Lost Issue Wednesday: You're Buying Vinyl?

by Mark Hasan

If you've been asked this question before -- by friends accompanying you in a used music shop, or by a complete stranger standing in line behind you -- you're not alone. Why would anyone buy what's more or less been written off as dead tech, frisbees, 12" coasters?

When CDs first emerged, I stayed away because of the initial high cost of CDs and the player. As veteran collectors will recall, Varèse Sarabande started to include extra titles on their CDs -- Mad Max and The Fly were the first, along with Silva Screen's Haunted Summer (featuring an additional suite of themes and sound effects). "Bonus" tracks were regularly included on jazz and rock cassettes, and records seemed to be left out in the cold. Then Varèse and Masters Film Music released CD-only titles like The Blue Max and Jerry Goldsmith: Suitesand Themes, so I finally broke down and bought a CD player.

I vowed only to buy "unique" CDs, but gradually albums were given short-shrift even by the major labels. Warner's Batman and Virgin's Le Grand Bleu both contained substantial cues not on the LPs, and like most collectors I found myself buying the same soundtrack again -- on CD. Even the early Intrada titles -- Red Dawn, Night Crossing and Poltergeist 2 -- brutally expensive as LPs, were quickly being released on CD for under $15.00.

Flash-forward a good 10 years later, and although we've all to some degree replaced our LPs with CDs, like the Betamax aficionados, a small devoted coterie continues to champion the LP as superior technology, unjustly quashed by music labels for a cheaper, "inferior" technology (the CD). Some of the arguments are valid -- better bass response and an overall warmer sound -- but as we'll soon see CDs have come a long way from badly mastered recordings (some taken straight from vinyl no less) to dynamic musical experiences, though not without their own unique drawbacks.

Perfect audio reproduction will always be a personal thing, regardless of the medium and equipment. A good friend deliberately set out to buy a pair of speakers that reproduced, according to his research, the least amount of bass. Not because he was living in an apartment, but because he just doesn't like bass. And before the chain moved to Florida, Toronto locations of Peter Dunn's Vinyl Museum continued to sell 8-track cassettes, with suspended mobiles proclaiming the 8-track superseded the CD in quality -- exponentially.

Collecting vinyl in the digital age requires patience. You have to tolerate the inherent flaws of vinyl -- the pops, ticks and quality of the aging vinyl itself -- and do a little research in terms of availability. Searching is nothing new to collectors, and it's part of the fun.

Unfortunately we pre-CD collectors do tend to forget there's a whole generation of collectors who don't have a record player, nor have ever had a need for one. There's always the temptation to scold people in newsgroups for paying inane prices for one of the older Varèse CD titles. A recent extreme example is $400 for Brad Fiedel's Serpent and the Rainbow. Granted it's a rare CD, but the LP pressing was, like most Varèse records, pristine, and just as dynamic with excellent bass. However, for CD-only collectors the LP may be useless unless there's a friend or family member with a functioning turntable around. Bootleggers, of course, have exploited this problem, though little by little the larger culprits have slowed down their output.

Tsunami, once raiding major labels like RCA and Fox, seem to have become amateur archivists, investing their time and energies into restoring Erich Wolfgang Korngold scores. This new void has recently been filled by other "alleged" companies, naively believing an office in the EEC will allow them to release major titles with impunity. Such was the case with Soundtraxx Remastered Editions, now apparently gone. Flaunting illegal titles such as Sodom and Gomorrah and The Black Hole, the company manifesto was essentially an I'm-gonna-release-these-because -the-studios-won't-so-there.

Another group, "Renaissance," operating from Singapore, were offering a subscription service to collectors, with membership accessible by paying for the first and last CD in advance. At $40 per CD, it was an interesting scam, and their first batch of titles included The Black Hole/TheLast Valley on one disc -- though in mono. The Black Hole in mono? One must wonder the idiocy required in deciding to convert a stereo digital recording to mono. I can only beam with glee in having found an LP, well-worn but in vivid stereo, of The Last Valley, for $8 Canadian.
 
Both Soundtraxx and Renaissance, in a darker light show the continuing value of vinyl soundtracks and the price collectors will pay because of the digital-or-nothing mentality. John Barry's The Knack also appeared on the Renaissance label (coupled with Octopussy) for $40.00, even though the remastered MCA re-issue LP from the eighties could be had for about $5.00. In fact a number of bootlegged titles have at one time appeared as vinyl re-issues. Some were cleaned up a little -- MCA's pressing of Bronislau Kaper's Mutiny on the Bounty is a good example -- and were pressed on modern vinyl and sold new for under $8.00.
 
Besides, there's nothing more delightful than stumbling upon a find at bargain (or reasonable) prices. A few months ago Rodeo Records from Texas posted a list of some fairly rare LPs, part of huge record collection sold to them by a customer. Among the titles from the 50's, 60's and 70's was Knights of the Round Table. Vinyl, yes, but in near-mint condition, and with a good clean cloth swiping it yielded a crisp reproduction. Total cost: $12.95.

The key here is to do some homework. A number of guides have been published, and a good pair to have is Jerry Osborne's Official Price Guide and Robert L. Smith's U.S. Soundtracks on CD. One lists virtually all soundtrack releases by major American labels, the other their CD counterparts. So while the latter will tell you if it exists on CD (and at what premium cost), the former will tell you if it indeed received a vinyl release. Compare the values, check your pocketbook, and then start some searching.

The internet has become a great resource and marketplace for records, and there's a wealth of dealers. Record Collecting Resources (http://www.helsinki.fi/~tuschano/records/) will give you an everything-plus-the-kitchen-sink list of retailers, vinyl fan clubs and more; there's also a web page to warn collectors about nefarious dealers. It's that easy.

Condition is also the key to getting your value. "Good" means snap-crackle-pop, while "near-mint" really does mean a record is in excellent condition. Another dealer was selling the double set for I Want to Live! (containing jazz combos and score proper) in that condition. After a simple dry swabbing, Gerry Mulligan's solos never sounded so crisp, and the playback was almost on par to a 1980s vinyl re-issue of the jazz combos LP.

It's also possible to find sealed copies of 20 and 30-year old recordings. A spate of Quincy Jones LPs -- The Hot Rock, The Lost Man, Mirage, The Slender Thread, In Cold Blood -- were available a few months ago, sealed. All yielded excellent reproduction, though the Mercury pressings of Mirage and Slender Thread still sound like crap, due in part to cheap vinyl stock and a bad sub-master for dubbing (in fact the Canadian pressing of Slender Thread is as bad as the US pressing, with equal distortion).

With sealed vinyl available, it seems the real concern for the record buyer is the possible release of the score on CD. A lot has been released on disc, but it takes a long time before appetites are satisfied. Without collectors, fans and organizations hammering away at music labels, most film scores would never see the light of day, and the original master tapes would continue to age and crumble to dust. My building superintendent has the odd distinction of having produced the 3rd most valuable psychedelic LP in Canada, "Bent Wind," which is alleged to be valued up to $10,000. The master tapes, he discovered, literally flaked to dust, a problem which is all the more frightening considering his album is under thirty years old.

Even the producers of the restored Vertigo soundtrack ran into problems with the master tapes. The "Main Title" music is now permanently scarred from aging, and the old Mercury CD of the shorter soundtrack release is the only source of a clean listen of that particular track. Though it differs sonically from the Varèse CD, the Mercury version -- LP or CD -- shouldn't be junked, as even the Varèse remastering has problems maintaining a balanced level of lower frequencies.

Collectors are a fastidious group, and they're one of the reasons certain LPs will continue to be more valuable than their digitally remastered counterparts. A good example is To Kill a Mockingbird, released on Citadel Records, re-issued by Varèse (under the Citadel name again), and released on CD by Mainstream -- minus one cue, "Scout and Boo." Though the score was re-recorded by Bernstein in the seventies for his Film Music Collection series and recently re-recorded by Varèse, there will always be a demand for the LP, because of that one short cue. Retentive? For sure, but in the market of soundtracks there will always be a demand for original score recordings, no matter how digitally beautiful the new CD.

Even bootleggers from the '70s took advantage of the demand, and those particular albums continue to retain their value. While Islands in the Stream was re-recorded for Intrada, the only way to enjoy the original soundtrack was the old Paramount laserdisc, though like most isolated audio tracks, the music was subject to the usual fades and abrupt cuts. That, of course, leaves an interest in the bootleg LP from the '70s.

A similar level of retentiveness can be applied to Robin and Marian. Available isolated on the old Pioneer laserdisc, the music -- in mono -- was directly bootlegged to CD. Though fairly complete, the disc lacks a few cues available on the original LP, bootlegged from a studio promo.

To add more exasperation, there's the old Cinema Records label from the '70s, bootlegs featuring many disparate scores, but more infamous for releasing several Bernstein scores bootlegged from tape copies allegedly obtained by Bernstein's tennis instructor. The Cinema LPs, along with the Sound/Stage records [no relation to the current bootleg CD label] are perhaps the most valuable LPs, particularly Twisted Nerve by Bernard Herrmann on Cinema.

Because the master tapes to older scores may be lost, locked away, or in legal hell, re-recordings have often been the next route to making a score available. Elmer Bernstein's Film Music Collection titles continue to hold their value, in part because the costs to re-issue those titles on CD are prohibitive. A few titles -- To Kill A Mockingbird, Thief of Baghdad and Torn Curtain -- were re-issued by Warner Bros. Records, though only Herrmann's Ghost and Mrs. Muir was released (by Varèse) on CD.

Definitive recordings. Never released on CD. Two good reasons for collecting vinyl, and it gets better.

Bad Masterings. We've heard about them, but how bad is bad? Well, a good recent example is Raiders of the Lost Ark. Remastered. Expanded. Restored. But what happened to all the bass? In spite of DCC's restoration efforts, Raiders is an example of a mastering style that can be maddening. "The Miracle of the Ark" I recall as rapturous, the lower strings literally reaching under your chair and raising you several feet above the screen as the ghostly spirit cascades from the mountain summit before killing the evil Nazis. For the DCC version, the cue is flat, dry, unengaging, and the only source of the original mix is the soundtrack LP or the out-of-print Japanese CD (which does retain the dynamic bass).

A more infuriating example is Walk on the Wild Side. Elmer Bernstein's bass-friendly score uses lots of jazz, and though released in stereo and mono by Ava Records, the stereo version persisted through the Citadel re-issues. Mainstream's CD is awful; the dynamic range is so muted, it's hard to tell what format it is.

Bolero, on the other hand, suffers from "safe" remastering -- keeping the frequencies slightly below the dynamic threshold of the digital domain. The opening "Bolero" cue is flat as a pancake, and has been so extensively re-equalized little can be done to bring back some of the lower frequencies. The same goes for GNP's Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome. Maurice Jarre's orchestral cacophony seems restrained without the lower frequencies, and Tina Turner's songs, bereft of bass rumble, lack the forceful emotional drive that only her voice manages to retain. The albums, of course, don't have this problem.

Raiders of the Lost Ark. E.T. Poltergeist. Three "expanded" soundtracks, typical productions in today's compact disc collector's market, with varying degrees of success. In the case of the first two, some of the expanded cues seemed unnecessary, making the scores drag on with excessively repeated phrases and character themes.
 
Poltergeist also differed from the original soundtrack album, and not all listeners were happy with the expansion of some cues, nor the elimination of some of producer Bruce Botnick's production effects (I still miss the laughing children at the end of "Rebirth"). The album texturally seemed more aggressive; Jerry Goldmsith's abrasive percussion and bizarre brass warblings leap out and throttle the listener; the Rhino CD still lacks that effect, perhaps a sacrifice for improving mid- and upper-range clarity.

One of the more unique problems record labels face when remastering a soundtrack for compact disc is whether to use the fake stereo version, or the mono version. Though Fox's old multitrack Perspecta sound system was used during the days of Cinemascope, both the original Kapp and AEI re-issue LPs for The Sun Also Rises were issued in mono. Boy on a Dolphin, on the other hand, was released in fake stereo.

How can you tell it's fake? Well, use headphones. Some labels, like RCA and Warner Bros., used echo effects that weren't really successful and were tinny. A more inventive approach was the electronic re-channeling of frequencies which, believe or not, worked. A great example is Friedhofer's brilliant Boy on a Dolphin score. Released by Decca, the recording was quite lush, taking full advantage of Friedhofer's fixation with lower percussion effects and bass. You can tell it's fake during the vocal passages, as Mary Kaye's voice flips every few seconds to the other channel, leaving a minor trail of echo and reverb. Primitive, but the process managed to add more frequency range than flat-out mono. Varèse re-issued the fake stereo LP in the '80s, and though MCA Japan brought out a CD, it's in dull mono and a major disappointment.

Sony has chosen to follow the Japanese route and stick with the original recording format. The label's remastering of Bridge on the River Kwai is horrifying in mono -- the actual format the score was recorded in. For the CD re-issue, a few cues were restored to their proper playback speed, but Malcolm Arnold's riveting music in starchy mono is appalling. Again, the only source for the fake stereo version is the original Columbia LP and their re-issues, or the deleted Varèse CD (though a Japanese CD also exists, possibly in fake stereo as well).

So before plunking down up to $40 for a Japanese disc -- check the fine print. The word "mono" only appears on the CD itself in some cases, so unless stereo is screaming at your from the packaging, Buyer Beware. Such is the case with Tribute to James Dean (featuring selections from Giant, East of Eden and Rebel Without a Cause) which continued to be re-issued on vinyl in fake stereo. On the other hand, though the Japanese CD for Harry Lubin's One Step Beyond is listed as mono, it's actually in genuine stereo.

Definitive recordings. Never released on CD. Favorite versions. And in some cases, sonically superior. All very technical (and retentive), but what about some of the more fun and artistic aspects of vinyl? Surely there's other good reasons for tracking down old records and spending more than for the average CD?

In 1971 Gil Melle's music for The Andromeda Strain -- credited as the first real electronic score -- was originally issued on the old Kapp label in hexagonal form. Selling for about $60.00, it's still worth the investment for the unique release. A functioning hexagonal record ("WARNING - Due to the unusual shape of this record, only use manual control on record player, or needle damage will result"), the album is cradled in a series of folding silver leafs which, when opened, reveal extensive liner notes and photographs in a circular pattern. Mounted on silver hardboard, the album is finished off with a psychedelic wave over silver wrapping on the reverse side. Cool...
 
 

To be Continued in the next Lost Issue...
 

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