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 A great job with a much-needed product Oct 16, 2008
For years I pined for a good cut on CD of "Cut Across Shorty" and in fact the whole Gasoline Alley album. Old college day memories of a mostly out-of-print album. Now, most of my rocking friends back then were audiophiles in their own way, and one thing I always have noticed is that the production quality of Rod's albums left a little something to be desired, while personnel, song choices, arrangement, were all mostly fantastic. At the time you could take Highway by Free and just be blown away by the dynamics of Kossoff's guitar and Paul Rodgers vocals: so why couldn't Rod's people capture that close realistic sound?
The truth is that it's got something to do with Rod's vocal style, which is a remarkable head voice charging up effortlessly into falsetto range while retaining most of the power of a full-out tenor in his throat range. It's simply much harder to mike up a voice like this accurately, compared to more baritone voices like the abovementioned Rodgers or, say, Freddie Mercury or David Bowie. This shows up with Led Zep also, since Plant's voice, which like Rod's may not be a falsetto, is in the falsetto range and requires the same kind of breathing and acoustics. There is a certain muddiness to the mixes for what were usually two and four track mixes at the time. Still, a lot can be done.
These masterings, I am pretty sure, coming over a Cambridge audio system and Athena floor speakers, or over my Tascam reference desktop monitors, are done about as well as they could be, and the result is very gratifying in that it sounds a lot better than the original albums did. Rod's instrumental arrangements, for these early albums, favored acoustic and folk-like ensemble play, similar to amny Faces arrangements. I should add that this offering culls pretty near all of the memorable and well-done tracks from The Rod Stewart album, Gasoline Alley, Every Picture Tells a Story, Never a Dull Moment, and Smiler. I think. So here you have a full album version of Maggie May, Cut Across Shorty, I'm Losing You, Twisting the Night Away, Every Picture Tells A Story, Mandolin Wind...and so on. I don't think I have to vouch for the quality of recording or of the songs, even with the very negative review this has received so far. What I found was several hours of real listening pleasure where I could hear ever nuance of the mandolin and Ron Wood's guitars and slides and Rod's amazing voice. (Most of the personnel were usually the same familiar suspects who show up on Faces albums, and absolutely tight and excellent as an ensemble.)
This CD was exactly what I had been looking for, and I am glad I found it, at a very bargain bin price, and I continue to listen to it, misogyny, excess. folkiness , and all: I love the Rod from this era, I had wanted to replace all that old vinyl and the old memories with something fresh for years: this CD allowed me to do exactly that. If you don't already have the whole works from 1969 up to about 1975, then forget about it until they release updates authorized by Rod of all his back catalog, and get the individual albums, which are usually a fantastic value these days. But for now, if you just wanted to hear some of that old, early Rod, this is quite a good deal.
 ALL "PLAYLIST" TITLES FEATURE TERRIBLE, LOUDED-UP MASTERING Oct 10, 2008
Universal recently released several artists in this "Playlist Plus" series. Unfortunately, the mastering is horrible; the dynamic range of the original recordings has been thrown out the window, and replaced by every channel being jacked to maximum volume.
I've used the following analogy previously reviewing other, similarly-bastardized "remasters", but it really does clarify what you're going to hear if you waste your money on this travesty:
Imagine Stewart & band on stage in a concert venue with an appropriate sized sound system. Every instrument in the band is piped thru the stadium system, EXCEPT Stewart, who is amplified only by a small speaker onstage... THAT'S what this set (and every other Playlist title) sounds like. The singer is totally drowned out by the loudness of the instruments.
For a graphic video demonstration of this compression "remastering" technique, paste this You Tube address into your browser:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Gmex_4hreQ
There are a plethora of compilations of Stewart's Mercury recordings, most of which are far preferable to this abomination. Also, just like every other Playlist set, all of the music here would easily fit on two CD's, so the 3rd disc is just a marketing ploy to fool you that you're getting something extra when you're not.
Avoid this disc, and the entire Playlist series, like you would AIDS.
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