Re: "Wuthering Heights"...Old and New (was Re: Rolling Stone)

[tlh@PacBell.COM (Lee Hounshell)]

In article <25358@ut-emx.UUCP> emx.utexas.edu!emx!slh@cs.utexas.edu (Susan L. Cecelia Harwood) writes:
>I just bought _The Whole Story_
>two days ago, and I admit I spent fifteen dollars for two tracks.  I
>was especially looking forward to the new vocal on "Wuthering Heights."...
>
>It started out okay, but the impression I got, the longer it went on, was 
>that Kate was singing through the motions, so to speak...
>
>Anybody else out there feel the same way?  I'm not trying to start a
>flame war; I guess I've just discovered that even Kate isn't perfect.
>Unless... did the record company make her re-record it so that they'd
>have another new track?  Just a small glimmer of hope...

I also just bought The Whole Story two days ago, and also for only the two
tracks.  I was pretty dissappionted with the disk as well, for the reasons
you mentioned and also for a different reason. I found the recording quality
to be really *bad* on TWS in comparison to her other disks.  I have a fairly
high-end audio system at home, complete with two CD players (I know, I know,
pure decadence :-)  anyway, I wanted to compare the tracks of TWS against
the same songs on her other disks.  I'd play the same song on each player
simultaneously (I started with "Running up that Hill") and sit back with a
remote control and A/B them.  My conclusion was that TWS is very poorly
mastered.  The songs are recorded at very low DB levels and do not have
the "depth" and "imaging" presented on other disks with the same recording.
Although I like Kate's music, I didn't like the way it was mastered here.
Even for Experiment IV (the one song on the disk which seemed to be properly
digitized) I can't recommend TWS.  I don't know if the LP version of this
album are as poorly made or not.

Lee Hounshell