Anonym
Registriert seit: 01.01.1970
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CDs sind zwar nicht gerade mein Fachgebiet, aber einige der deutschen Rolling Stones London CDs sind ziemlich gesucht (habe z.B. „Aftermath“ schon für 50 Euro gesehen), da der Analog/Digital-Transfer von MFSL ist.
It’s unsurprising that many USA Stones fans (those who aren’t the kind of obsessives we
are, anyway) wouldn’t know this, but here we go; in summary, while the US had until
now been stuck with the crap-tacular early ABKCO CDs for the Stones‘ Decca albums,
this was NOT the case for the rest of the world. While ABKCO owned the CD rights for
the Stones‘ albums in the states, they didn’t quite hold worldwide influence, which led to
the London label (which older Stones fans will recognize as the label on which the
original US records came out) reissuing their OWN versions of the Stones discs right
before ABKCO got started. The thing is, while ABKCO utilized „whatever was on the
shelf“ for their discs, and generally turned out a substandard product full of muddy-
sounding tracks, fake stereo mixes, and stereo fold-downs, London managed to utilize
tapes that had been prepared by audiophile label Mobile Fidelity for their early-80s
Stones LP boxed-set. The result? The London discs were very un-craptacular, and for the
most part still sound rather swell today.In particular, the London CDs introduced several stereo versions of songs that had
previously been only in mono („Satisfaction“, „Get Off of My Cloud,“ „Play With Fire“),
and had several rarities the ABKCO discs completely lacked. London also chose to
release the UK versions of Aftermath and 1st instead of the American versions, and
ignored the Big Hits compilations entirely. For the most part, the London discs were also
free of some of the more heinous tampering that marked ABKCO’s catalogue, as folded-
down stereo mixes and fake stereo do not make an appearance on the London set.[Note: Those three songs mentioned above are the only three that were completely new
stereo-wise. Other stereo tracks that the London discs utilized actually had shown up in
stereo somewhere on vinyl. „It’s All Over Now,“ for example, was stereo on Rolled Gold;
‚Paint it, Black“ was stereo on the US Aftermath; „Time is On My Side“ was stereo on
some later pressings of hits compilations.]Note that while the London discs are usually preferred to the ABKCO versions of
the same titles, in many cases the differences are pretty subtle. In particular, the early
material (i.e. Now!, parts of 12×5, Out Of Our Heads) doesn’t sound much different, as
many of those tracks NEVER sounded very good in the first place. In some cases, things
do sound different, but not necessarily „better“ or „worse.“Mobile Fidelity, it should be noted, wasn’t very happy about London’s use of their
tapes (as one label head went on record and bemoaned that London’s use of the „Decca
Digital“ system had destroyed the faithfulness of the tapes used, despite ambiguity as to
whether or not the system was actually used), so while the back of some of the London
discs do credit MFSL, some do not. This is semi-random throughout the releases, and its
absence does NOT mean you have an old-ABKCO version of a disc.Now, the last degree of note with regard to the London discs involves the various
issues thereof. Simplifying a bit, we get a total of 5 disparate London issues: the early,
German pre-ABKCO discs (not all titles were released in this batch, artwork is very bare-
bones, and some titles have a „DIGITALLY REMASTERED“ banner in the upper-left
corner), the „regular period“ German discs, the Japanese P33L series, the Japanese P25L
series, and the early POCD series. There are several subcategories I’m ignoring (i.e. the
„regular issue“ German discs actually went through several different pressing runs), but
these are the major variations. Here’s how the content of these various issues pans out:a) The early-pressing German London discs sound like straight transfers from the tapes;
while the packaging and artwork isn’t all that hot, the discs sound great. Several titles are
not included in this run, including the More Hot Rocks discs, Got Live If You Want It!,
Let It Bleed, and December’s Children. Some discs mention ABKCO, some don’t. Note
that EXTREMELY EARLY German pressings exist of only self-titled and Beggar’s
Banquet; these have a radically different disc-design than the „regular“ early pressings
and the later pressings.b) The regular-issue German London discs have a 12-page booklet/catalogue. The
„digitally remastered“ banner is now retired on all titles, and back-cover artwork is
improved. While many entries in this series seem to be clones of the earliest pressings,
some notably vary, including Hot Rocks (with fade-ups on some tracks), self-titled
(without the longest version of „Tell Me“), and others; see section 4.0 for precise details.
These discs were in print until around 1995, and there are several variations of this run
which include slightly-different disc designs, et cetera. Australian CD pressings exist of
self-titled which are identical to this German version.Because of the fade-ups inherent on multiple titles in this set, the early-version variants of
those titles are usually preferred.
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