Music Disc Reviews

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Music Disc Reviews
Def Leppard: Hysteria: 30th Anniversary Super Deluxe Edition
Mike Mettler  |  Feb 14, 2018  |  0 comments
Performance
Sound
When the phrase “beast mode” entered the vernacular, it was intended mainly as a descriptor for a singularly focused level of energy and drive as exhibited by certain football players. But it just as easily could have been used to describe the laser focus Def Leppard displayed in the face of innumerable odds while recording the 1987 juggernaut known as Hysteria. It may have taken them 34 months of on/off studio time and a hefty price tag of 2 million pounds to get to the finish line, but the ensuing album sold over 25 million copies worldwide and became the defining sonic template for the scores of pop-metal crossover hybrids that followed.
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Music Disc Reviews
Dire Straits—Brothers in Arms 20th Anniversary Edition (Warner Brothers) [DualDisc]
Steve Guttenberg  |  Dec 02, 2005  |  0 comments
Brothers in Arms was a monster seller of the 1980s and yielded Dire Straits' MTV anthem, "Money for Nothing." Beyond the pop successes, the band's music was coveted by audiophiles for its sweet sound; back in the day, I wore out countless Brothers in Arms LPs at my job selling high-end audio gear. Reconnecting with the music in this new 20th Anniversary Edition, remastered to DualDisc, was a total pleasure.
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Music Disc Reviews
Duffy: Endlessly
Brett Milano  |  Mar 02, 2011  |  0 comments
 
Mercury
Music ••1/2 Sound ••

 

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Music Disc Reviews
Eagles: Hotel California - 40th Anniversary Deluxe Edition
Mike Mettler  |  Feb 28, 2018  |  0 comments
Performance
Sound
Ah, the ’70s—the literal age of excess, as documented by the “everything, all the time” lifestyle credo personified by pop-music superstars like the Eagles and Fleetwood Mac. And yet, amidst all that glamour, glitz, and high drama also resided some damn fine music, too. Listen closely, and you’ll clue into a good bit of prescient social commentating by artists very much aware of the pitfalls of their experimentations, even while they basked in the afterglow.
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Music Disc Reviews
ELP Reissue Series: Emerson, Lake & Palmer; Tarkus; Pictures at an Exhibition
Mike Mettler  |  Dec 14, 2016  |  1 comments
Welcome back, my friends… well, you know the rest. That opening line—made famous in “Karn Evil 9 – 1st Impression, Part 2” from 1973’s Brain Salad Surgery—certainly applies to the re-emergence of the remastered catalog for Emerson, Lake & Palmer, the groundbreaking British progressive trio that defined adventurous recording and outrageous live performance during their 1970s heyday. Actually, ELP vocalist/multi-instrumentalist Greg Lake prefers using the word original instead of progressive to describe the band’s signature sound—and the man does have a point.
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Music Disc Reviews
Elton John: Madman Across the Water - 50th Anniversary Edition
Mike Mettler  |  Jul 27, 2022  |  0 comments
Performances
Sound
Elton John could do no wrong as the calendar came to the close of 1971. Madman Across the Water, his third album in that calendar year alone, came out in November, and it was considered to be the best entry in his Trident Studios orchestral trilogy, featuring production by Gus Dudgeon and arrangements by Paul Buckmaster. (The previous two releases in said trilogy were April 1970's self-titled Elton John and October 1970's Tumbleweed Connection.)
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Music Disc Reviews
Eric Clapton: Give Me Strength: The ’ 74/ ’ 75 Recordings
Mike Mettler  |  Mar 19, 2014  |  0 comments
Performance
Sound
Eric Clapton was at the crossroads of Personal Hell Avenue and Professional Conundrum Street as the calendar turned to 1974. His crippling heroin addiction derailed the creative momentum he achieved with Derek and the Dominos and Layla in 1970, and it took him a few long, painful years to emerge from the haze and return to chasing down his one true muse with guitar (and not needle) in hand. The jam-packed Give Me Strength: The ’74/’75 Recordings box set charts his sonic recovery.
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Music Disc Reviews
Eric Clapton: The Definitive 24 Nights Box Set
Mike Mettler  |  Sep 21, 2023  |  0 comments
Performances
Sound
I hesitate using trendy acronyms when writing reviews — but in this case, saying I had a clear-cut case of FOMO when Eric Clapton’s slightly misnamed 24 Nights 2 CD clamshell collection first came out in October 1991 actually might be an understatement. The 15 tracks on that release — five culled from E.C.’s 18-night 1990 Royal Albert Hall residency in London, and the remainder from his 24-night 1991 stretch there — seemed more like a tease. Hence, I resigned myself to being somewhat content at the time. But now, E.C.’s 1990-91 live largesse at “The Hall” has gotten considerably fuller on The Definitive 24 Nights.
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Music Disc ReviewsOther Tech
Exclusive Interview: Tom Petty on Recording 'Mojo'
Mike Mettler  |  May 31, 2010  |  0 comments

Here's the thing about Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers' stunning new album, Mojo: While you've never quite heard the band play this way before on record, the songs sound like you've known them all your life.

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Music Disc Reviews
Feed Your Vinyl Fetish: Record Store Day 2012 Picks From S+V
Mark Smotroff  |  Apr 18, 2012  |  0 comments

Record Store Day can be an exhilarating - and, depending on where you shop, occasionally exasperating - experience. Always a lot of fun, you can raise your odds of getting the good stuff you want on RSD by doing a little planning ahead and preparing a shopping/wish list. Really.  

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Blu-ray Movie ReviewsMusic Disc Reviews
First Look: Pat Metheny: The Orchestrion Project
Michael Berk  |  Jun 08, 2012  |  0 comments

Last night we dropped by the 7.1-equipped 3D theater in Dolby's midtown offices for a sneak peek at Francois and Pierre Lamoureux's Pat Metheny: The Orchestrion Project, the forthcoming theatrical 3D film of jazz legened Pat Metheny's latest "solo" outing with his mechanical orchestra.

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Music Disc Reviews
Fleetwood Mac: Tusk Deluxe Edition
Mike Mettler  |  Mar 29, 2016  |  1 comments
Performance
Sound
Revisionist history is just as much a part of rock & roll as guitars, cars, and odes to love and lust are. Some albums initially looked upon as noble but failed experiments more often than not semi-mysteriously improve with age and hindsight when viewed through the prism of time, wherein listeners finally catch up to the scope of the artists’ originally over-their-heads intentions.
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Music Disc Reviews
Frank Zappa – Over-Nite Sensation: Super Deluxe Edition Box Set
Mike Mettler  |  Mar 27, 2024  |  0 comments
Performances
Sound

Frank Zappa was a master at creating musical Venn diagrams. What do I mean by that? Well, Zappa’s compositional talents stretched well beyond the rock music idiom, so many of his releases would offer a keen intersection of doo-wop, classical orchestration, avant-jazz, progressive jams, country funk, and pure pop sensibilities (for starters). Sometimes he would even incorporate all his artistic powers into all 20-plus minutes of an album side’s lone track.

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Music Disc Reviews
Franz Ferdinand: Tonight: Franz Ferdinand
Parke Puterbaugh  |  Feb 26, 2009  |  0 comments
Domino/Epic
Music •½ Sound •••
Don't get me wrong: I have nothing against dance music, party tunes, or any other escapist entertainment.
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Music Disc Reviews
Get Back to Mono
Mike Mettler  |  Oct 15, 2014  |  3 comments
“Turn off your mind, relax, and float downstream.” John Lennon was referencing a theme from the Tibetan Book of the Dead by way of Timothy Leary’s book The Psychedelic Experience, but there really was no other way to start “Tomorrow Never Knows,” the pivotal track that ends Side 2 of The Beatles’ groundbreaking August 1966 album release, Revolver. And “Tomorrow”—originally identified on the recording sheet for “Job No. 3009” in Abbey Road Studio Three as “Mark I” when sessions commenced on April 6, 1966—is rife with studio innovations and flourishes only The Beatles and their revolutionary team of Abbey Road engineers could inaugurate as the methodology so many future artists would embrace: Inventing Artificial Double Tracking, a.k.a. ADT, to simulate the natural double-tracking of instruments and vocals (thank you, Ken Townsend).
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