Pink Floyd Immersion/Experience/Whatever The Fuck Box Set/Discs

[Kristy]

As you well know, I detest Pink Floyd. Well, I pretty much find much prog/proggy rock bands to be absolute shit but Pink Floyd always lead the way. Pretentiousness, lack of musical virtuoso ability, silly stupid lyrics about a dead father, being bullied in school, what it means to be a whining self-serving muti-millionare rock star, those shitty overblown lighting arena shows. Yeah, boring.



Anyway, no wonder these asshole rock star millionares buttfuckers have re-re-released their shit to the unsuspecting public once more. It's one grand rip off but I do suspect that hard core Floyd idiots won't mind, much less acknoledge the ridiculous price(s) for this crap. These have been out for a while now (2011), under the "Immersion/Experience" sets and apart from the superfluous crap like all the "memorabilia", demos, b-sides, rare live performances and environmental-unfriendly packaging but...

From a purely sonic perspective they are actually quite good if not downright amazing. Of course, they are being called "remixed" but not really since they sound more as if they have been Lucusized. By that I mean additional recording and (digital) editing must have taken place - particularity on the synth/keys and bass tracks. I swear the intro to Shine On You Crazy diamond has more synth parts that the original, more on the reverb guitar tracks and Gilmour's singing sounds horrid and raw on 'Wish You Were Here' Even the keyboard parts on 'Animals' sound wEiRd and different.

'The Wall' has been "remastered" as well which is good because they streaming pile of shit record needed to be. Problem is, Gilmour's guitar parts sounds dated, and if you listen close enough you can almost hear the editing of his solos (particularly in Comfortably Numb, Mother); sounds again as if additional recording took place more on the guitar tracks than anywhere else.

The upshot here is that the recordings are cleaner and more vibrant with little to none of tape hiss/studio technology limitations of the 1970's. This might be the start of a new trend to save the CD market which I am all for even if Floyd sucks. Integrating new technology with the old is something I am okay with as long as the old is respected within the process. Ian Anderson of Tull did this with the 40th Anniversary of 'Thick As A Brick' DVD putting the tracks in 5.1 and one fuck of an amazing 96/24 DTS Master (and it's strange because the performance(s) sounds like it is from 1972 but the music itself does not).

So if you are a hard core Pink Floyd fan and societal loser like most of you cretins already are then this is definitely for you. Like I said, these disc/sets are costly (but I'm also sure they cost a lot to make as well) and I'm so impressed even I can make it though an entire side of one of their dismal records. Here's hoping to more bands will follow suit.


Praise be to George Lucus.

[Kristy]

...and no, I have not listened to the Blu-Ray vershes of Dark Side 5.1 yet. There is only so much of Floyd I can handle.

[PETE'S BROTHER]

i have never been a huge fan of theses guys, however, "wish you were here" gets me every time.

[envy_me]

I LOVE Pink Floyd. And Syd Barrett.

With all the weed you smoke, I would have guessed that you love them. They are probably even better when you're high.

[jhale667]

I have the Mobil Fidelity Audiophile Gold CD version of "The Wall"...and IT RULES. Just sayin'.



I have the older box set that the CDs in the display case make the Dark Side of the Moon cover too. Also cool, but can't touch an UltraDisc.

[Kristy]

Nick Mason was one shitty drummer.

[mug]

Disagree. You must be 15 yrs old. Pink floyd was better than any band other than vh. The beatles SUCK. Solo there were way better.Just saying. Everybody likes different stuff.

[Terry]

I find it pretty irritating when bands/artists remix old albums, much less re-record over the original recordings for these various cd reissues. Even more so when the original recorded versions of these albums are no longer as available as the reissues.

I've never been huge on Pink Floyd. I've never owned a copy of Dark Side Of The Moon, nor have I ever felt the need to (between radio overkill and plenty of stoner friends back in the day who played it constantly when we were getting high, I've heard it more than enough). I do enjoy some of their stuff, but a lot of it I find to be a bit over-considered, over-labored and it just doesn't swing enough for me...dreary to the point of funeral dirge music at times. I suppose masses of people love the stuff, but if a band doesn't have much of an effect upon me I don't worry about how many other people are enjoying their stuff. The music they did I enjoy best would certainly be during the period of Dark Side Of The Moon through Animals.

[Kristy]

I find it pretty irritating when bands/artists remix old albums, much less re-record over the original recordings for these various cd reissues. Even more so when the original recorded versions of these albums are no longer as available as the reissues.

I guess the best way to describe it is "digital reprocessing" where, like in the "enhanced" Star Wars trilogy certain nuances were added for effect. There is no doubt keyboard/synth was added to the Shine On You Crazy Diamond and guitar tracks either brought slightly forth or back in the mix. Whether that is good or bad is really up to the individual listener. What I do like here is the lack of tape hiss and with that the limtations of the instruments to reach their frequency ranges (if that makes sense) are thrown out. I'm not sure of what equipment Dark Side through Animals was recorded on (Teac 24 track..?) and the tape itself, cables, quality of mics, amps, guitar pickups, freshness of strings, studio set up, etc but they too all played a part in the sound which here has been reprocessed. The clarity of these new recordings doesn't impede the original performance but it really doesn't enhance it either (although some may argue that); but Gilmour's Martin on Wish You Were Here actually sounds like a Martin would if he was playing it in the same room with you; that late 70's Strat sound on The Wall is also quite characteristic. So that is a plus.

What gets me is the cost. Demos never did much for me and Blu-Ray 5.1/96/24 DTS mixes may impress me further when I get the chance to hear them but are they really necessary?

[Terry]

Which is all good and well to make that stuff available for those who want to hear it, but at least make the original recordings (inasmuch as digitized upgrades of analog recordings are able to reflect the original vinyl sound) available.

Never had much use for demos, unless it's an instance along the lines of the Van Halen Simmons demos, where there were tunes on there the band hadn't already put out on albums and I would have been unable to hear them otherwise.

[Mushroom]

Stick to the simple original recordings. In this case Vinyl Rules! Demos are typically boring and take the mystique out of the music. I think Wish You Were Here was their best and I love Dark Side of the Moon. Keep up the music reviews! Your pretentious music-snob attitude is quite entertaining.


Kristy, let's make a record together! We can do something special, primitive and exotic. We can take it to another level, sort of like... John Lennon and Yoko Ono!

john-lennon-two_virgins.jpg

[FORD]

Demos are typically boring and take the mystique out of the music.

Totally disagree..... Sometimes it's great to hear where a song came from, and how it got to what you know (i.e. the "official" versions)


Case in point here.....

Would have been an interesting enough song if they had put it out like this, but Waters had better lyrics, and Gilmour had a better solo in him, and the rest was history......

It helps me appreciate the art of songwriting... which is why I've put up all those video threads with various "rare" recordings from The Stones, The Clash, The Beatles, etc.

[Kristy]

No, vinyl does not rule. Vinyl is for hippies.

[Kristy]

Totally disagree..... Sometimes it's great to hear where a song came from, and how it got to what you know (i.e. the "official" versions)

Demos are hit and miss. I'm not at all surprised there were quite a few of them for The Wall but most here from the Immersion discs are so superfluous so no doubt many a die hard Floyd fan will love them (as the previously unreleased live recordings)

[Mushroom]

Totally disagree..... Sometimes it's great to hear where a song came from, and how it got to what you know (i.e. the "official" versions)
.

Interesting perspective but doesn't do it for me, with only rare exceptions like Beatles anthology and =VH=