This is the first of a series of posts where I offer my humble opinion about some reissued albums. The underlying question in these posts is – “Should I buy a copy of the reissue or would a vintage copy be better?”. From a collecting standpoint, reissues are tempting as they arrive in MINT condition and therefore surface noise is not an issue. And reissues are often much less expensive than buying the more desireable vintage copies of a record (first pressings in particular). Haven’t you set out to get a copy of a certain title and it’s clear that the first or even ANY early pressings are more money than you want to spend and thought- “maybe I should just buy a recent reissue”. I know I have and a lot of others out there have also as it’s a common topic thread on forums.
A recent example that comes to mind here is Pink Floyd’s Piper At The Gates of Dawn. You need to go to about the fifth pressing of this album (UK version) to get the price under $75 for a copy in decent condition. First pressings in decent shape will cost you $600 or more! I’m not sure yet where I personally draw the line on price for a single record, but I can say for sure that currently, that line falls well below $600.
Incidentally, see my post on Piper for tips on how to get a great sounding copy for a whole lot less than a first pressing (and even less than a reissue!).
While a reissue is in some ways a “budget” option for many titles, when you buy one and it doesn’t deliver on sound quality it’s annoying to have spent the money. Wouldn’t it be better to spend $75 or even $100 on one really good sounding copy of one great album than get 3 or 4 mediocre sounding reissues of various titles? After several disspointments, this is the conclusion I’m coming to and why I’ve started to make some very non-budget friendly choices lately with some purchases at Better Records.
Anyway, if you’ve read my post on Led Zeppelin 3 you already know this a great example of what I’m talking about here. I bought 5 copies of this title totaling around $170 before I found one that was listenable. Among those was the 2014 reissue which was probably the worst of the bunch! The best copy of the bunch, the early Canadian red label, was the one I spent the most money on, but this has not typically been the case with other titles. In fact I’ve found some great budget copies of records recently that I’m thrilled with and have rediscovered some from my collection that have also been very rewarding. So let’s start looking at a few titles and see if there are any that interest you.
A side benefit to record collecting for me has been discovering great artists. A year ago I had not even heard of The Pretty Things but as soon as I heard them I knew I had been missing out. The Pretty Things released their first album in 1965 when garage rock was standard fare among many UK bands including The Stones, The Who and Them. I love what the late Detroit music journalist Ben Edmonds has to say about these guys. Referring to what he calls the “bad cops” of the mid-sixties (Stones, Who vs. “good cops” – Beatles, Herman’s Hermits) Ben calls The Pretty Things “the baddest of them all.” I tend to agree. The Pretty Things have an edge to them that really stands out.
As the rock music lansdcape started to shift in the late sixties there was a move toward a more cerebral approach to songwriting. Ben puts it beautifully when he says “Rock & roll, which had always used the groin as its chief frame of reference, moved upstairs.” It was this trend that pushed bands to strive for more in their work and The Pretty Things responded with what some consider the very first rock concept album, S.F. Sorrow, released in 1968.
Over it’s forty odd minutes S.F. Sorrow tells the life story of one Sebastian F. Sorrow in songs that describe the significant events that carry Sorrow from birth to old age. It’s a fantastic journey and definitely one worth taking. Songs such as “She Say’s Good Morning” and “Baron Saturday” are standouts for me but the whole album is excellent and a worthy addition to any collection.
I can’t help but think of The Beatles’ Seargent Peppers when listening to S.F. Sorrow. Clearly it was an influence. S.F. was recorded at Abbey Road Studios where the band worked with EMI producer Norman “Hurricane” Smith. Smith had worked with The Beatles on some early recordings and had produced Pink Floyd’s Piper which also seems a strong influence. Along with house engineer Peter Mew The Pretty Things experimented with some of the latest sound technology for the time. This makes for a terrific listen as there are a lot of effects and flourishes that give the album a wild and engaging atmosphere that can really draw a listener in.
That is, it CAN draw a listener in, PROVIDED the album is reproduced well and therefore a reasonably good pressing of the record is important. I started with the Sundazed reissue from 2011 shown above. A selling point – it was fairly inexpensive to buy a brand new copy and the lacquers for this pressing were cut by Kevin Gray at Cohearent Audio who has a good reputation in the industry. Pressings of this version were done at Quality Record Pressings. The packaging is superb! The reproduction of the gatefold jacket is beautiful and the inner sleeve is the audiophile quality that comes with every record pressed at QRP. This version also has the lyrics printed inside the gatefold. These lyrics are bracketed by details of Sebastian Sorrow’s story. Everything about this record made me want to love it!
Only I did not love it. Once I started playing the record I just wasn’t getting into it and I wasn’t sure why. Meanwhile my forum research into pressings of S.F. Sorrow had exposed me to many mentions of another P. Things album called Parachutes. I decided to pick up a copy of this record and then ran accross a mention of an album released on 1976 called Real Pretty that included copies of both S.F. Sorrow and Parachutes. One forum member on S.H. Forums was very enthusiastic about the sound quality on this version and when I looked into it copies in great condition were pretty cheap so I picked one up.
Okay the cover art leaves a lot to be desired, but when I put on side one of Real Pretty (side 1 of S.F. Sorrow) I almost thought I was listening to a different album. Right away the vocals sounded much clearer and with more depth and presence and I found I could enjoy the voices of the individual singers singing the harmonies. This really contrasted to the Sundazed version on which the vocals seem overwhelmed by the effects being used during recording. Thus the vocals come accross as more a “vocal like sound” than the sound of recorded singing. That’s the best way I can describe it and the long and short of is it isn’t a good thing.
The sound of the instruments on the Sundazed suffer from a similar problem. There’s absolutely no depth to the sound of any of the instruments and the top end jumps out in front of the music without anything of substance to back it up. I don’t know much about the source material for either of these versions, but I’d venture to say the Sundazed was mastered from a dub. I’m sure Kevin did the best he could with what he had to work with but in my opinion the problem is with the source material and not the mastering.
Now in fairness the Sundazed is not the only option for a reissue of this album. There’s a German version on the Madfish label that is in print and that many folks on the S.H. Forums seem to like. I was trying to avoid a 180g version so I opted for the Sundazed and clearly that was a mistake. If you’ve heard the Madfish version and you like it I’d love to hear from you!
In the meantime, I can wholeheartedly recommend Real Pretty, especially since along with S.F. Sorrow you get also get a great copy of another, arguably better album in Parachutes. It’s a great deal! It also makes me think that if you’re more of a purist about records and instead of an oddball budget twofer you’d rather have the individual records with the original cover art and so forth then it’d be worth buying an early U.S. pressing on Rare Earth. They’re not cheap but still less than half the price of even an early repress from the UK, let along first pressings.
I haven’t heard any UK versions of this album so I can’t comment on how they sound, but if the Real Pretty reissue is any indication it does appear that the folks at Rare Earth were working from a good master. I hate to think another version of this sounds substantially better as it would make the case for Sundazed offering even more bleak.