Album: Crowded House - Recurring Dream Like most of us, I first heard the Finn brothers back in the
days of Split Enz. That was a long time ago, 1980 in fact. That's when the hit
single I Got You was getting alot of airplay. Over the next few years
the band struggled with several lessor hits and in 1984 Neil Finn decided to
dissolve Split Enz after his brother Tim had left.
In 1985 Neil formed the group The Mullanes with Paul Hester
(who was there during the break up of Split Enz) and Nick Seymour. They played
a few gigs back in the land down under, then it was off to America.
After signing with Capitol Records they released their debut,
self titled, album Crowded House in 1986. In the ensuing years they released
Temple of Low Men in 1988 which really wasn't their best effort. Then
in 1991, facing rejection from their record label Capitol, brother Tim rejoins
the group and they produce Woodface. This was a very good album, despite
the obvious American bashing in the song Chocolate Cake. In 1993 the
group recorded their final release, Together Alone.
In June of 1996, Neil announced the breakup of the group in
London. That brings us to Recurring Dream.
Recurring Dream, The Very Best of Crowded House, contains
nineteen songs. It's a double album with a gatefold sleeve. They chose four
songs from each of their prior albums and added three previously unreleased
tracks. This is a true best of album. It's loaded with some of the best songs
they recorded. In fact, they could have added a few more. But so it goes with
vinyl, they had to watch the playing times. The CD release of this album also
contained a limited edition live CD with fifteen additional songs.
I've got to say this up front, I really like the music Crowded
House did, but they did a really poor job mixing it down. Not just one album,
but all of them. Just pop one in your CD player and listen. Great music, just
not real musical to listen to. They are horrible mixes, to be blunt.
As I sit here and listen to Recurring Dream, it makes
me wonder why they bothered to put this on vinyl if they weren't going to re-master
it. When they transferred this to vinyl, they just took the master tapes and
started cutting without regard to the sound quality, or more importantly, how
it could be improved. Maybe I'm expecting too much but I don't think so.
When a manufacturer makes a conscious decision (in 1996) to
issue something on vinyl, they are playing specifically to you and I,
audiophiles with turntables. They consciously charge us more than they charge
for the CD version. See where I'm going with this?
I compared this UK EMI pressing of vinyl to the Crowded House
CD's that I have, switching back and forth from CD to vinyl. There are huge
differences. The CD's, as poorly mixed as they are, contain lots more information
than this vinyl release.
When they started the vinyl mastering process, they discovered
that the original master tapes have just tons of treble, as do the CD's you
and I bought . That's bad news for vinyl. You can't just do a straight transfer.
The vinyl engineer must either compress and/or limit the amount of treble that
gets transferred to the lacquers. Most times it's both. That translates directly
to a loss of information and musical detail. That's exactly what happened here.
One of the other things a good vinyl engineer will do is use a de-esser on the
vocals to tame some of those nasty sibilants. Unfortunately, no de-essing was
done to this release. Or if it was, you sure can't tell by listening.
Listening to several tracks side by side, vinyl to CD, there
is information missing. Take for instance the song Weather With You from
the Woodface release (great song BTW). Towards the end of the song they
brought the bongos or congas forward into the mix (it's hard to tell the mix
is so bad). On the CD they don't sound too bad, not the best but just OK. On
the vinyl they sound muddy at best. Very non-distinct, no definition at all.
I could go on and on but I think you get the idea.
The bass on the original CD's were a bit on the light side.
The treble and upper mids were way overdone. Now we have a piece of vinyl where
the bass is still light (but true to the original) and now a compression and
detent of the treble. Result, really shouty midrange. You talk about fatiguing!
I don't mean to sound too negative. This release does have some
good points, I guess. First the treble has been subdued. Expect somewhere around
a 4 to 6 db drop in the highs. Another good thing, this is truly a "best of"
album. There are tons of great songs on here.
Uh.......that's all I can think of.
Oh, the cover art is pretty cool.
As I sit back and read what I just typed, I wonder...... Am
I being as close to objective as I can be? I think so. That being said, I can't
honestly recommend buying this album.
Save your money and go buy some real vinyl.
Crowded House - "Recurring Dream"
Issued on Vinyl
Label: Capitol 7243 838396 / EMI 8383961 (UK)
Medium: Vinyl
Released: 1996
Genre: Rock and Roll
Reviewer: Scott Faller
Date Reviewed: April, 2001
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© Copyright 2001 Scott Faller - https://www.tnt-audio.com