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In Reply to: RE: Review: Pink Floyd Animals Reissue posted by jk on December 22, 2016 at 19:14:14:
Don't know where the past month has slipped by but so it goes...Just gave it another listen to refresh my impressions.
Reviewing something like this is difficult. My musical focus has changed and evolved over the past 40 plus years. Most of my active listening is jazz and classical and as such my critique for the music that was so important to me as an angst ridden teenager is fraught with emotional associations of youth but filtered through a middle aged brain. I don't listen to Pink Floyd a ton anymore but that is partly because it, as is the case with so much of the soundtrack of my life, is always there, in my head, easily recalled to loop endlessly in the private listening room of my brain.
Having cheated myself of 25 years of vinyl playback, fooled by the assumption that redbook really was adequate, I am still astonished at the number of LP's I turfed with little thought to what I was actually doing (thank God I kept my turntable). So many albums who's physical presence on the shelf meant more than the music contained within. Place and time and people connected to the acquisition and the significance of those artifacts...but my Floyd albums? What the hell was I thinking?!?!?
But enough navel gazing...
The physical basics...the cover art is somewhat shitte but we know that going in. I was more disturbed that the lp itself was nestled in a straight up cardboard sleeve. That is unconscionable but easily corrected. The record is flat and relatively quiet. I put it through the Nitty Gritty before playing it. Side one has a few ticks but nothing earth shattering. Side two has too much surface noise to make me totally happy but not enough to bother returning it. A second cleaning helped.
The SQ...hard to compare to my long gone original. Even so, I listened through a different psycho-acoustic lens back then. My emotional imprinting was done through rather basic gear back in the day. Kenwood receiver from the low end of the early 70's product line, Garrard TT made of a lot of plastic, Jensen two way monitors, Koss Pro4/AA cans, and a lot of recreational chemistry (hey, it was the 70's). My brain was more easily impressed by the pyrotechnics of studio created multi-track soundscapes and textures that were not the result of musicians sitting in a room together, playing straight ahead music in real time. This is not an album I would hold to the standard of realism as say, a recording of a chamber orchestra or a jazz quartet.
Speaking strictly to the more technical aspect the sound, I have always found this album a little warm and woolly. Not in a bad way but not representative of what I think of as really accurately sounding rendering of the fundamental nature of instruments. The best example being the hit and decay of a cymbal. The high end of this album is a little soft but you cannot hear what isn't there. Nick Mason's cymbals just aren't all that prevalent in the mix so you have to strain to hear/feel the highest frequency delicacies of their hits and decays. Overall I found the mix and sonic texture true to my memories and sense of "rightness". I don't know that there are any vinyl releases of Animals that will sound significantly different in this regard.
From an emotional perspective, which in my view is more critical, this release resonates much more deeply for me than listening to the CD. I don't think this is strictly a question of redbook being inadequate to do this overall, I have plenty of CD's I enjoy and don't feel are depriving me of emotional engagement. Maybe there are better CD versions of Animals than the one I have but listening to it on LP is just much more satisfying. Perhaps any 70's era pressing would have done the trick but I wasn't inclined to start down the rabbit hole of obtaining multiple pressings and making those critical judgements. I read the threads here and on other fora about these things and it all feels a little self-defeating.
The entire area of reissues of classic 70's albums is fraught with pitfalls and sometimes you just don't feel like it was worth it. The problem of course is that I, like many, foolishly got rid of their originals and don't want to slog through the morass of eBay or Discogs looking for old pressings worth buying that don't cost an arm and a leg. Another pitfall is that I, like many, have a much better system than I did 30~40 years ago and despite perhaps degraded hearing, can now hear ever so much more clearly how poorly recorded some beloved albums actually were. Such first world problems.
Based on this release of Animals I am inclined to pick up Ummagumma, DSOTM, WYWH, but I temper my expectations. Maybe Meddle and Obscured By Clouds as well but to be sure there are other things ahead of them in my priorities. Animals is one of my favorite Pink Floyd albums but it is also my last favorite Pink Floyd album. I feel like this was the tip of the iceberg of Roger Waters headed into a lifetime of utter and depressing bleakness. As much as I like some of the music of The Wall, over the decades it has become really trying and after seeing him touring it a few years ago I feel like I never have to listen to it again. If I yearn for an extended foray into self-referential angst from a classic band of my youth I would much rather listen to Quadrophenia, which never gets old for me.
If you are feeling uninspired by recent re-issues I highly recommend you check out the Experience Hendrix releases and the Zappa releases. AAA and very well packaged. Flat quiet pressings with excellent dynamic range and albums that turn out to be much better recorded than you may ever remember. Axis was a jaw dropping revelation for me.
For the record (pun intended...) here is the playback chain:
AR/XA / Sumiko MMT (original cable) / Grado Sig8 with current MCZ stylus
Vista Audio Phono-1 mkII (loaded @ 10KOhm) , Blue Jeans Cable LC-1
Anthem Pre2l (nos Tungsram E88CC) , Kimber Hero
Cary SLM100 monobloc (EH KT88 / TS 6SN7 - all current New Sensor production), Kimber 4VS
Eminent-Tech LFT8B (full range)
B&W ASW1000 (running from preamp secondary out, LP @ 40Hz, gain just barely up from zero,a little more flesh to the bottom octaves)
Digital Source: Heart CD6000 (modded Marantz) nos Tungsram E88CC, AudioQuest Diamondback
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Follow Ups
- RE: Review: Pink Floyd Animals Reissue - sbrook@cfl.rr.com 11:40:15 01/21/17 (0)
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