In an era of "Sound Wars" the albums of the 1960's, 1970's, 1980's could not compare to the albums released in the late 1990's and the 2000's. The significance of these classic albums dictated that they needed to be remastered to compete with the sound of the new albums being released. Thus, I have been slowly replacing many of my compact discs with remastered copies for the better part of a decade because of the better sound, extra tracks, live versions, restored album artwork, expanded liner notes, etc. While I have noticed a considerable difference in the sound quality on remastered compact discs when compared to the original release on compact disc I don't have all the necessary vinyl to compare the various releases. If I did my "man cave" (or apartment as mine is above the garage) would look like Rob's apartment in Almost Famous. Not that I would complain...
The 180 gram vinyl re-releases have been the turning point for the vinyl devotees. These thick, lush slabs of vinyl sound delicious. I first heard about 180 gram vinyl when I bought the records of post rock band Shellac in the 1990's. Finally, the reissues started arriving at a frantic pace in the independent record stores and I bought the much heralded mono version of the Bob Dylan classic Blonde On Blonde on vinyl and found out what all the fuss was about. However, I still buy compact discs, but I have been buying more vinyl for the experience and the free digital download. Two very different experiences, but the convenience and portability of digital balances out the enjoyment of dropping the needle on the vinyl perfectly.
The problem being that new slabs of vinyl are not cheap! You can end up paying anywhere to $15 to $30 for a new record depending on the number of sides. The price point is set higher which is disconcerting for those who remember the flip side of this 20-25 years ago when compact discs were the more expensive of the two.
I recently purchased replacements for The Beatles Abbey Road and Revolver albums. These two pivitol albums by The Fab Four are central in my musical consciousness. I have heard these two albums hundreds of times at least both on vinyl and compact disc. I will reluctantly admit that it's been quite a while since I have pulled out my vinyl copies of these albums, but that's how I experienced them in the first place and that counts for something. I believe there is a muscle memory of that experience that's locked in my brain. These come as close as anything I've heard digitally to the vinyl experience. The thing I noticed first was the harsher (read: tinny or grating) sounds on the top of the treble spectrum were gone and made the overall experience more enjoyable. What had been added were the crisper sounds of Ringo Starr's high hat cymbals and the punchy deeper sounds of Paul McCartney's bass. A perfect example of this would be Come Together from Abbey Road. A conspiracy theorist would say that these observations point to the fact that Starr and McCartney are the two surviving Beatles and they wanted their parts to be heard. Wild conspiracy theories aside the remasters are doing a couple of things: 1) updating the digital catalog of one of the best bands to ever put music to tape and 2) bringing the music of The Beatles to yet another generation of fans. Both are going to continue to make money.
This brings me to my final point. I don't want to keep buying my record collection over and over again! The Beatles did the right thing, especially waiting 22 years before re-releasing their catalog. In the future there may be a fewer albums that fall into that category for me. But, I will say that I would gladly buy Abbey Road as many times as it took. Yes, it's that good.
