What's up with America?

I have always liked their music.

Whenever I played them tho, I had to turn the volume upwards. Their recording levels always seemed lower than others'. Perhaps this might account for a sense of lack of detail.

Has this been changed recently? Or does the BDP 95 somehow adjust for this?

"what has been engineered into this great wonder?"

Less compression.

a couple of their records were produced by george martin, who did a pretty good job with the beatles. as for their musical merits iw on't comment (altho i did find "sister golden hair" maddeningly catchy).

My favorite review of this lame-ass band, from Robert Christgau:
History/America's Greatest Hits [Warner Bros., 1975]
Randy Newman once described "A Horse With No Name" as "this song about a kid who thinks he's taken acid," and at least back then they were domesticating CSNY instead of CSN. More tuneful than Seals & Crofts but with less to say, which they've managed to conceal by establishing meaningless highschool verse as a pop staple, they might be remembered as the '70s answer to the Association if they could come up with one song half as lively as "Windy" or "Along Comes Mary." C-

1972, "America" debuts, and it's my first year away at college. My suitemates have a killer stereo, all vinyl of course...oh my! I still need to drag that out every so often. Have heard them dismissed as an anemic answer to Crosby, Stills and company, but I don't care, a guilty pleasure if you will. What about that "Horse with no name, and singing in the purple rain".....what on earth were they talking about?! LOL