Re-issues from Phil Spector

[theboyfromxtown]

Is there anyone who has bought these recent sets and has an opinion on them?

I bought the Darlene Love, Crystals and Ronettes sets but not the Various Artists. I only bought them cos they were cheap.

[randy_russi]

Yes, I have bought all four issued. They are well-done, however, there are a few songs left off the Ronettes and Crystals
that I wish were included. I didn't care for the liner notes on the Ronettes CD, but the one for the Crystals is pretty
good. Although there are ALWAYS mistakes made by the writers.

Crystals should've included "Girls Can Tell" and Ronettes should have included "Keep On Dancing".

The lp box set should be out in June.

[brother_love]

I think that the re-mastering is pretty good and over all theses are much better than the ones issued in 1992. I do feel that it was not a good idea to include the Blossoms tracks on the Darlene collection. These three songs had nothing to do with her Philles recordings. If they were going to add a Blossoms track it should have been "Things Are Changing."

[theboyfromxtown]

I aimed this post specifically at you guys, you know your stuff! Thanks for replying

I felt the same....a bit disappointed. The selection of tracks was to be expected but I totally agree wth Brother_love about Darlene's 3 tracks.

I also have a problem with photos being reproduced in a stiff coloured card booklet. Maybe I am old-fashioned. I didn't read the sleeve notes, they weren't inviting enough for me to search out the magnifying glass.

The sound is supposed to be ace. When these old recordngs are re-mastered, engineers seem to aim for a sound that satisfies all the criteria for good sound. I have heard it called a "clean" sound but it seems more "washed-out". When I hear the castanets on my 45 of "A Fine Fine Boy", they hit my ears HARD but on this cd, they are just simply there, but no shakes. The "boom" of "Baby I Love You" was just lost, in a sea of ordinary-ness, it lacked excitement.

Clean sound appears to eliminate distortion but I don't consider that to be always better, particularly on recordings that come from this era.

I noticed the LP box set too but is this a set of 6 cd's for each album. Not good value is it as we know those albums were short by vinyl standards, so they will be even more bad value as CD's.

I wish they would re-issue the UK PSI album catalogue on cd - particularly those in stereo like the Ronettes and the Xmas album. I doubt Rare Masters is possible in the USA because there are often limitations on the number of tracks, unlike in the UK. I wonder if Sony has access to those tracks that have been circulated, like the Crystals "Chico's Girl", the many versions of Tina's "Everything Under The Sun" and that other version of Darlene's "Lord If You're A Woman". Are you guys involved?

[randy_russi]

I am not involved with any of it! However, I do agree on the Blossoms' tracks on the Darlene CD. Especially the very
first one--it's terrible. That's When The Tears Start and Good Good Lovin' were issued on a Reprise 45 back in '66.
It was Good Good Lovin' that got a lot of R&B airplay in central Florida.