Re: How should the legacy be preserved ?
Date: October 13, 2007 06:34
whatever legacy they have, or have had, or will continue to have comes down to the simple project output. Lots of times big compilations and projects like that are taking pristine perfectly produced and mastered stuff and "re-mastering" begins; already a step away from the classic product that the guyz said "Yes" to, before they accepted it as a take for inclusion on an album.
I personally think the best way to go about your quest is to just simply get each and every studio album, starting right with the first one...the best possible of whatever everybody here thinks (there's probably close to a consensus of sorts) are the best available versions of the london stuff (at least that's what the label said in the states)...
i mean they done did it!! everything sequenced, performed brilliantly and with great spirit; not a klinker in their entire catalog those first ten, fifteen years as a recording band. great art, great music, great albums, one after another...
i may like certain songs more than others of course, but as "albums" there was not a klinker or a weak one, with the possible exception of parts of satanic majesties, tho i sorta like the weirdness of that one more and more with time...
...
not one klinker from 'england's newest hitmakers' up to late seventies, earliest 80....imo. and that's a premiere legacy beyond belief almost.
to make even one great rock album is a miracle...they made two great ones a year for a long time...
my only other friendly suggestion, meant as humor not as a slam, would be to get rid of steel wheels, babyon, all that tripe and get with 'aftermath' and 'flowers' haa....seriously...(tho i'm a big VL fan personally)...
around and around blows me away still...
...cynic tho i may be at times, i think talking about the legacy being "preserved" is slightly shaky ground, as it seems like most of the most popular and proliferate hardware/software models for modern listening and contemporary music fans, is not on the best fidelity anyway; nor designed to be; it's designed around size and fashion, not great stereo fidelity and warmth...it's almost like that's (THE SOUND) the last concern amidst all the geekery and touting NEWLY REMASTERED! on products...
so that legacy is a fragile thing. you're a bit younger than me, and i must say i feel really bad about that beatles #1 album doing so hugely well a few Christmas' ago...because that re-mastered stuff sounds like pure weird crap compared to even the MONO original albums...the panning is wacked; the high mids cut through sterile and cold; so those who have been dying to hear Huge sterile tambourine as a lead instrument, well, there ya go...and for some people they have to get this crap, only because of when they were born and what became available and promoted...it sold so well; it was some of their best material and performances and it was just unlistenable tripe for me...literally...garbage...
i bought one for a gift for my friend's daughter and have had to buy her two Capitol four cd packages of early stuff as amends...
it was really bothering me she's be listening fresh as a young person about to go to college, anot having grown up with much of it and really now having open ears and heart...and she'd have that crappy stuff instead of the real stuff...
believe me some 'legacy' minded re-mastering geek really wants to turn their whole catalog into that same cheesy, highly trebelized, adenoidal, again lead tambourine sterile sound of jagger on that credit card commercial 'i'm free'
(the apex of cynical irony and sellout that little move, but no biggie...they are what they are not what they were or what they might yet be.
i liked the rice kripy commercial but they weren't letting techno joe screw up the furor with that one...
i've somewhere heard a version of tioms that was a similar trainwreck...
legacy should be preserved by keeping those ARTIST APPROVED stereo and mono masters AT THE TIME and not let anybody tweak on 'em too much, if at all.
so if there legacy or let's say, catalog, gets the "NEW IMPROVED" treatment and/or package...well, i'd be real suspicious...
imo only very rarely do they get this kind of stuff right...stick with the albums as released is my feeling...such an amazing legacy right there. eternal.
or just play beggars over and over...beyond legacy into the mystic and much gratitude..or let it bleed...or exiles...or between the buttons, or 12 X 5, or that great Out of Our Heads. speaking of which...
they could put out a live album from the '72/73 tour; that's a huge part of their own legacy they've ignored commercially; i sometimes think i have better boots than they have actual releases these last many years...