Great Music/Bad Vinyl - 2010 Edition

"Special Award for Disappointment/Expectation Ratio:
Elvis Costello - 'My Aim Is True' (MSFL re-issue)"

You must have gotten a bad copy. Mine is EXCELLENT both sonically and musically. All of the reviews I have read say the same thing. Sorry, don't agree with this...

LOTS of pop albums fit the bill:
just thinking how BAD the sound is on YES "Yessongs" live 1973 tour.. NO BASS... man I coulda done better with a stereo walkman.
how about the HORRIBLE sound of Chicago's IV "Live at Carnegie Hall" 4 record set? in some ways sound not too bad but all kinds of reflections and bouncy muddy lower mids and again NO BASS.
Then of course the unlistenable YES "Close to the Edge" the only version even listenable is the MFSL.
I have an OREGON album I absolutely LOVE the music on, but the vinyl quality is so incredibly bad with super noisy distortion it's unbearable.. the recording is good, the vinyl itself sucks and I went thru 3 copies trying to find one that didn't suck.. the pressing is "Roots in the Sky" on the Electa label.. could never find an import copy but that would be the way to go.. one of those ultra rare instances where the CD was a better situation than the LP!
"Miles and Monk at Newport" also pretty bad recording.. so is Coltranes "Live at the Village Vanguard II" sounds like it was recorded on a portable GE cassette recorder!!

I am really glad to hear Xiekitchen point out Close to the Edge as a terrible CD transfer. I used to enjoy listening to it on LP. The CD is without exaggeration unlistenable. Once every couple of years , I think to myself, it couldn't be that bad and I put it on. Within 2 or 3 minutes, I can't take any more of the screeching high frequency distortion and gross compression. What a shame for such a good work.

But that has always been the sound of The Raveonettes. I think it's purposely squished.

Yup, too bad about the Phosphorescent (I tried to warn you but alas too late). Easily my pick for poorest vinyl transfer of 2010.

The Analogue Productions release of Yes' Fragile has to be one of the most sterile transfers ever done - all the sounds are there, but the patient is dead, lying flat, utterly lifeless. My late 70's Atlantic pressing easily surpasses it in every aspect.

Mastodon - Crack the Skye is a muddy awful mess. The mastering is utter shit. There are so many good metal albums sonically, but this isn't one of them though musically it's quite good.

The recent transfers of the first few Ben Harper albums are somewhat disappointing as well, almost as if they were transferred from a digital source (albeit the fact you can plainly hear the tape hiss, especially on Fight For Your Mind which ought to have been a vinyl lovers dream, but it isn't).

There are, of course, many more.