The Poor Mastering On Early Beach Boys CDs.

I have been going thru several of my older CDs (I am ripping everything I own to a 8 TB backup drive in .wav format) and I am STILL consistently amazed at the early BB CD's that got released.

I have read several places that Larry Walsh, who was mastering the CDs back then, did not like the Beach Boys at all. Whether true or not, he really did a shitty job on those early CDs like ENDLESS SUMMER, MADE IN USA and others that were put together. I am always shocked because of my own time in corporate America that someone could do such a constantly shitty job and is just kept on regardless. Guess its a union thing. On ENDLESS SUMMER, Larry used duophonic mixes of mono tracks. Also, he used mono tracks of tunes issued on true stereo on the original release. The hit 45 version of FUN FUN FUN was not used on MADE IN USA, nor the correct version of WIBN. On SPIRIT OF AMERICA, the didn't use a good version of DO YOU WANNA DANCE and folded down actual stereo tracks. All in all, pretty pathetic. I had read a long time ago in a post somewhere by Brad Elliott Domenic that several of the 45 masters were missing until Mark and company came on the scene. That is simply not true, as I have done some digging and all of the tracks Brad Elliott Domenic claimed were gone were actually there. They just had to look. That was the excuse for WIBN and FUN FUN FUN single version.

Of course, I need to also remind myself that the music industry as a whole really cares little for their actual customers. Back when I was in radio, I use to scream at the sales reps etc about what crappy pressings were being manufactured and how nosily pressed 45s made our stations sound like shit. I will never forget on rep saying that Hey, the customers are stupid with no brains. Only anal OCD people like me care about sound, the average person is too stupid. My argument was always I could give a shit about the intelligence of consumers, how's about just doing a good job for it's own sake? This guy laughed.

As a quick aside, a major radio station in here in town, whom the record companies needed to promote their product, started to have their reps told that if you bring crappy sounding 45s to our station they will not get played. We don't care if its Micheal Jackson. Finally, the music director (whom I was friends with) stated ONLY DUBS FROM THE MASTERS ON REEL WILL BE USED. They would preview 45s. Once they decided to use it, the labels had to send a copy tape to be used. I found out that the cost of sending a tape came out of the rep's bonus because he should have been able to talk the station into using crappy polystyrene 45s if he was any good.