Davey
Headphoneus Supremus
- Joined
- Nov 5, 2002
- Posts
- 1,574
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- 13
This is one of my all-time faves. I can remember many, many mornings getting ready for work with this brit-pop classic playing in the background. What a perfect feel good record to spin when you want to get your mind awake. Almost like a cup or two of some good java. Twelve first rate pop songs in a row without a single track that is even close to not good. Produced (in the end) by Steve Lillywhite and released in 1990 after many delays due to lead man Lee Mavers perfectionism, a perfectionism that led to many band changes and producer changes and re-recordings and ultimately to him disowning this brilliant album because it was not as perfect as he wanted. A true shame, because it is nearly perfect and one of the most satisfying and enjoyable albums I have ever heard. I think the single "There She Goes" was fairly successful, but the album didn't come out until a couple years later and so couldn't ride the coattails of the hit song. Many bands have since covered songs from this monumental album and Oasis kind of built a career around it, but this is the real deal.
Picked up the 2001 Polydor UK remaster for a super low price from a Canadian source when it came out, even though the original was nly about 10 years old - but there were also 5 bonus tracks which clinched the deal. A golden opportunity to hear one of my all-time faves, remastered and expanded, for less than the price you would pay for most used albums. And the sound quality is somewhat improved over my original without any negatives that I can hear. The vocals are clearer and there is more airiness around all the sounds which helps relieve the congestion of sounds in the middle on the original. Much more relaxed presentation. Not an audiophile recording by any means, and the results will of course depend on your system and listening preferences, but well worth it on my system and to my ears, and fortunately they only needed to add compression to a couple of the songs to jack up the volume since most of it was originally mastered at a very low level. It has a certain honest quality missing from many modern recordings, perhaps because it was done in analog (I'm pretty sure), and I'm a sucker for most things analog.
But I'm sure many of you know all that good stuff already. But do you know Shack? I've always loved their HMS Fable album that came out in the late 90s but never saw anything else available here in the US. So I'm listening to it again for the umpteenth time a few weeks ago and decided that I absolutely needed a copy of their 1995 Waterpistol. So tried to score one cheap on ebay but it got too high. Undeterred, I did score a real nice deal on the Animals That Swim retrospective called Faded Glamour, but kept looking for the Shack CD. And found a source in Canada for a good price, so ordered it along with the latest from that Aussie pop band the Lucksmiths (a story for another day). I've been listening to Waterpistol pretty much exclusively for the last week and it just has that same classic sound as The La's. Any of you know and love (or not) this Shack album? I can tell it's gonna be a favorite long into the future. Very nice ....
So what are some of you classic slices of that late 80s / early 90s brit-pop that still do it for you?
Picked up the 2001 Polydor UK remaster for a super low price from a Canadian source when it came out, even though the original was nly about 10 years old - but there were also 5 bonus tracks which clinched the deal. A golden opportunity to hear one of my all-time faves, remastered and expanded, for less than the price you would pay for most used albums. And the sound quality is somewhat improved over my original without any negatives that I can hear. The vocals are clearer and there is more airiness around all the sounds which helps relieve the congestion of sounds in the middle on the original. Much more relaxed presentation. Not an audiophile recording by any means, and the results will of course depend on your system and listening preferences, but well worth it on my system and to my ears, and fortunately they only needed to add compression to a couple of the songs to jack up the volume since most of it was originally mastered at a very low level. It has a certain honest quality missing from many modern recordings, perhaps because it was done in analog (I'm pretty sure), and I'm a sucker for most things analog.
But I'm sure many of you know all that good stuff already. But do you know Shack? I've always loved their HMS Fable album that came out in the late 90s but never saw anything else available here in the US. So I'm listening to it again for the umpteenth time a few weeks ago and decided that I absolutely needed a copy of their 1995 Waterpistol. So tried to score one cheap on ebay but it got too high. Undeterred, I did score a real nice deal on the Animals That Swim retrospective called Faded Glamour, but kept looking for the Shack CD. And found a source in Canada for a good price, so ordered it along with the latest from that Aussie pop band the Lucksmiths (a story for another day). I've been listening to Waterpistol pretty much exclusively for the last week and it just has that same classic sound as The La's. Any of you know and love (or not) this Shack album? I can tell it's gonna be a favorite long into the future. Very nice ....
So what are some of you classic slices of that late 80s / early 90s brit-pop that still do it for you?
