Badfinger Questions

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lukpac
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Badfinger Questions

Postby lukpac » Thu Dec 04, 2003 11:50 pm

From Badfinger

J_Partyka wrote:I'm a huge Badfinger fan myself, and am surprised to see them unrepresented. I personally would rank Wish You Were Here above Straight Up ... but just barely. Both are great records that would easily make my Top 500, or even Top 20.


Question...as far as I can gather from Amazon, there are no fewer than 3 different CD versions of Wish You Were Here. One on WEA International ('98), one on Musicrama ('97) and one on Phantom (no date given). Are there any differences between the versions?

Same for Head First. There's a "bonus tracks" version, but it seems to have the same lineup as the "standard" 2 CD set.

What's the deal with that "BBC in Concert 1972-1973"? Again, there seem to be multiple versions to choose from. It seems interesting from the RA clips on Amazon, but how is the sound?

Also, are there any non-Abbey Road mastered CDs (NR'd) of the Apple albums, excepting of course the two DCC discs?
"I know because it is impossible for a tape to hold the compression levels of these treble boosted MFSL's like Something/Anything. The metal particulate on the tape would shatter and all you'd hear is distortion if even that." - VD

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Postby J_Partyka » Fri Dec 05, 2003 9:05 am

I wish I could help with Wish You Were Here, but I've heard only the CD I have, a German-made Warner Bros. disc (I'll have to check it for details when I'm at home), and my original American vinyl pressing. I'd be interested to know, too, if there's a better CD version out there than the one I have (which is more than acceptable, but somewhat thin and light in the low end compared to the vinyl).

I still haven't heard the BBC set either. And as for other editions of the Apple albums ... I'm not aware of any. Ass, in particular, is an abomination on the existing Apple CD. I'm still trying to find good vinyl of that one. (Even my US Apple 45 of "Apple of My Eye" b/w "Blind Owl" sounds better than the CD.)

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Postby lukpac » Sat Dec 06, 2003 6:40 pm

Here's what Amazon has:

Wish You Were Here [IMPORT]
# Audio CD (March 18, 1998)
# Original Release Date: November 1974
# Number of Discs: 1
# Label: Wea International
# ASIN: B00000885H

Wish You Were Here [IMPORT]
# Audio CD (November 21, 1997)
# Label: Musicrama
# ASIN: B000003PTO

Wish You Were Here [IMPORT]
# Audio CD
# Label: Phantom
# ASIN: B0000561MW


BTW, have any of these tracks been released anywhere?

Get Down (Mal Evans version)
No Good At All (No Dice follow-up LP)
Baby Please (No Dice follow-up)
Sing For The Song (No Dice follow-up)
Sweet Tuesday Morning (No Dice follow-up)
Name Of The Game (No Dice follow-up with added keyboards)

Another somewhat random question - both Money and Flying were released as b-sides. On Straight Up, they are crossfaded together. Are they just lifted from the LP on the singles, or are they "clean"?

I find it amusing how Joey Molland claims "Apple thought [the tapes for the follow-up to No Dice] were a bit crude. They wanted us to go in for an Abbey Road-type sound." If anything I'd say that (unreleased) album sounds a lot more like Abbey Road than Straight Up. It's certainly a lot closer to the sound of No Dice, especially production-wise.
"I know because it is impossible for a tape to hold the compression levels of these treble boosted MFSL's like Something/Anything. The metal particulate on the tape would shatter and all you'd hear is distortion if even that." - VD

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Postby J_Partyka » Sat Dec 06, 2003 9:20 pm

lukpac wrote:Another somewhat random question - both Money and Flying were released as b-sides. On Straight Up, they are crossfaded together. Are they just lifted from the LP on the singles, or are they "clean"?


I just pulled out my "Day After Day" and "Baby Blue" 45s and had a listen to the B-sides, and then played the two crossfaded tracks from the DCC Straight Up disc.

Both tunes seem to have been lifted from the LP. "Money" fades out, but not quite quickly enough; the first piano chord of "Flying" can be heard clearly at the very end of the fade. And the first several seconds of "Flying" heard on the CD have been shaved off on the single, so that the song on the 45 begins with the piano chord that rings out at about 0:12 on the CD.

My Wish You Were Here CD is a "Made in Germany" disc, Warner Bros. 7599-26540-2 (LC0392). I bought it in 1997. The disc reads "P 1974 WEA International Inc."

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Postby Xenu » Mon Dec 08, 2003 7:49 pm

Are we sure these discs are actually different, and that Amazon isn't confusing distributers with labels? (like it frequently does)

I've only ever seen the Warners disc.
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Postby lukpac » Mon Dec 08, 2003 8:14 pm

I have no idea. Hence the question...
"I know because it is impossible for a tape to hold the compression levels of these treble boosted MFSL's like Something/Anything. The metal particulate on the tape would shatter and all you'd hear is distortion if even that." - VD

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Postby prix » Tue Dec 23, 2003 6:23 am

Good question, Luke. I've wondered about this very same thing myself. With regard to "Ass"......there are multiple import versions of that floating around also. I have no idea which is best. I guess one of us will have to order them all and check it out. I've got the BBC thing on vinyl, so no comment there.

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Postby Xenu » Tue Dec 23, 2003 5:03 pm

With regard to Ass, I think ordering 'em all could be more than a little prohibitive.
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Postby lukpac » Sun Feb 15, 2004 12:59 am

J_Partyka wrote:I still haven't heard the BBC set either.


I finally got it (B&N was backordered). I got the Varese version, if it makes a difference (I doubt it does).

It pretty much sounds like an interesting bootleg. Better Days and Only You Know And I Know are decent but rough recordings. The remaining '72 recordings are not bad, but seem to be a step down - they seem to be taken from acetates (or tape copies thereof).

The '73 recordings are better, although the sound still leaves something to be desired. I don't know if it's noise reduction, EQ (it does seem like there should probably be more hiss), or just odd recordings, but the tracks have a bit of a "glare" to them.

Come And Get It, although mono (everything else is stereo), is probably the best sounding cut, sound wise anyway.

The performances are interesting - a bit rough in places, but interesting nevertheless. I have to wonder what other songs (if any) were recorded at the time, and of those, what, if any, were available to the compilers of this set. It sure seems strange that No Matter What, Day After Day and Baby Blue are all missing here. Also strange that there are only 4 Pete Ham songs here (We're For The Dark, Take It All, Matted Spam and I Can't Take It).
"I know because it is impossible for a tape to hold the compression levels of these treble boosted MFSL's like Something/Anything. The metal particulate on the tape would shatter and all you'd hear is distortion if even that." - VD

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Postby lukpac » Thu Jul 15, 2004 1:26 pm

Ass

So this says it was released today. Anyone know anything about this? Just a reissue of the Apple CD?
"I know because it is impossible for a tape to hold the compression levels of these treble boosted MFSL's like Something/Anything. The metal particulate on the tape would shatter and all you'd hear is distortion if even that." - VD

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Postby Patrick M » Thu Jul 15, 2004 2:34 pm

I can't believe this forum doesn't have a profanity filter.

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Postby Xenu » Thu Jul 15, 2004 3:38 pm

Allegedly just a reissue of the Apple disc.
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Postby lukpac » Wed Jul 21, 2004 9:32 pm

Getting back to some of the original questions/comments...I've had Head First for some time now, and finally got a hold of Wish You Were Here recently.

Wish You Were Here - I think I'd probably rate this one somewhere between No Dice (on the low end) and Straight Up. The whole album is pretty enjoyable, but for me the individual tracks on Straight Up are more memorable. The production style seems to be a mix of Straight Up and albums prior - generally a harder sound than Straight Up, but with most everything squashed and compressed ala Todd Rundgren.

The sound on the Warners disc (made in Germany and/or Holland) seems decent enough. The tracks on The Very Best Of Badfinger are slightly different, with a little more top end, but they don't seem to be a major improvement. Was this ever released in the US? The CD *looks* like it was originally a US issue, with some type clearly blacked out.

Head First - The production on this one is a bit more straightforward. There are still plenty of little touches here and there, but the sound itself is a bit more natural and is based less on that hard rocking electric guitar sound from No Matter What, I Can't Take It, Just A Chance, etc and has more acoustic guitars and pianos like Straight Up. Some of the tracks are among the best the band recorded, IMO. Pretty amazing that it sat unreleased for 25 years.
"I know because it is impossible for a tape to hold the compression levels of these treble boosted MFSL's like Something/Anything. The metal particulate on the tape would shatter and all you'd hear is distortion if even that." - VD

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Postby lukpac » Wed Feb 02, 2005 12:05 am

Another note on this old thread...

I finally picked up Badfinger (the first WB album). I frequently read things like "It's better than Ass, and has some good moments, but on the whole it isn't that great." I'm tempted to say that it grew on me faster than Wish You Were Here. I Miss You is an odd opener (and an odd choice for Best Of vol. 2), but other than that it's an amazingly enjoyable album.

That said, I still don't get the same vibe I do with Straight Up. And I don't really care for Chris Thomas' production techniques. Everything is kind of rolled off/compressed, which might sound good if your speakers don't go past 8k.

Interesting note - both Badfinger and Wish You Were Here have blocks of text blacked out on the tray inlays, which have "Made in Germany" notes in them. Were these released domestically at one point?
"I know because it is impossible for a tape to hold the compression levels of these treble boosted MFSL's like Something/Anything. The metal particulate on the tape would shatter and all you'd hear is distortion if even that." - VD

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Postby Crummy Old Label Avatar » Thu Feb 03, 2005 11:55 am

I can tell you for certain that both "Phantom" and "Musicrama" are distributors and not labels. Virtually every UK import CD Amazon US gets, it's from Phantom. They often confuse this in their online database. Musicrama, I believe, is the Continental European equivalent of Phantom.

As far as I'm aware, there have only ever been two CD issues of Wish You Were Here -- the German WEA and the Japanese WEA, which may or may not be sonically identical. (I don't trust what the SHites have to say, and, unsurprisingly, they always had conflicting information as to whether the two issues were identical or not.)
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