Album Reviews

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Album Reviews
Simon and Garfunkel: The Complete Columbia Albums Collection (Copy Corrected 9-3-15)
Michael Fremer  |  Sep 02, 2015  |  34 comments
The story that has been handed down through the decades goes like this: Simon and Garfunkel’s vinyl LPs were originally produced using master tapes. Because S&G became so popular, over time the tapes would show signs of wear, so Columbia engineers would make a copy, toss the original, and begin cutting lacquers using the copy.

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Album Reviews
Sticky Fingers  Deluxe Edition Any Good?
Michael Fremer  |  Aug 26, 2015  |  44 comments
Thanks to an analogplanet.com reader I got a copy to review of the two LP deluxe edition of Sticky Fingers (Rolling Stones Records 376-484-4).

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Album Reviews
Aerial Bounderies   Redefined Acoustic Guitar Playing——Cut From Analog Master Tape!
Michael Fremer  |  Aug 02, 2015  |  21 comments
This Michael Hedges album shook up the guitar playing world in 1984 the way Leo Kottke's 6 and 12 String Guitars had in 1969.

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AAA VinylAlbum Reviews
Hank Garland's Bid for Solo Stardom Reissued by Speakers Corner
Michael Fremer  |  Jul 01, 2015  |  7 comments
This minor musical and major sonic gem features the great vibraphonist Gary Burton, Dave Brubeck Quartet drummer Joe Morello (reference only in case you just arrived from outer space) and veteran bassist Joe Benjamin on a jazz session headed by the great Nashville guitarist Hank Garland.

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Album Reviews
The Turn On Vinyl Worth Its Weight in Kickstarter Gold
Michael Fremer  |  Jun 29, 2015  |  23 comments
Jerome Sabbagh's The Turn puts his long-running jazz quartet in New York's famed Sear Sound with veteran engineer James Farber at the board. The musicians managed to record to two-track analog tape the more than an hour's worth of music spread over the four sides of this double 180g LP set. That's getting you money's worth from a single studio session.

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Album Reviews
Taylor Swift's 1989 : Deep Retro-Pop Fun
Michael Fremer  |  Jun 28, 2015  |  29 comments
Taylor Swift’s 1989 released in October of 2014, sold 1.27 million albums in its first week and debuted at #1 on the Billboard Top 200 chart. By the end of the year it had sold 3,660,000 copies, remaining at the top of the chart for most of that time.

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Album Reviews
Best Ever Face to Face ?
Michael Fremer  |  Jun 16, 2015  |  37 comments
The fourth Kinks album was the first on which Ray Davies removes his hard rock shell. It’s clear in retrospect that many artists from the ‘60s rock era were rocking only because that’s what the times demanded.

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Album Reviews
Wrong Kata Trio’s Vinyl-Only Release  Come Morning
Michael Fremer  |  May 04, 2015  |  10 comments
The Wichita and Lawrence, Kansas-based Wrong Kata Trio has been playing together since 2010, though the three have been performing in the area for fifteen years.

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Album Reviews
D'Angelo's Black Messiah  Took Fifteen Years To Produce
Michael Fremer  |  Apr 01, 2015  |  6 comments
Squishy, sticky, elastic beats, some so slow and off-kilter that they threaten to fall apart, ghostly falsetto harmonies, cavernous empty spaces between the rhythmic wah-wah pulses and a distant, almost other-worldly sonic perspective announce D’Angelo’s singular sinewy yet gentle vision.

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Album Reviews
The Beach Boys: The First Five Analogue Productions Reissues
Michael Fremer  |  Mar 20, 2015  |  68 comments
Only one of them had actually ridden a surfboard. They weren’t hot rodders or drag racers and by the time the group formed in 1961 lead vocalist Mike Love was already 20 years old and arguably more a man than a “boy”. Al Jardine was 19 as was Brian Wilson. Brothers Dennis and Carl were, respectively, 17 and 15, so they qualified as “boys”.

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Album Reviews
Brothers In Arms  at 45rpm From Mobile Fidelity (updated 3/7/15)
Michael Fremer  |  Mar 06, 2015  |  61 comments
Born out of desperation (hence the name), with the release of its eponymous debut album containing "Sultans of Swing", Dire Straits was an instant commercial success. Cynics at the time said the tune made Dylan safe for average folks. The album was eventually certified double platinum.

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Album Reviews
Electric Recording Company Unleashes Mighty Mahler's 9th Symphony
Michael Fremer  |  Feb 25, 2015  |  36 comments
If you think audio reviewers can be grouchy, search opinions of this performance of Mahler's 9th Symphony, his final complete work before passing away at age 51.

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Album Reviews
Alvin Brothers Unlock Key to Big Bill Broonzy
Michael Fremer  |  Feb 22, 2015  |  6 comments
What can these two tow headed little brothers pictured on the cover know about Big Bill Broonzy? Obviously plenty as you'll hear on this inspired collaboration—the Alvin brothers' first together in almost thirty years.

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Album Reviews
Dylan and The Band's The Basement Tapes Raw  Presents The Authentic Document
Michael Fremer  |  Feb 21, 2015  |  7 comments
The further you get in time from this story the more focused, three-dimensional and confounding it becomes. How deep do you want to dig and how far down have you already dug?

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Album Reviews
Shadows In The Night :  Another Side of Bob Dylan (corrected)
Michael Fremer  |  Feb 05, 2015  |  53 comments
Though Bob Dylan pays tribute here to Frank Sinatra who recorded for Columbia, Capitol and Reprise (which he founded), the record label is a Blue Note facsimile. The cover art also draws from a Blue Note: a blue tinted variant of Freddie Hubbard’s album Hub Tones (BST-ST84115). The back cover is a photo of a tuxedoed Dylan perusing with a masked woman an unidentifiable Sun 45rpm single.

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