The Beatles and Pink Floyd remastered their entire catalogs during the past few years. I think both were successful in terms of sound quality improvements.
So who should be next to do a complete revamp of their catalog? I, for one, vote for Led Zeppelin. I would love to see (hear) their discography remastered at the level and quality of The Beatles and Floyd. Who would you pick?
First thing: are you sure that the PF remasters are all that good? All I've heard is that they're very slightly better than what was previously available, which is hardly a sonic revolution. If I were listing artists who have had first class remaster programmes, I'd go for King Crimson, Dead Can Dance and Nick Cave.
With Led Zep, the Jimmy Page remasters are hardly old and they sound great, so I don't see much need for a remaster there.
Zappa messed around a lot with his back catalogue before he died and I don't know what state those releases are in now, so he would be a good candidate to have his original mixes cleaned up and remastered.
The Beatles remasters were not necessarily better. They spent a lot of time cleaning up insignificant noise and added a little compression. It's like they worked on the tiny things and ignored the important things. The mono set sounds better than those tracks have sounded in the past, but for stereo, I prefer the older release.
Led Zeppelin's remasterings have been disasterous in the past. The CDs have none of the punch and presence of the original LPs. It's certainly possible to improve them, but I'm not convinced that the people in charge of the LZ masters have a clue about how to go about it.
Zappa messed around a lot with his back catalogue before he died and I don't know what state those releases are in now, so he would be a good candidate to have his original mixes cleaned up and remastered.
There has been a remastering already of Led Zeppelin. They were pressed on high quality 180 gram vinyl then stopped out of nowhere by Jimmy Page himself. It would be great to find out why? All I can think of is Jimmy will do all the remastering in the future himself just like the epic reissue of The Song Remains The Same. There may have been a quality issue which Jimmy thought was not correct. The Song Remains The Same is such a great remaster. The 180 gram LPs of SRTS is out of this world as well as the new CDs.
These Zeppelin remasters are getting a huge price when ever they come up on Ebay. Why they were not made into CDs or fully released as LPs is a mystery!
I have sat and listened to Houses Of The Holy. All I can say is they are far superior to the original vinyl as well as the early 1990s box set. I wish to this day I could have sat and heard the other remaster LPs but they were as yet not opened.
Jimmy Page supervised the horrible box set too. I think the original engineers had more sense than the recent ones have, particularly with the first three albums.
First thing: are you sure that the PF remasters are all that good? All I've heard is that they're very slightly better than what was previously available, which is hardly a sonic revolution. If I were listing artists who have had first class remaster programmes, I'd go for King Crimson, Dead Can Dance and Nick Cave.
With Led Zep, the Jimmy Page remasters are hardly old and they sound great, so I don't see much need for a remaster there.
Zappa messed around a lot with his back catalogue before he died and I don't know what state those releases are in now, so he would be a good candidate to have his original mixes cleaned up and remastered.
I do think the Pink Floyd remasters are an improvement. Some are slight and some are better depending on the album. I have several Redbook versions of DSotM and I think the 2011 is a great effort. The other versions were already good to start with but still benefited. Animals is certainly an improvement. Some albums like PATGOD (I haven't heard it yet) needed it.
I personally like the stereo Beatles remasters and think it's an improvement. I also don't think the current Redbook Led Zeppelin albums are up to snuff. I'll add Jethro Tull in need of remastering.
Oh, thanks Bigshot. I have my FZ split between the Zappa discs that he did at the end of his life and the Rykodisc ones ... I never realised that the Ryko were decent remasters, because they came out so soon after his death that I presumed that there was no time to remaster them. It seems sort of odd to undo the work of an artist's dying years before his corpse is cold but ... good then!
Ryko released both Zappa's reworkings and the original versions. The CD pairing of We're Only In It For the Money/Lumpy Gravy was Zappa's reworked version. Those albums released individually are the original mixes.
How about remastered from the original analog tapes of ZAPPA on 200 gram Vinyl....... Just heard "Joe's Garage" on the radio, killer and way before his time.....
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