Back to the 80s with 16 Lovers Lane ... very very nice

[Davey]

Pulled out the Go-Betweens 16 Lovers Lane yesterday and just wanted to say somewhere, what a great record! Probably gonna be revisiting this one over and over all week, and more. Surprising to realize that some of these late 80s classics are 20 years old now. And so nice to put a CD in the player and be able to crank the volume knob more than a few degrees from off. Nice and natural sounding too, not all goosed in the bass like just about everything nowadays. Sounds almost flat until you get your brain readjusted. Love it. They probably never made another record this good, 5 stars, 10 great songs, almost like a best of collection, except not full of radio friendly commercial jingles, this is very refined and literate music, beautifully written and performed. Kind of like the 80s version of Rumours. They hung it up for about 10 years after this one, and sadly Grant McLennan died a couple years ago after they recorded Oceans Apart, but man, what a fine album this is.

No idea what the 2-disc expanded remaster from a couple years ago sounds like. I read that Oceans Apart was mastered so badly and received so many complaints that they apologized and remastered and reissued it without so much compression and clipping. But different record company and people involved than the remasters of the old stuff, I think. Anyone have the recent remaster of 16 Lovers Lane? Good bonus tracks? Good mastering?

[Davey]

Ah, what a great record. Thursday morning on Lovers Lane again. Working swing shift does let me listen to lots of music in the morning, and rummage through stuff that might've gotten stuck in a forgotten box from one of the last moves, but that and the pay differential is about it for benefits. This rediscovery of an old friend, and the recent acquisition of the Richard Davies/Eric Matthews amazing Cardinal record have led to some of the best music mornings this year. Silly I know, but I've now got both the original 10-song Cardinal CD on Flydaddy for the more sensible early 90s mastering, and the newer 21-track remaster on Empyrean Records for those great demos and bonuses. Maybe I should scout for the original vinyl too