I’ve been listening to random elements of the box today while working at home. Here are some random thoughts:
1. Double Fantasy and Milk And Honey sound completely out of place amongst the other Abbey Road-mastered titles. They alone have been subject to „buzz-cutting“. A quick comparison of the waveforms of the previous remaster of Starting Over and the new one suggest to me that the masterings are identical IN SHAPE (but not necessarily EQ) except for the buzz cutting. That is, the relatively quiet introduction is roughly the same volume on both. The difference is the buzz cut. Most importantly, these two albums sound TOTALLY DIFFERENT to the remainder of the catalogue.
2. The Abbey Road-mastered titles sound lovely. I’ve played through POB, the Singles/Home Tapes set and now Walls And Bridges. And I’m enjoying Lennon more than I have in over a decade. Welcome back my friend.
3. The Home Tapes title is a complete misnomer. Most of the tracks are studio out-takes and my first impressions are that they aren’t from Anthology. Certainly, „Soldier“ isn’t; it’s a completely different arrangement to the official and Anthology takes. The only actual home tapes on this set are Nobody Told Me, One Of The Boys, India India, Serve Yourself and Beautiful Boy. Again, none of these recordings have been issued previously. They sound fantastic. It makes one wonder why Acoustic turned out so bad… Shame there’s no definitive collection of Lennon’s demos.
4. The box itself is of dubious value. It’s well made and well presented but is truly a triumph of presentation over content. I paid £150 for the privelege of buying it at a „bricks and mortar“. I’d fret if I was relying on the postal service to deliver it damage free but, for what it is, it truly is over priced, over sized (and over here, I guess!).
Overall, I have to declare myself pleased. My worries over how the Abbey Road-mastered titles would sound (based on my dislike of the Beatles‘ remasters) have, ironically, been unfounded. Instead, it is the Marino titles that have been a huge let down. It truly is a shame that the Abbey Road team weren’t able to work on the whole catalogue. Had they done so, there wouldn’t be a dry eye in the house.
Finally, I should also like to register mild annoyance that, mastering issues apart, the Signature Box still isn’t definitive: the entire contents of side one of Menlove Ave are conspicuous by their absence. The presence of Here We Go Again on Gimme Some Truth only serves to add to the sense of frustration and magnifies the total omission from this programme of Rock And Roll People, To Know Her Is To Love Her, Angel Baby and Since My Baby Left Me.
Overall, 7.5/10. (I’d give it 9 but the work on Double Fantasy and Milk And Honey surely merits the dropping of marks.)
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Wenn ich meinen Hund beleidigen will nenne ich ihn Mensch. (AS) „Weißt du, was ich manchmal denke? Es müsste immer Musik da sein. Bei allem was du machst. Und wenn's so richtig Scheiße ist, dann ist wenigstens noch die Musik da. Und an der Stelle, wo es am allerschönsten ist, da müsste die Platte springen und du hörst immer nur diesen einen Moment.“