus tracks in a single inexpensive set.

For an overview of his career from the mid 60's to 1990 I feel there's one which is a complete no-brainer  and that's "Storyteller" as it does just that telling the story of Rod's music career over 4 cds that originally came out in 1990 costing a small fortune.
It was recently repackaged but keeping the notes and can be got from Amazon UK for £7.99 shipped. Although a few tracks from the mid 60's were sourced from records, most of this set sounds really good.
I would put this now above "The Story So Far - the best of" a 2 cd set issued by Warners in the UK in 2003 as Storyteller has more 'classic' Rod while all The Story So Far adds is some remakes and less essential tracks he did with Helicopter Girl even though I bought "Story So Far" on release.

Finally, Rod was an essential part of the Faces who emerged from the Small Faces and you simply have to have a selection of their rootsy bar music that included tracks like Stay With Me and Cindy Incidentally. Although there's a new double cd set due out in October which I hope to get, One that can be got cheaply and is very good is The Best of the Faces (Good boys ...while they're asleep).

Currently available on Rhino and priced at £2.99 on Amazon UK you really cannot go wrong with this single cd retrospective..

Whisper in your ear!

This entry is having to be prepared in Notepad(tm) as throughout today my internet has been flipping itself off just at the moment when you've typed a well thought out comment and hit 'submit'.  Most frustrating.
Frustrating also is when HMRC decides to apply VAT on a item posted in the European Union  which realy isn't ment to happen however I feel they often make up the 'rules' as they go along.
Anyway to business and matters soulful.
In 2002 apart from the Shalamar reissues I once talked about Sanctuary who own the UK rights to the SOLAR back catalogue decided to start a complete Whispers reissue campaign which got me interested as someone who did like this soul groups music having bought both the 1994 30th Anniversary set and 1999's And The Beat Goes On 2 cd compilation albums.
For reasons that I honestly can't remember, this 8 cd series laid incomplete in my collection as I think I'd started at the end(!) probably because my original cd of 1987's Just Gets Better In Time had gone all sticky in the way many cds made by Nimbus in the UK during that period were prone to and I was thinking more about getting a  replacement.
In time I did get "The Whispers" famed for the smash hit And The Beat Goes On as well as My Girl coupled with 1987's seasonal album Happy Holidays and Imagination from 1981 with its smash It's A Love Thing coupled with This Kind Of Loving from the same year that suffered from the same fate as other albums on SOLAR at this period little promotion as the distribution deal was changing. A few years later I found the second disc in the series Bingo-The Janus Years which as the name suggests covered all the material recorded for Janus Records  a division of Chess featuring the Bingo album and a favourite song  by them of mine Mother For My Children from 1974 but that was it.
Recently I've finally get around to completing it aided by something I didn't have back then - Amazon - although quite a number of these discs are discontinued with single cds versions still available new from Unidisc of Canada.
The Whispers story on album begins around 1969/70 and the Soul clock label so I picked up 'Planets Of Life the Soul Clock recordings' because apart from that album you do get the other non album 45's which set the scene for the moved to Janus from 1972 through 1974. A word of warning the Canadian cd doesn't have the title track and the German is poorly copied from a lp with lots of filtering to hide crackles etc.
From Janus they moved in 1975 to Soul Train a label created by the people behind the legendary Soul Train black music tv show releasing One For The Money (also a 45) and Open Up Your Love from 1975 and 1976 respectively.
1979 saw the release of the acclaimed Headlights abum a favourite of mine a with it's singles (Olivia) Lost and Turned Out and the 'quiet storm' Lets Go All The Way which in this series is coupled Whisper In Your Ear featuring the single Can't Do Without Your Love. These were the first albums they issued on the SOLAR imprint.
Finally we get to 1981's Love Is where You Find It featuring In The Raw as well as Emergency, one of the first albums to have a uptempo dancing and slow romancing side configurations which for this series is coupled with 1983's Love Is Love released during a period of very rapid change in R&B  music as electro and rap was making its way into the mainstream.

Barracuda!

Another release by Audio Fidelity another internet battle of the wills as mastering engineer Steve Hoffman who worked on this title recently gets arrowed online.
Frankly as someone who who just loves music and wants to hear it as good as possible I get sick and tired of this posturing which is why I left one site as the only thing that I'm bothered about is 'is it good' and 'is it worth my money'.
There have been many compilations by Heart issued by Epic/Sony covering the 70's and early 1980's and Capitol covering the more commercially successful period from 1985 onward but many of these coincided with the "Loudness Wars" where every new issue sounded louder and more like a wall of noise.
This disc is a remastering of a compilation put out originally in 1998 that featured one new track Strong, Strong Wind and a great selection of 16 outstanding cuts for their Epic/Portrait and Mushroom Records albums from 1976's Little Queen to 1983's Passionworks. an album reissued a few years back by England's BGO label that we talked about here.
Because of my negative experiences of albums such as Capitol's These Dreams -The Greatest Hits that only lived on my shelf for short period for the 'too loud sound' before it met the garbage can, I passed on the original and picked up the "Essential Heart" which sounds good and covers both eras instead figuring this was an album I didn't need.
This remastered version does generally speaking sounds pretty good although there are a some differences in the average levels between tracks where Mr Hoffman decided to leave alone rather than level them up, maybe adding a touch of compression too. Each to their own.
Personally I prefer this approach as it keeps the difference between the softest and loudest passages in the track intact although you may want to turn up the volume a little on the odd track.
The strong point to the sound on this release is the midband which does really enhance your appreciation of the Wilson Sisters vocal talents. This is one cd that does justice to them working well as a introduction to those early recording. For the £10 plus shipping I paid I considered it good value.

Marillion

Yes pop pickers it's been a busy year and this overdue part of the vinyl project is complete.
You see I original had these albums initially as I bought them for my brother but only got around to buying one for myself namely Misplaced Childhood back in the day as I had them copied to tape. Needless to say tape isn't in my current stereo system so I had to put matters aright and as they were intended for lp at the time I bought the UK first issue lps.

Formed in Aylesbury, England in 1979 they are a progressive rock band -aka Prog Rock - and as such hark back to style of song writing which scans more like prose with strong imagery and complex musical arrangements.

Script For A Jester's Tear EM I EMC 3429: Issued in 1983 and home of He Knows You Know and Garden Party which were hit 45's this was the first album and sounded the most like 70's Genesis.After two attempts I get a clean copy as the first had mould/mildew problems that made it noisy to play!
Fugazi EMC 24 0085-1: issued in early 1984 this was one album that really made me pay attention to what this new band had to offer featuring the hits single Assassing.
Real To Real: Issued late 1984 this is a live album part recorded in Canada and part in the UK that did feature their first single Market Square Heroes that wasn't issued on album.It took two gos to find a decent clean copy of the first pressing
Misplaced Childhood EMI MRL2 (EJ24 0340-1): One of the best selling albums of 1985 featuring the singles Lavender and Kayleigh that remain popular to the present day. On lp it sound a lot better than the UK cd version I have.
Clutching At Straws EMI EMD 1002: Issued in 1987 the album that is very much about the touring life it was the last studio album to feature vocalist Fish and the home of the singles Incommunicado and Sugar Mice