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Post by boogieboarder on Jun 16, 2021 8:56:53 GMT -5
Reading some of the excellent complaints about Capitol Records and their shoddy mastering of product brings to mind Dave Dexter Jr., the Capitol A and R man who decided to turn up the treble on the Beatles masters sent from England creating new adventures in monophonic shrillness unmatched to this day. I did like the Americanized I Feel Fine though Beatles producer George Martin specifically “Americanized” “I Feel Fine“ and “She’s a Woman” for the United States himself, adding reverb, and then Dave Dexter added even more ‘Americanization” on top of them, adding more echo, especially for the fake stereo version. Almost every Capitol album contained singles with fake stereo mixes. I can’t understand why Dexter didn’t bother to ask George Martin to prepare stereo mixes for such an important market for The Beatles.
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Post by mattbbtalk on Jun 16, 2021 9:21:29 GMT -5
Great topic! They put out some nice albums in the early 70’s, and they became a great live touring unit. But ES introduced their early hits to new fans and rekindled some love in people who already were fans. I think it was necessary at the time and it definitely allowed them to continue to share their music with the world, new or not. I’m not sure in stunted their creativity at the the time. Who knows! But I’m sure it was a shot in the arm for them to know that people still greatly appreciated all of their music.
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Post by drbeachboy (Dirk) on Jun 16, 2021 9:33:38 GMT -5
The comp didn't kill the band's recording career because by summer 1974 it was already pretty much dead. The last real band sessions were in late 1972. Not only that, but with the live shows, more than anything else, it was the fans themselves that steered the band, along Jim Guercio back to the songs that made them famous. Hard to fight your own history. Studio-wise, the biggest misstep was allowing Brian back to the Producer’s chair. Most, if not all of the songs chosen should have been given the full Beach Boys treatment, not the half-assed arrangements and vocals we were given.
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petsite
Author/Historian/ Researcher
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Post by petsite on Jun 16, 2021 9:38:22 GMT -5
Yes it is. You can hear the next tune getting ready to start. No fades. Duophonic mixes. And weirdly, tracks like SHUT DOWN and SURFIN' USA that were in true stereo on the original version are in mono on the CD. It's like Larry Walsh spent all of 5 minutes on the CD. I mean, duophonic mixes? In 1987? That shows 100% I DON'T GIVE A SHIT. Someone hit my DM saying I was being too hard on these guys. Um no I wasn't. If you can't do better, get another job. And the fact that a piece of crap like ES on CD got passed a QC group is astounding. I was just re-reading an interview with Mark from 1996 in Goldmine. In the opening of the article, the writer says what utter pieces of crap ES and others were. Good to know others felt the same. If you want to listen to an absolute disaster, search a dumpster and find the original CD issue of Spirit of America. Absolutely unlistenable Don't hate me, but the original SOA CD is one of my faves. Everything is in mono and the sound to me isn't so bad. I will say I rarely play it straight, but use it as a source when I am putting a comp together for myself.
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Post by northcoast on Jun 16, 2021 9:45:49 GMT -5
Reading some of the excellent complaints about Capitol Records and their shoddy mastering of product brings to mind Dave Dexter Jr., the Capitol A and R man who decided to turn up the treble on the Beatles masters sent from England creating new adventures in monophonic shrillness unmatched to this day. I did like the Americanized I Feel Fine though Beatles producer George Martin specifically “Americanized” “I Feel Fine“ and “She’s a Woman” for the United States himself, adding reverb, and then Dave Dexter added even more ‘Americanization” on top of them, adding more echo, especially for the fake stereo version. Almost every Capitol album contained singles with fake stereo mixes. I can’t understand why Dexter didn’t bother to ask George Martin to prepare stereo mixes for such an important market for The Beatles. Remember the American attitude that the Brits didn't know how to make hit records for American audiences hence the "enhancements" Also the high treble sounded better coming out of the transistor radios at the time so there was some method to the madness
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Post by northcoast on Jun 16, 2021 9:47:48 GMT -5
If you want to listen to an absolute disaster, search a dumpster and find the original CD issue of Spirit of America. Absolutely unlistenable Don't hate me, but the original SOA CD is one of my faves. Everything is in mono and the sound to me isn't so bad. I will say I rarely play it straight, but use it as a source when I am putting a comp together for myself. The version I had was so bad, Drive In sounded like it was recorded in a suitcase with someone holding a microphone on the outside
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Post by filledeplage on Jun 16, 2021 15:01:39 GMT -5
My take on Endless Summer is: it was inevitable. Endless Summer didn’t happen in a vacuum, and I think really just accelerated something that was already happening. That is to say, if not Endless Summer than something like it. Even just the group continuing touring and the old best of volumes picking up speed again. Capitol was simply opportunistic. I know it’s talked about a lot, but it wasn’t Endless Summer that killed the Holland era- it was American Graffiti. And the end of the Vietnam war. Etc. That said, the whole phenomenon was probably more than the sum of its parts. It’s just the way things had to come together for the time, in my opinion. But to directly answer the question- I don’t think there’s any way to spin what happened to The Beach Boys the mid-‘70s as objectively bad. This is basically when the concept of what The Beach Boys would be in the eyes of the general public was solidified forevermore. When they became an institution. The end of the Vietnam war. 100%. There was no need for continuous protest music. The goal was reached and the music community was a large part of that. What happens next? Is it anticlimactic? I agree it did not happen in a vacuum - just like everything else. People had BB albums everywhere and it had become ingrained in American Culture, becoming jingles, and finding spots in movie sound tracks. And, I think no one was more surprised that it was the success it was more than they were. It meant and validated that they were not losers and has-beens. Everything just came together and those kids who were boomers had families and changed the concert dynamic from young people to families. You could not have planned this. They could not have planned this. Did they plan to be so ingrained in American culture? I doubt it. But it finally happened. It is absolutely more than the sum of its parts.
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Post by Al S on Jun 16, 2021 18:46:11 GMT -5
There’s no argument that Larry Walsh etc did a poor mastering job and seemingly spent minimal or no time doing tape research - proof’s sadly on the CD as you note. I think the unanswered question remains why was so little time invested? I speculate the mastering teams were getting smashed to get product out the door freakin’ asap, as opposed to assumed technical incompetence or other arcane reasons. Alan, I think they probably were smashed to get things out the door. The real question is why would a business set itself up to be in a position to allow that to happen. I really did talk to a lot of record company people back in the day (yes most were in sales as I was in radio). There really was a WHO GIVES A **** ABOUT QUALITY? with them.
I have posted elsewhere that one of the major major radio stations here in Houston (that the record companies really needed to promote their artists) finally told the sales guys NO MORE CRAPPY SOUNDING 45s. Your product is so bad, we can't play it on-air. So here is what we want. We will review the 45s sent to us. If we decide to add your tune to our playlist, we want a tape dub from the master to use to master our carts we use to play music on-air. I have several of these reels still in my collection (no BB tho). I was there when they would tell the sales guys this info, and then would play the 45 to prove how noisy they were. The sales guys would bitch and moan and actually say SO WHAT IF THE 45 SOUNDS LIKE SHIT. YOUR LISTENERS WON"T NOTICE, THEY AREN'T THAT SMART. Of course the Music Director would say I WILL NOTICE, THAT'S ALL THAT MATTERS. I found out later that tape dubs were charged back to the sales groups. Oh it was so cool to see these guys slapped down.
So my point is, the record companies, from management on down, could have cared less of the quality of what went out the door, so long as $$$ came in. Numerous interviews thru the years would have some Record Company exec bemoaning that people were too picky. Heck, that crappy rough mix of WIBN was used on collections into the early 2000s, even tho Mark had remastered a version of the original mono mix in 1990.
Oh yeah,I agree with your point, I just think fingering Larry for the gaff is unfairly apportioning blame. I think it’s an interesting period that reinforces how disconnected the top of The Tower was from the bottom - same with a lot of other companies I imagine. I bet the exec’s swallowed a lot of the same PR guff the general public got fed about CD - superior sound, they don’t skip, drive a car over it and it will still play okay for 10000 years, blah blah - without being informed about the technical limitations and requirements of the format, so had incorrect expectations about the effort to market.
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Departed
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Post by Deleted on Jun 20, 2021 13:57:55 GMT -5
Looking at this UK charts list. We had 20 Golden Greats 1975 86 weeks on the chart reaching number 1 where it remained for 10 weeks..Seems a high percentage of their money making albums were Best Ofs.Going back to the very firs best of. www.officialcharts.com/artist/27515/beach-boys/
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