"Outlandos d'Amour" by THE POLICE [feat Sting] (2003 A&M Records 'Enhanced CD' - Bob Ludwig Remaster) - A Review by Mark Barry...

"…Outlaws Of Love…" 

Ah The Police - what a stormingly good little band they were – especially at the outset. I can recall hearing the Side 1 opener "Next To You" of their debut LP for the first time – a sort of cross between Rock and New Wave – old yet new – yet excitingly fresh and immediate. 
And it turned out that most of the album was cut from the same song-winning cloth. 

Wish I could say the same about this barebones 2003 CD reissue/remaster - it sounds brill for sure but not much else. Here are the badges of honour...

UK released January 2003 (March 2013 in the USA) - "Outlandos d'Amour" by THE POLICE on A&M 493 652-2 (Barcode 606949365226) is an 'Enhanced CD' Remaster that plays out as follows (38:26 minutes):

1. Next To You
2. So Lonely
3. Roxanne
4. Hole In My Life
5. Peanuts
6. Can't Stand Losing You [Side 2]
7. Truth Hits Everybody
8. Born In The 50's
9. Be My Girl - Sally
10. Masoka Tanga
Tracks 1 to 10 are their debut album "Outlandos d'Amour" - released November 1978 in the UK on A&M Records AMLH 68502 and in the USA on A&M Records SP-4753. Produced by The Police - it peaked at No. 6 in the UK and No. 23 in the USA.

BONUS TRACK: Roxanne 'Video'

The gatefold slip of paper that pretends to be an inlay tells us the basics - Remaster by BOB LUDWIG (very good news) - but has nothing else for a so-called 'Enhanced' Edition. There's a ton of fan memorabilia from the period that could have been used - the British singles could have been pictured (where are those non-album B-sides as bonus tracks) - the impact of Sting and the band on the girlies of the world - but nothing is here except a Video that most won't look at. There's a photo of the boys beneath the see-through CD tray but bugger all else apart from the wickedly good audio (docked a star for the cheapo approach)...

Made on a shoestring - the album's audio belies its cheapo ramshackle recording process. It rocks and the BOB LUDWIG Remaster has only amplified that. In fact by the time you get to "Hole In My Life" (when you've been wowed by "So Lonely" and the breakthrough single "Roxanne")  - you're already lining up Outlaws Of Love as one of 'the' great debut albums. Styles crossover - Reggae - British Punk and New Wave - Rock. But it's never anything less than economical and Sting's songwriting brilliance has to be acknowledged just as much as the sheer dynamic they had as a Power Trio. With Sting on Bass and Lead Vocals (Gordon Sumner) - the brilliant Andy Summers on Guitar and American Stewart Copeland whacking those drums with such razor-sharp precision - The Police were lean and mean and had the zippy tunes to prove it.

I'd forgotten about that stunning and wild guitar solo from Summers in "Peanuts" - a staggeringly angry song about posers ("...don't want to hear about the drugs you're taking...") - or that genius piano introduction and backbeat in the amazing and infectious "Hole In My Life". And then they hit you with the genius of "Can't Stand Losing You" - those fabulous words and that 'dance on the spot' beat that hooks in and won’t let go. I can vividly recall dancefloors and even discos playing this brill little bopper and the crowd going nuts as Sting sings "...and you'll be sorry when I'm dead and all this guilt will be on your head..." That's the thing about great bands and songs - they hook into a collective - a feeling everyone knows - and as much as it was funny to hear - it was also a tad too close to the knuckle for many. The audio on "Truth Hits Everybody" is fantastic and again most will have forgotten just how damn catchy it is (that Summers and Copeland combo playing up a blinder). The last three "Born In The 50's", "Be My Girl - Sally" and "Masoko Tanga" are good but not up to what went before.

As I write in November 2016 - we're only two years away from November 2018 when The Police's debut album “Outlandos d'Amour" is 40 years old. Not 20 nor 30 but 40! Where has the time gone? And yet it still feels fresh as a newly minted Donald Trump bankruptcy (God help us all).

Available for somewhere between three and five quid - this is a beginner’s punt you need. There's a "Hole In My Life" without it...

"Atom Heart Mother" by PINK FLOYD (September 2011 EMI 'Discovery Edition' Remaster AND January 2016 'Pink Floyd Records' CD Reissue) - A Review by Mark Barry...

"...Funky Dung..."

Emerging from the Syd Barrett-led 60ts phase – PINK FLOYD started the new decade with the frankly bizarre "Atom Heart Mother" – a late 1970 album that signalled the new more Prog sound to come - but in "Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast" held onto the lunacy of old. And you have to give them credit for the name "Atom Heart Mother" and the wacky utterly unforgettable artwork – a lone moo-moo staring out at us from a field wondering what in God’s name is that man doing pointing a camera at my posterior when I’m just trying to graze some grass here? Curiouser and Curiouser...

Always a task trying to find a decent vinyl copy original – the length of the LP at just over 52 minutes did for its fidelity too. But all of that is thankfully part of the past because this 2011 James Guthrie and Joel Plante CD Remaster is a massive improvement on a dog’s ear of a recording (relaunched January 2016 on Pink Floyd Records). Here are the Holy Cows and the Funky Dung...

UK re-released 8 January 2016 – "Atom Heart Mother" by PINK FLOYD on Pink Floyd Records PFR5 (Barcode 5099902894027) is a straightforward 5-track reissue CD using the Remaster from 2011. It's once again housed in a gatefold card digipak, has a stickered sleeve (on the outer shrink-wrap) with the new catalogue number PFR5, a 12-page colour booklet with photos and lyrics and the same barcode as the 2011 issue (52:06 minutes). The original album gatefold is the centre pages of the booklet while the lyrics (never on the original) are now featured over new photographs of shovels and a pair of boots and other useless and pointless images. It looks nice for sure but informs you of nothing – no history – no liner notes – no updates or insights. It’s a damn shame that 2016 wasn’t used as a way to pump up the booklet into something special from their laughable 'discover nothing' from our 'discovery' editions of 2011. In fact you could argue that this 'Pink Floyd Records' 2016 reissue is in itself 'corporate' – the very thing they raged so much against on "Animals" and "The Wall" in 1977 and 1979.

The original version of this Remaster was released 26 September 2011 as a 'Discovery Edition' single CD on EMI/Harvest 50999 028940 2 7 (Barcode 5099902894027) – this 2016 version on Pink Floyd Records uses that 2011 remaster and the same artwork. The 'Discovery Edition' sticker is gone as is the horrible 'green and blue Ds' reinvented CD artwork that came with the 2011 issue – that's thankfully been replaced on the CD with the front album cover artwork.

1. Atom Heart Mother (Suite):

(a) Father's Shout

(b) Breast Milky

(c) Mother Fore

(d) Funky Dung

(e) Mind Your Throats Please

(f) Remergence

2. If [Side 2]

3. Summer '68

4. Fat Old Sun

5. Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast

(a) Rise And Shine

(b) Sunny Side Up

(c) Morning Glory

Tracks 1 to 5 are their 5th album "Atom Heart Mother" – released 10 October 1970 in the UK on Harvest SHVL 781 and in the USA on Harvest SKAO-382. Produced by PINK FLOYD and NORMAN SMITH – Recorded at Abbey Road Studios in London in 1970 – it peaked at No. 1 in the UK and No. 55 in the USA.

PINK FLOYD was:

DAVID GILMOUR – Lead Guitar and Vocals

ROGER WATERS – Bass, Guitar and Vocals

RICHARD WRIGHT – Keyboards and Vocals

NICK MASON – Drums

Guests: JOHN ALLDIS CHOIR on parts of "Atom Heart Mother"

Mastered by JAMES GUTHRIE and JOEL PLANTE at Das Boot Recording Studios in Tahoe in California in 2011 - the original 1st generation master tapes have been given a thorough going over (Guthrie is a Sound Engineer associated with the band since 1978). In fact - each song feels like these experts have spent a staggering amount of time worrying over every single nuance - because the audio result is truly impressive. That 2011 remaster has been reused for the January 2016 reissues.

The entirely instrumental Side 1 six-part suite "Atom Heart Mother" runs to 23:42 minutes and typically fades in with mad brass and a droning synth note.  Avant Garde artist RON GEESIN being the fifth accredited writer along with the four boys in the band – gives us a cornucopia of sounds - cars starting up – engines turning over – until it all settles down into a "Meddle" like duo of Richard Wright on Organ and Gilmour on Guitar. The clarity as Gilmour solos over that brass and lone organ is impressive – and as the still unidentified leading lady of the John Aldiss Choir comes sailing in – you can so hear where Mike Oldfield got some of his more orchestral ideas for "Tubular Bells" and "Ommadawn" from. When they fade out and we’re in "Funky Dung" – the Remastered Wright/Gilmour combo of Organ and Guitar is superb and certainly more muscular than I’ve ever heard it - and I still can’t make out what the Kate Bush-mad chanting voices are saying (very cool though).

After the indulgence of Side 1 - Side 2’s "If" comes as an Acoustic relief – Roger Water's delightfully upbeat "...if I go insane...please don't put your wires in my brain..." lyrics feeling like 1977 and not 1970. The audio on Gilmour's guitar is beautiful and even the background Richard Wright Organ/Piano playing is more evident. Richard Wright then stumps up "Summer '68" which feels like the kind of pretty song that would have not been out of place on 1972's "Obscured By Clouds" or even Kevin Ayers 1971 Harvest Records LP "Whatevershebringswesing". The brass and piano are loud and open for all the right reasons. Gilmour vocals his own "Fat Old Sun" but I've always felt it was not a great song. The album ends on the nutty 13-minutes of "Alan Psychedelic Breakfast" where someone babbles on about liking Marmalade and Porridge as they potter about in a kitchen before keyboards take over. After the musical interlude - it returns to our still unidentified hero warbling this time about 'breakfast in Los Angeles' with 'macrobiotic stuff'. It's fun but that's about all and you can't help thinking that they would have been better just allowing those lovely Acoustic Guitars in the centre passage simply play out the album (music boys - remember).

"Atom Heart Mother" is part genius, part knob and very much an example of an experimental time and a label prepared to let their artists go a bit bonkers for the sake of their art. But at least on this 2011/2016 CD Remaster - you can now hear it. And that faucet tap dripping that looped on the Side 2 run-out groove as your needle went over to the label can now be heard too. Moo moo indeed...

PS: OK - Cue the cow jokes:

I'd review this if only I 'cud' - you should see the 'udder' guy - let's 'milk' this one again - I'd lift this CD but it's too 'heffer' - check out the 'teats' on this one - I think we're 'dung' here...

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"Highway To Hell" by AC/DC (2003 Epic/Albert Productions 'ConnecteD Technology' CD Remaster) - A Review To Mark Barry...

"...Going Down...Party Time..." 

"...Paid my dues...playing in a rocking band...hey mama...look at me...I'm on my way to the promised-land..." Bon Scott sang with sly gusto on the amazing title track to "Highway To Hell" – their genuine breakthrough album from August 1979. But come February 1980 he was gone – lost to a dumb drinking binge - and I for one was miserable at his loss.

Luckily enough I did at least get to see the Bon Scott line-up of AC/DC on that tour in Dublin – a wow that still tingles my weary bones nearly 40 years after the event. Cocky, self-knowing and lecherous towards anything in a skirt (pencil or otherwise) – he was also possessed of a set of rasping pipes and a rapier wit – the kind of lead singer that made your mama worry and your daddy reach for the garden hatchet - ready to tame that excited appendage should to come looking for some post gig jiggery-pokery. 

Bon Scott was one of the best front men I've ever seen. Up there with Phil Lynott and Johnny Rotten - the man was impossible to ignore and impossible not to like - and their hour of adrenalin-fuelled Aussie Hard Rock on that cold Monday night was some of the most amazing Rock 'n' Roll I've ever seen. AC/DC had it all at that moment - a genuinely awesome thing to behold live - and then only a few months later - it was gone... 

After the blistering no-holes barred "Let There Be Rock" set in 1977 and the lukewarm reception to the excellent but more muted "Powerage" in 1978 – it was do or die for the Australian hard rockers – and time for a change. That smart move turned out to be a Producer – ROBERT 'MUTT' LANG – who gave AC/DC and their sensational new material the spit and polish it needed for American radio. Suddenly the world went nuts for the Pop-Rock of "Girls Got Rhythm" and "Get It Hot". In fact "Highway To Hell" could be called a 'classy' AC/DC album - if I can say such a thing about a bunch of misogynistic Hades-loving reprobates. Here are the horn 'n' tail details...

UK released May 2003 - "Highway To Hell" by AC/DC on Epic/Albert Productions EPC 510764 2 (Barcode 5099751076421) is a 10-Track CD Remaster of the 1979 US LP and plays out as follows (41:42 minutes):

1. Highway To Hell

2. Girls Got Rhythm

3. Walk All Over You

4. Touch Too Much

5. Beating Around The Bush

6. Shot Down In Flames [Side 2]

7. Get It Hot

8. If You Want Blood (You've Got It)

9. Love Hungry Man

10. Night Prowler

Tracks 1 to 10 are their sixth studio album (5th in the UK) "Highway To Hell" - released 3 August 1979 in the USA on Atlantic SD 19244 and in the UK on Atlantic K 50628. Produced by ROBERT JOHN LANG (aka 'Mutt' Lang) – it peaked at No. 8 in the UK and No. 17 in the USA.

Unlike "Let There Be Rock" and "Powerage" that have track anomalies requiring pages of explanation – "Highway To Hell" was a globally synchronised release – same 10 songs everywhere. This Epic 2003 CD reissue has what they call 'ConnecteD Technology' that allows you to access online content via your computer but I'm buggered if I've ever bothered. The card digipak is the same for all of these reissues - very tasty and tactile - picture CD - a 16-page booklet crammed full of colour photos, press adverts, picture sleeves of 7” singles, stage passes and Angus and Bon in various manic live poses (ERNIE WELCH liner notes). They’ve reproduced handwritten lyrics for "Highway To Hell" and "Shot Down In Flames" and the unique Australian artwork for Albert Productions APLP-040 is on the back cover. The inner pouch has Angus chucking a bucket of paint at something while the others giggle.

The GEORGE MARINO Remaster (done in the USA) is from 'original master tapes' and sounds sharp - rocking like the beast it is (aided by MIKE FRASER and AL QUAGLIEREI in the transfers). Some have complained there's too much treble but I'm thinking Lang put that polish on the finished product on purpose. This CD rocks and you can feel it on every song.

What I love about "Highway" is that everything clicks – the whole damn album is brilliant. Each track comes in – does the business – and leaves. The pace changes fast to slow – and at the centre of it – there's Angus riffing away like a loon while Bon finally has his vocals clearer than ever. And unlike 1980’s "Back In Black" which I found cold and uninviting – "Highway" is full of fun – Bon’s mischievous and downright un-PC lyrics making you giggle (and occasionally wince). As you navigate killer riff number one hundred and ten – you can just see him at the microphone – that twinkle in his eye and bulge in his pants. This guy has been there - drunk from the fountain of Rock 'n' Roll and set up camp in its life-replenishing waters (possibly wee-wee’d on its outer walls). Album tracks like "Get It Hot" and the fantastic slow riffage of "Night Prowler" still impress - while "Beating About The Bush" and "Shot Down In Flames" are anthems that fans get tearful about to this day.

Best Rock Band on the planet then and many would argue (in 2016) not a lot has changed. Genius...and I miss him...

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"Animals" by PINK FLOYD (September 2011 EMI 'Discovery Edition' CD Remaster 'AND' January 2016 Pink Floyd Records CD 'Reissue' Using The 2011 Remaster) - A Review By Mark Barry...

"...Born Into A House Full Of Pain..."

Despite (or perhaps because of) a musical landscape utterly blown open by the sheer violence and life-by-the-throat nature of Punk – good old misery guts Roger Waters of Rock Dinosaurs PINK FLOYD didn't seem to notice nor give a rat’s ass.

Recorded in 1976 and then released into a poisonous British landscape in January 1977 on Harvest SHVL 815 – even its dower Battersea Power Station 'industrial monolith' artwork seemed as grime-grubby as the portentous contents within where our cheery chappies blathered on about Orwellian things like Pigs and Sheep and the occasional Dog to the backdrop of an immaculately recorded guitar. It's coming from the sky – we're all going to die – nice. But none of that stops me from admiring the 2011 James Guthrie and Joel Plante Remaster on this more acidic of Floyd albums – relaunched January 2016 on Pink Floyd Records – the lads now just as corporate as the machine they so raged against nearly 40 years ago.

"Animals" remastered on CD is a huge improvement over the LP original – an album that sported a hard card inner sleeve itself inside a gatefold cover and has for years been notoriously difficult to get a good vinyl pressing of. This CD is 'massive' – and for all the right reasons – beautiful clarity that's made me reassess my loathing of both it and the 'the system is killing the kids' knob that followed – 1979's double "The Wall". Here are the newly floated Piggies...

UK re-released 8 January 2016 – "Animals" by PINK FLOYD on Pink Floyd Records PFR10 (Barcode 5099902895123) is a straightforward 5-track 2016 reissue CD using the Remaster from 2011. It's once again housed in a gatefold card digipak, has a stickered sleeve (on the outer shrinkwrap) and 12-page colour booklet (41:44 minutes).

The original version of this Remaster was released 26 September 2011 as a 'Discovery Edition' single CD on EMI/Harvest 50999 028951 2 3 (Barcode 5099902895123) – this 2016 version on Pink Floyd Records uses that 2011 remaster and the same artwork. The 'Discovery Edition' sticker is gone as is the horrible 'green Ds' reinvented CD artwork that came with the 2011 issue – that's thankfully been replaced on the CD with the Side 1 'Dog' label artwork of the original LP. The 'Sheep and Pig' label of Side 2 is nowhere to be seen.

1. Pigs On The Wing 1 (1:26 minutes)

2. Dogs (17:05 minutes)

3. Pigs (Three Different Ones) (11:26 minutes) – Side 2

4. Sheep (10:20 minutes)

5. Pigs On The Wing 2 (1:29 minutes)

PINK FLOYD was:

ROGER WATERS – Bass, Guitar and Lead Vocals

DAVID GILMOUR – Lead Guitar and Vocals

RICHARD WRIGHT – Keyboards

NICK MASON – Drums

Mastered by JAMES GUTHRIE and JOEL PLANTE at Das Boot Recording Studios in Tahoe in California in 2011 - the original 1st generation master tapes have been given a thorough going over (Guthrie is a Sound Engineer associated with the band since 1978). In fact - each song feels like these experts have spent a staggering amount of time worrying over every single nuance - because the audio result is truly impressive. That remaster has been reused for the January 2016 reissues.

Essentially three long pieces of music (17, 11 and 10 minutes) bookended by the short one-and-half minute acoustic strums of "Pigs On The Wing" Part 1 and 2 – the Audio improvement is immediate on hearing the opening. This is a beautiful remaster and when we enter the Waters/Gilmour written "Dogs" and its various Guitar-Solo parts – you're clobbered with the Production values Floyd and Engineer BRIAN HUMPHRIES brought to the original 1976 recordings (done at Britannia Row Studios in London). When Waters sings the verse beginning with "...and after a while you can work on points for style..." – the band kicks in, as does Gilmour's fabulous axework that makes the whole seventeen minutes so edgy. You can hear this version. The lyrics are incredibly bleak – old men dying of cancer – people born in a house full of pain – souls trying to shake of the creeping malaise. And when those dogs do start barking and Richard Wright gets a chance to make his keyboard presence felt – the effect is brilliant – ably supporting Gilmour as he rips into his Strat for the first of many solos.

Side 2 opens with treated piggy grunts and very clear Bass and Keyboard parts before Gilmour flicks that guitar on "Pigs (Three Different Ones)". I can never work out if Roger Waters blatantly vicious attack of England's Mary Whitehouse and her moral-crusading is either smart thinking or a petulant child with too much money barking at an easy target. 

And when he sings "...ha ha charade you are..." or "...Mary you're nearly a treat...but you're really a cry..." - he sounds like a wordsmith who can't get his words out. 

But there's absolutely no doubting the clarity of the Remaster and when it breaks down into more Pig noises and that slow Guitar strum - the rhythm instruments are better than ever – and that wild soloing towards the end is great. Many have commented on the similarity between Meddle’s "One Of These Days" and Animal’s "Sheep" - that same backbeat driving the song on. And it ends on the second variant of "Pigs On The Wing" – essentially a slightly different re-run of Part 1.

Even now I can understand why Punk Rockers (also enjoying a 40^th Anniversary or two) despised Pink Floyd and "Animals" – it still reeks of establishment supposedly ribbing itself. But that aside – the CD Remaster is a thing of wonder after all these years of less than great originals and half-assed reissues on newer formats.

Fan – or just curious - "Animals" on CD is a must buy. Apple (who are finally going to corporate the Battersea Power Station into a multi-media selling powerhouse) will be pleased...