Fleetwood Mac - Tusk (Deluxe Edition)
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Music CD Cover Artist: Fleetwood Mac Edition: Music CD Audio: English (Original Language) Format: Extra tracks, Original recording reissued, Original recording remastered CD Release Date: 2004-03-23 Music Label: Rhino / Wea Soundtracks: Music CD 1
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Free Music Notes for Tusk (Deluxe Edition) Album
Free Music Review: Horrid remaster
Hit: 1 Stars
When I saw Bill Inglot's name attached to this remaster I thought, thank goodness they got somebody with a proven track record. I own at least a couple dozen discs remastered by Inglot, and while I suppose some could accuse him of having a heavy hand with the equalizer, I generally find the results spectacular. His Dionne Warwick hits CD from a decade or so ago is just stunning.
So imagine how disappointed I was when I popped this disc into my car stereo and heard the flattest, dullest sounding recording I've ever heard associated with the name "Fleetwood Mac". Now, granted, Tusk always had a hot high-end, even on LP. The original CD was delightfully bright throughout, but could certainly be accused of being shrill in spots. I expected any remastering to correct that occasional harshness. What I did not expect was for the remastering to dull the sound so dramatically.
Gone are the wonderful details formerly audible in the brilliant guitar work on this record. Gone is the sense of space and ambiance in the vocals. Gone are the high, airy harmonies in songs like "Sara" and "I Walk A Thin Line". Mick Fleetwood's wonderful cymbals have been defanged and deflated. Even the lowly triangle on "Honey, Hi" has been rendered a square.
All of that sonic goodness has been replaced by an awfully tubby, booming, intrusive and annoying mid-bass. It sounds like Tusk as played on the cheap Sears stereo my parents gave me in the early '80s. Horrid.
The only good thing I can say about this remaster is that the deep bass has been enhanced, which it probably needed to be - at least a bit - to compensate for the original's hot high-end. Unfortunately, with the high-end sanded flat, the deep bass now sounds entirely out of proportion with the rest of the material.
All this clumsy sonic tweaking has dramatically altered the balance of the vocals and instruments in the mix as well, resulting in weird artifacts. The block work in "Honey, Hi" for example goes from being a minor background element to becoming an intrusive annoyance, like there's a cricket loose in the room. Christine McVie's vocals are pushed right off the soundstage in several tracks - she ends up sounding like she's singing off in a distant corner of the studio, with the band drowning her out. The results sound nothing like any prior releases of Tusk - the LP, the tracks from the original Greatest Hits CD or The Chain boxed set. That's a sign something has gone terribly wrong with this remastering. You'd think *somebody* at the studio would have noticed . . .
I have to say, I've been terribly disappointed with a number of "remastered" discs over the past couple of years. Not only are these "remasterings" not correcting for obvious flaws, they're frequently introducing new flaws and end up sounding far worse than the original releases. Botched jobs like this are simply encouraging me to save my money and spend it on something other than records. The studios really need to get their act together if they want to continue cashing in on the remaster gravy train.