Pink Floyd: The Wall.

Hi,

Even more important, was the fact that the ENGLISH original pressing was pristine clear and the AMERICAN recording was taken from a trash can from a Hollywood party tape! The difference is astronomical, and the "remaster" only makes it closer to the ENGLISH pressing of the album, which was very clean, and not muddled.

The same thing happened to Sgt. Pepper's where the original ENGLISH pressing was vastly superior with all the background stuff shining like crazy which was all muddled for the AMERICAN pressing. An absolute travesty if you ask me.

Some records, whether one likes them or not ... deserve a good listen ... the problem is, that I think that less that 5% (maybe 10%) of the folks here on PA have never even had a strong stereo system with outstanding equipment, with which they could have heard something ... and let me tell you that some of those RED SEAL albums, the classical music was phenomenal ... it gave you an understanding and an appreciation for the compositions that was unreal ... true music from the spheres (so to speak) and absolutely stunning! If you thought you needed Kubrick to show it to you, then you didn't know what you were missing sonically!

Nowadays, we have nothing like that ... and SW thinks his recordings are good and the ones he does for others better, and they aren't. They are mere manipulations and a little cleaning along the way but kinda "switching" the positions of the instruments with each other on KC does not make it better ... for me it made it stupid and worse! The charm got replaced with some plastic! And unfortunately that is just about all the folks know these days ... and speaking about those recordings 50 years ago, is really difficult because they never got to hear anything like it! Not to mention that the LP's being made today are bad and do not even come close or stand up to the original!

Hi

I wonder if this is unfair ... for the time and place that it came out, it was the cleanest and best thing in recording ... that only George Martin and Tom Dowd could come close to ... but unlike the others, Allan's ability was the clarity of each instrument ... and yeah, I suppose that makes things a bit bland, but you are hearing something that most musicians would love to hear themselves ... a nice clear sound all around ... and in some ways, this made for a bit more simplicity in the whole thing and likely better equipment behind it all ... instead of just the studio "making the band" ... like George did and Tom did, specially with "Layla" ... and how it was discovered ... see his special for details ... it was not exactly an accident, but more of a person's attention to their work as they rehearsed ... once recorded, it becomes easy for them to learn what they did!

Allan, in some ways made things sound cleaner ... a lot more than before ... and I'm OK with that, and for the history of "recording" it was really good ... 

My only concern is us comparing a recording done in 1972/1973 to something that is done in 2021 inside a nice clean digital setup, which makes things easier, not not necessarily better ... bland as heck, since I doubt that as many musicians have the knowledge and ability to use effects so cleanly and well.

Saying a recording from yesterday was crap ... is bad ... it was the best there was at the time ... just like folks here can't relate to the RED SEAL recordings of a few records in the late 1960's ... which were beautifully done ... but today we have no idea what that meant for the business of recording ... essentially, Allan Parsons did the same thing ... and made sure it was clean and clear ... which is what made the RED SEAL albums famous, specially for people with high end stereo systems, where you could hear the clarity.

DSOTM sounds bland, on mp3 ... PERIOD. But get a good stereo, with very good speakers, and a nice stylus for the turntable (cost of all three past 2K on all these) ... and the difference is MASSIVE ... and I don't think you know about it ... because if you did, I doubt you would have made that comment about bland ... but many other things by Allan did not sound "bland" ... they cleaned up and made the artist sound a lot better than before!

PF's earlier recordings were muddled and not clean by comparison, sort of like a microphone hanging from the ceiling picking it all up ... and hoping that SW can clean these up 45 years later. SW's work is not better than what Allan did, or Tom, or George. He just thinks it is, and because he talks good game, everyone thinks he is better.