For the past several days, I’ve had Neil Young’s newly remastered solo debut playing on repeat. Robert received a copy of the Neil Young Archives Official Release Series HDCD and I swiped it from him. (Actually, I was like, “May I please listen to that awesome stuff, please?”) Young’s first four albums, Neil Young, Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, After The Goldrush, and Harvest, make up the first offering from the NYA ORS:
For Christmas, I received the new vinyl reissue of Nirvana’s seminal 1991 album, Nevermind. This beautiful thing, mastered by acclaimed engineer, Bernie Grundman, and pressed at RTI on extremely quiet 180gm vinyl, is brought to us by Original Recordings Group. Thank god for them.
The music begins before he arrives. There are horns and hollers and hand claps. Then comes the MC: "Right now, ladies and gentlemen, we'd like to introduce the star of our show, the young man you've all been waiting for, Mister Soul! So, what d'you say? Let's all get together and welcome him to the stage with a great, big hand! How 'bout it?! How 'bout it?!"
Willie Nelson's Phases and Stages was released one year prior to Wainwright's Unrequited and takes a somewhat similar artistic approach. It is clearly a concept album with two distinct, but closely related, sides.
Did you know that we recently remastered our Rhapsody? The album is a tribute to George Gershwin, conducted by pianist Hyperion Knight, and it's good, good fun on the hi-fi.
Yesterday's episode of Sunday Morning on CBS included a segment with Herbie Hancock, whose River: The Joni Letters won two big prizes at the 50th annual Grammy Awards: Album of the Year and Best Contemporary Jazz Album.