You might be interested in the Vinyl Nation documentary I posted a little way back.
RSD was born out of a couple of record shops in the US who started it locally as a means to promote their declining shops.
Now imo its ballooned into an international marketing Behemoth, what is it 2 or 3 RSD days now, each one with drop1, drop 2 etc then theres album day and even black Friday blah blah
Simply because it is an exceptionally good album by an often unsung but very important figure of JA music.
Its been hard to find on vinyl for sensible money, a few hundred pounds on the collectors market since its original release.
It was part of a short lived project (Island Jamaica Jazz) and series of albums bringing attention to the Jazzier side of modern Jamaican music, other titles included Monty Alexander’s excellent Yard Movement, saxophonist and musical director Dean Fraser Big Up, Skatalites Ball Of Fire and a further excellent Ranglin’ Memories Of Barber Mack.
Maybe I misunderstand you, its not now being re issued on vinyl or (hopefully not) transferred from a CD, many of the titles were originally released at the time simultaneously on both vinyl & CD
Yes, they were released on CD with more tracks and Below The Bassline (not sure about the other titles) is available to stream. If the vinyl format doesnt particularly interest then the digital options of course are another way of hearing this fine music.
Possibly of particular interest to members of the forum;
Back when Below The Bassline was new I turned my Naim dealer on to the record who became a fan of Ernie Ranglin, he used BTBL a lot as a dem record (CD and LP) in the shop. He later told me that the album had become a favourite at Naim HQ and was played a lot during the development of a Naim component (cant remember which). I recall @Richard.Dane has previously mentioned this on the forum.
Yes I would be really interested in that comparison. I did have the option of the Japanese one at £70 delivered which I passed on.
Agree with you re coloured vinyl- unnecessary to be an attractive purchase - especially if only 1000 copies.
If I didn’t know you well enough to know you’d never do this, I’d suggest you could have kept shtum, scalped lots of copies and then mentioned it here. Then we could all have found highly priced copies through DATC on discogs.
As if!
From my hearing you were wise to pass on the Japanese edition, that was pricey too around £50 iirc
As we’ve discussed I hope this RSD isnt the same master.
I’ve been discussing this with a friend in the Reggae business who reckons that the original recordings were likely mastered to DAT, thats a potential concern as DAT’s dont age well unless there was also a tape master.
Its academic really as we wont know until we hear it and you cant wait until it comes out to hear reviews/comparisons in case it sells out. Another downside to the nonsense thats RSD, I feel another wobbly coming on so I’ll stop
I saw on Discogs that it’s a 1996 original album, so a digital one normally. If it’s released today on lp, it’s automatically a digital transfer, not ?
Personally, for myself, I would not bother with vinyl in that case, but download in 16/44 or on cd .
Or perhaps it’s not a 1996 original album ?
It was recorded at Sony Music Studio’s in New York and mastered by John Dent at Loud Mastering in UK if that helps.
I know you prefer to access music digitally and as I said in my reply to you thats good too, whatever floats yer boat. I have the album on both formats and enjoy streaming it occasionally to, its all good so you wont draw me into an argument on that score
Haha! Bait not taken
I listen to the streamed version and it sounds great.
However this is an album that I really want to own on vinyl.
But not so much for £400- Discogs pricing.
On a connected note- I went into this massive record shop in Charleston SC last summer and the guy said they had every record either in the shop or they could source it for me. I asked for BTBL and the response was “never heard of it” and they couldn’t find it “on their system”
Well believe it or not (BTBL on vinyl had poor distribution) a pal who is in the JA music business was struggling to get a copy, on a visit to Island records at the time they denied any vinyl pressing existed, strange! (this was at a time though when the majors were trying to kill vinyl)