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Bought all of the 2-Disc Reissues At Once - Some Thoughts


ThreeSticks

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I recently bought all of the 2-CD deluxe remastered reissues of the Led Zeppelin back catalog. By and large I was very pleased with the project. I find the sound on the CD’s to be better than the 90’s remasters, and I have enjoyed a good deal of the material on the companion discs.

 

However, like many fans, I feel there were some things that they got wrong with the reissues series:

 

Booklets – an opportunity lost. While it was wonderful to get new photos, I was extremely disappointed about the complete lack of new liner notes with the reissues. When The Who reissued their catalog in the 1990’s, the booklets were worth the cost of the CD itself. They were beautifully made with not only all the original artwork, credits and liner notes, but also new photos, details on each of the songs (including the bonus songs), and most importantly, liner notes penned by a reputable journalist (and sometimes by Townshend) about the making of the album, and its place in The Who’s career and contemporary music at the time. Led Zeppelin, more than any group in classic rock history, is shrouded in mystery. Almost all of the info we have on the band and their recording sessions come from sleazy sensationalist books. Since it appears as if no one in the band is ever going to pen an autobiography, why couldn’t these guys have gotten together and written something about the making of each album? They could’ve detailed how the songs were written. They could’ve shared details about the recording process, some fun things that may have happened during the sessions, their thoughts on the companion disc tracks, etc.  What an opportunity lost. My biggest gripe with the reissues.

 

Give me a font size that does require a microscope. There is a trend with many reissue campaigns to genuinely reproduce the artwork of the original LP into the CD casing and booklet. It’s not the same medium. If you want the LP artwork of Led Zeppelin III, buy the LP version of Led Zeppelin III. Look, I have pretty good vision, but I am at an age where I do need reading glasses. I absolutely cannot read the recording dates for the songs on the original “Coda” CD now even with reading glasses. Even the credits on the black background of all the CD booklets are hard to read.

 

Companion Discs Not Expansive Enough. For the most part I didn’t have many major gripes with the companion discs, although some of the rough mixes, frankly, sounded just like the final mix to me. It’s just that there was room on all of these discs to include material that has already come out on bootleg. I understand Jimmy’s philosophy of making sure to include material that fans haven’t heard before, but there was still more than enough time on the “Physical Graffiti” disc to include “Swan Song” for instance, or even some of the rough rehearsal ideas like “Take Me Home.” Yes, fans can hear these songs on youtube.com or bootleg CD, but they would like to hear them in better sound quality.

 

The “Coda” thing. I still don’t understand for the life of me why the two companion discs weren’t combined into one companion disc. It creates a situation where one of the discs in the “Coda” package has to be put in a place where it can easily get scratched, etc. It's a hassle with a single disc player to change out a disc that is only 30 minutes long. I'd rather just have it all on a 63 minute disc, thank you.

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  • 4 weeks later...

I have found bits I do really enjoy but see the original poster's point to a degree but Coda definitely should have been 2 full cd's... this was a decision I don't get. I had good luck getting scuff free discs til presence I went thru 4 til I got a disc 2 without glue on it.  The Japanese know how to package.

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I use cds too. All my Zep collection are of that format. My vinyl got chucked away when i left home. You cannot beat physical copies. Listen to artists you do not like as much on the computer or the million other methods available these days.

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Yeah I stupidly sold vinyl in 90's and turntable was destroyed in a move at that time. The diament/ Sidore cd's still sound good to me but I bought complete studio on I tunes for phone to car playing and they r pretty nice.  I just have neither time nor money for costly system or to get turntable and repurchase. Yes I still have 800 cd's

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I have everything on CD, I think I've got about 650 of them.

People often comment on it when they're round at my house, apparently I'm a weirdo.

The wizard's hat & pipe probably don't help.

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