Personally, I think that adding Mark Charig's cornet to Starless was the best thing they could have done.

Hi,

Sometimes I think this is unfair ... it was magnificent the day it came out, and has stood up beautifully for 50 years, and with a LP (and a very good sound system), this sounds fantastic, and I kinda think way better than the remix ... 

I wonder why we think that all the remixes are better than the originals ... well, I guess that's a weird one, since we can't listen to a lot of classical music and its original and instead had to put up (for a long time) with many interpretations by various conductors ... I suppose that one could think of the remixes similarly, but in all honesty, I have not heard a single remix that was better than the original ... a good example of a remix that didn't help much for me was Gentle Giant ... the originals, and LP's were ... so we thought ... kinda messy, and it added to the fun and the band's work ... two of the remixes I heard made it sound like it was all composed and pre-defined, when Gary Green and others from the band very clearly stated ... "we didn't write much ... we just played" ... and the "raw" attitude from it was a much better idea than an organized remix to make it look like it was a compositional masterpiece .... that's advertising, not music for my ears!

(I hope this won't seem messy ... it is a difficult discussion for me!)

I think that too many of these folks/musicians are "second guessing" a lot of their work, which kinda tells you that they can only see the requirements of the time and place, and today ... imagine Picasso wanting to have some of his paintings re-done. Or Miro ... better yet, Dali ... we would not accept it!!! 

I can imagine that many of them think that what was done, was not good enough, or could have been better. But, I'm not sure I want to hear/see something redone, simply because ... "it is the thing to do" these days ... to (supposedly) make it better and more on par with today's listeners ... instead we look to change/update an older piece ... mostly because many of us think that old stuff is not good enough to our ipod ears and music and some of those mixes don't separate things well enough ... the American version of Sgt Peppers (the original) was like this, while the original English had magnificent separation ... and this happened all the way until Allan Parsons came along with DSOTM.

Hi,

As I have said a few times too many, all music is a visual for me ... and this is very subjective since I can not explain that to you ... all I can say is what I see ... similar to dreams, which I'm very adept and watching and writing about/on.

IF, a remix, or re-something or other, was that different, I would suggest that the piece is going to suffer ... what makes music history for us in the last 500 years, is the fact that we recall the music, and we do not worry about the 2 violins together on that mike over there, as opposed to the 2 violins separated which gives us a completely different feeling in the music and sometimes, it seems opposite each other, instead of together, unless they are playing exactly the same thing ... but then even that can be an issue since no 2 players are the same with an instrument ... and I don't think a studio can change that much!

I'm a writer, and have things that I wrote 25 years ago, not yet released ... I have reviewed and cleaned these up 100 times ... but it was mostly the English and to make sure that the wording was clear ... it didn't change anything or any suggestive ideas about the piece or chapter. I think ... all of us ... musicians included will always look at their past stuff and think they could have done better ... which I'm not sure is true since they could have done it already and instead someone else is doing it!

For me, the concern is the idea/possibility that it will hurt and damage the piece ... I have thrown away at least 2 novels because of too much hacking, if you will ... thus, the idea that what was done could have been done better is an illusion ... based on different microphones, recording materials, DAW/Boards and what not ... an Abbey Road opposite a homegrown studio ... kinda of thing. AND, my preference is to allow that "old picture" to stand up on their own ... there is no need for me to color the hat, or add flowers to the dress, or perhaps put a piece of bubble gum in that mouth ... oh excuse me ... a close up so we can see the pretty mose!

My feeling is that RF no longer has any creative juice left ... he can still play, he is a master/massive player ... but he is into mechanics way too much to be able to express something new that he is feeling, or perhaps too old now to be able to do it right, without falling into the trap of many of his past examples. No new music from KC unless it comes from someone else, which I doubt unless Toyah gets him to help create something new for her.

Side note: It is very weird for me to think that a recording, of 4 folks in this example, is going to be any different because of what someone does/did at the mixing desk ... are we saying that the mixing is going to change the actual music? That is a bizarre notion. It's the same 4 folks playing it all ... and some studio/mastering trickery makes the whole thing better? I don't think so ... the original was far out and neat, and very special or the album would have been ignored. Not sure the "remix/remaster" is going to improve ... heck, it hasn't made Beethoven any better in some 200/300 years, has it? I am almost sure that this is an issue with folks getting used top very bad mp3 stuff for a long time, that made the music sound poor ... the LP sounded fantastic, and I still have it!