Received my copy yesterday. Again, I have to applaud the amount of surround content in these Tull sets. You get whatever they could find of the original album, the entire re-recorded album, the entire unreleased quad mix (!), and bonus tracks in surround.
I had never heard this album before. It's got a couple of good tunes: I particularly like "Quiz Kid" and the title track. Interestingly enough, it doesn't sound much like the albums that came before (
Minstrel In The Gallery) or after (
Songs From The Wood), which are my two favorite Tull albums.
The 5.1 mixes are what we've come to expect from this SW/Tull series: Ian Anderson's vocals hard in the center, lead guitar upfront, with strings, keys, and flute usually in the rears. They're awesome, but I think that the surround mixes on
Songs From The Wood and
Heavy Horses stand head-and-shoulders above the rest of this series.
"Too Old To Rock 'n' Roll, Too Young To Die!" (Original Album 5.1 Mix):
My go-to version of this album will probably be the TV show re-recorded version. I had some fun comparing it to the original version and it's unbelievably close. That being said, for the title track I do prefer the original version, and luckily enough the multitrack for that song was found. For that song, I have three different surround mixes to choose from.
"Quiz Kid" (TV Show 5.1 Mix):
The unreleased quad mix is a great find. Unlike
Minstrel, I don't think this one was ever mentioned in a tape catalog or anything. It's also the only way to hear the original album tracks that have missing multis in surround. As mentioned in the
pre-release thread, it's shocking that WEA was still commissioning quad mixes after being one of the first to exit the format in 1975. I hope they dig up the announced/unreleased
M.U. Best Of quad mix, if it does in fact exist, for a future set.
Unfortunately, the quad mix is kind of a mess! This is nothing like Robin Black's quad mixes of
Aqualung,
WarChild, and
Minstrel. I'm convinced there is some kind of channel-swap or authoring error here, but I honestly cannot figure it out. No matter how you swap around the channels, it's impossible not to get a diagonally-panned instrument.
Take for instance the opening track, "Prelude". Anderson's vocals are in both left channels, and the rights have reverb and some strings. Rotating all channels clockwise makes perfect sense, putting the vocals upfront and the strings in the rears.
"Prelude" (4.0 Mix):
Then you have "Quiz Kid": this track starts out logically enough with electric guitar in the fronts and flute in the rears. Then once the full band kicks in, the vocals are in all four, while the acoustic strumming and bass guitar are diagonally placed in front right and rear left (??).
Weirdest of all, at certain moments the vocals switch channels in a very odd manner. It goes like this:
- "Win a fortnight in Ibiza..." (all four channels )
- "...line up for the big hand out." (front right & left rear ONLY)
- "...You'll never know unless you try/what winning's all about" (front right & left rear ONLY)
- "Be a quiz kid" (all four channels)
You can actually hear some ghosting/reverb of lines 2 and 3 in front left and rear right. This led me to assume that FR & RL are meant to be one stereo pair, while FL & RR are the other pair. Switching the right channels puts the bass and acoustic guitar across the rears, and at that moment mentioned above the vocals jump to the rear, but the opening guitar and flute are now in cross-channels.
"Quiz Kid" (4.0 Mix):
I'll probably end up starting a separate thread specifically on the quad mix, because I'm convinced something has gone awry here.
Anyway, I'm going with an 8. It's a great package, get it while you can!
