The worst remastered CD ever.....

Now from my last post you will note my disappointment at the quality of reissued or remastered CD’s issued by my favourite bands. With the arrival of the first of the New Order ‘collectors editions’ I have found a new low in quality. 

Having placed my bonus disc into my rather expensive Marantz CD player I immediately removed it and checked it for dust and dirt. I ripped the CD into my computer at a high bit rate and assumed the pops and crackles were due to a poor rip. I tried every CD player I had and the result was the same. To make matters worse, the original album sounds little different to the original CD I own. Before I wrapped the faulty CD up to return to sender, I decided to check the last bastion of specialist knowledge: the official website forum. 

Here you will find many heated debates raging around the subject. I could not help but raise a smile as member after member threw their hat in the ring with lost tempers and childish antics abound. It reminded me of when my favourite group the Pet Shop Boys reissued their back catalogue. The rants we fans entered into were ferocious enough to be commented upon by Neil Tennant in a radio documentary, much to our equal delight and shame. But at least the Pet Shop Boys reissues were consistent and sourced from the master recordings. The New Order collectors editions are poorly mastered, include poor vinyl transfers and even feature the same track on more than one of the bonus CD’s! They are a shambles from start to finish and I have since cancelled my orders for the remaining four albums. I cannot condemn them highly enough. Avoid at any price.

Sell me it again Sam

Having recently purchased the ‘remastered’ versions of Blancmange’s three albums and with New Order’s ‘collectors’ editions in the post, I have begun to consider why I’m buying music I already own. 

In recent years, I have purchased numerous ‘remastered’ CD’s including the entire back catalogue of Depeche Mode, Eurythmics, Pet Shop Boys and Yello, along with various reissued versions of albums by Front 242, Level 42, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark and Gary Numan. These are the CD’s that immediately come to mind, I am sure if I thought further there would be many more. The amount of money I have spent is quite staggering and yet I already own much of the music I am buying; I am being sold the same thing twice. So why am I a sucker for reissued albums and singles? 

Well firstly, there is the lure of previously unreleased material or remixes that are otherwise difficult to acquire. Secondly, these CD’s boast that they offer considerably enhanced audio quality. We are also enticed by new or improved artwork, which provides a feeling of luxury or elitism. 

Yet the reality is not always the experience we are promised. On purchasing a new ‘remastered’ CD, I often find myself immediately jumping to the bonus tracks. Often it becomes apparent why this ‘unreleased’ material was not made available originally: its crap. I have even come across CD’s where the master tape is obviously missing and thus a recording has been made from a vinyl source. Hardly the high fidelity experience you are enticed with. 

Similarly, 99% of reissued CD’s seem to have been created by people unfamiliar with the artists work or just plain incompetent. Often you will find that tracks have substituted for their ‘single mix’ or an uncredited alternate version with absolutely no explanation. Remixes are often labelled incorrectly, glaring omissions are made or the running order has been altered. Not one of the reissued CD’s I have purchased have been immune from one, or more of these mistakes. So record companies take note: if you want people to buy even more of the music they already own, get someone competent to compile it.

Rock? You can keep it

I recently visited the house of a friend and I could not help but look at her CD collection. I was amazed that there seemed to be only about 20 CD’s. I find it very difficult to understand how someone of similar age to me could have only accumulated 20 albums they feel are worth purchasing. You see to me, music is important, very important. That is not to say I like all music, in the words of Chris Lowe, “I don’t like much, but what I do like, I love passionately.”

I have never related to the conventional rock band set up. The notion of music created entirely with drums, guitar and bass seems something of an anathema to me. If you use the same instruments, you end up sounding the same as everyone else. I have absolutely no love for bland conventional ‘rock’ music. It is the world of electronic music where I find the only music I have truly loved.

I have no idea why this is. Maybe it is because I reached my teenage years during the 1980’s when electronic music was the new fashion. Maybe it was a reaction to the world of opera and classical music my father worked in. I am sure that a large part of my musical taste was formed by a hatred of musical and artistic convention and trends. I took great pride recently when a friend sent me a message via my Facebook page to say she had only heard of one artist on my list of most played songs gleaned from my mp3 player. I enjoy the fact that hardly anyone knows groups I like such as VNV Nation, Front 242, Front line Assembly, Apoptygma Berzerk, And One or No-Man. The less people know about these groups, the richer those of us who uncover them feel.

The only draw back to enjoying music by less famous artists is actually finding it. Try walking into HMV and asking for a Wolfsheim album. “We can order it, but it’ll take a month to arrive”. At the end of the month, they tell you they cannot get it after all. Happily, this also adds to the experience for me. Finally acquiring an obscure and rare CD is fulfilling in both the music it provides but also knowing you are amongst a select few who own it.

Therefore, you can say music taste is ‘sad’ until you are blue in the face, but I could not care less. You see I believe the music we like is the soundtrack to our lives. The music we like is determined by what happens in our lives. I have a friend who quite likes Elvis. It is not because he appreciates his voice particularly but because his Dad always played Elvis in the car when he was a child. This music became part of his life and thus he shares an affinity with it. Certain songs can not only remind us of a time in our lives but also bring back the feelings and emotions we felt at the time. Therefore, when you insult my music taste, you insult the life I have experienced and not necessarily me as a person. I thus find it had to fathom how someone in their 30’s has only 20 or so CD’s, but then not all of us want to be reminded of what has happened during our lives.

I have since discovered this research into the link between musical taste and personality. Interesting stuff.

Pet Shop Synthesis

2021 Revision 

Pet Shop Synthesis is by far my most popular blog post and still seems to be providing people with enjoyment 13 years after I wrote it. However, a lot has changed since 2008, and whilst the majority of the text remains valid, there are a few inaccuracies and quirks of formatting that left the article looking a bit tired. Thus, I have revised the text and tried to bring it a bit more up to date. It's still not perfect, but I will endeavour to iterate and tweak it to keep improving.

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My obsession with the Fairlight

For me it all began in 1988. The Fairlight CMI music computer became something of an obsession. Ironically 1988 saw the demise of the company and the end of one of the most influential pieces of music technology. But the 1980’s were about only one instrument for me and its effect lingers to this day. 

The Pet Shop Boys album ‘Actually’ was one of my favourites in the 1980’s. As with many records around this time, ‘Actually’ included a credit to the ‘Fairlight programmer’. Much of the music I listened too seemed to use the Fairlight and as a budding electronic musician I had to know more about it.

In the days before the internet the only source of information on such obscure topics as music synthesizers were books. I first saw a picture of the Fairlight CMIIx in a biography of my musical hero Jean-Michel Jarre [see right]. Jarre sits poised with his light pen ready to edit waveforms with his modular Moog 55 behind him. Forget the pink jump suit.

Gradually I began to recognise the distinctive sound of the Fairlight everywhere. I also learned just how expensive it was and realised such a thing would only ever be a dream for me. I wanted one very badly for many years.

Yet as music and technology moved on in the early 90’s, the Fairlight was discarded. To be honest I moved on too as the new dance scene took over with its Akai S1000 beats and Korg M1 piano riffs. 

In my nostalgic middle age, I find myself listening to the songs of my youth and the yearning for the Fairlight CMI is rekindled. Recently I acquired many of the original CMIIx samples to use in my software sampler and was amazed at how terrible they are. The poor quality of the 8-bit samples gave me an even deeper admiration for the artists who used this synthesizer to make such polished and beautiful music from such a low quality source. I have no doubt that as this blog continues the Fairlight will crop up many times.