Top 40 Music on Compact Disc: iTunes Finds?

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JMD1961
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Posted: 26 December 2009 at 4:53pm \| IP Logged

I was doing a search for Tom Johnston on iTunes this evening, looking for Savannah Nights. I found it with no problem. However, what really caught my eye was several items listed under the "Listeners Also Bought" links. There were several artists there that have tracks that, according to the DB, aren't available. I did a quick search and found several more. Here's a list:

Jim Photoglo - Fool In Love With You
Tane Cain - Holding On
Stevie Woods - Steal The Night
Stevie Woods - Just Can't Win 'Em All
Robbie Patton - Don't Give It Up
Greg Guidry - Goin' Down
Eddie Schwartz - All Our Tomorrows
Pink Lady - Kiss In The Dark (not in database, but Top 40 in Billboard)
Wayne Newton - Years
Cliff Richard - Give A Little Bit More
Mac McAnally - Minimum Love
Pia Zadora - Clapping Song

My question. Are these imports, online exclusives, or actual releases? I figure they are probably needle drops, but can't be sure. Has anyone checked them out?

eriejwg
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Posted: 26 December 2009 at 6:46pm \| IP Logged

I guess another question is are these 45 or LP versions, if you know...

JMD1961
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Posted: 26 December 2009 at 8:06pm \| IP Logged

I'm no expert, but most appear to come off their original albums, so I'd guess (and that's all it is...a guess) that they would be the LP versions.

aaronk
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Posted: 26 December 2009 at 9:36pm \| IP Logged

Some of those songs, I believe, were the same for the LP and 45, such as "Steal The Night" and "The Clapping Song." I know "Just Can't Win Em All" was an edit of the LP for the 45. The same is true for "All Our Tomorrows." "Years" was never on a Wayne Newton album, so it would be either the 45 version or a re-recording.

I've never downloaded any of those tracks, so I don't know about the quality, whether tape or vinyl source.

EdisonLite
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Posted: 27 December 2009 at 11:19am \| IP Logged

Answers to some of your questions:

Robbie Patton - Don't Give It Up
- this only came out on a "Distant Shores" French CD about 10 years ago, from cleaned vinyl, with all high end removed - a CD I've called "the worst sounding CD of all time". The version on iTunes is clearly a good sounding source, from tape, and there are no other CD releases of this album shown on Amazon, so I'd say this comes from an online exclusive album.

Jim Photoglo - Fool In Love With You
- this has been available on a Japanese CD for about 10 years; there are no domestic CDs of this album.

Stevie Woods - Steal The Night
Stevie Woods - Just Can't Win 'Em All
- the album these songs come from appears to be an online exclusive. No CDs show up on amazon.

Greg Guidry - Goin' Down
-this album (Sould Out) came out on an import CD in 2003. No domestic CDs.

Eddie Schwartz - All Our Tomorrows
-I think this is an online exclusive

Wayne Newton - Years
-this comes from an actual CD - Wayne Newton "Dynasty Collection Vol. 1", which has been out since 2007

aaronk
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Posted: 27 December 2009 at 11:48am \| IP Logged

I just listened to the snippets of the Stevie Woods songs on iTunes, and they are from vinyl, no question.

EdisonLite
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Posted: 27 December 2009 at 12:21pm \| IP Logged

That's too bad, Aaron. And as for other top 40 hits - For the first time ever, I saw the original Stonebolt album available digitally (on iTunes) today. (The only other CD that has the top 40 hit "Will Still Love You" is a Varese Sarabande CD where they took it from vinyl.) But I think this one may be from vinyl, too. Aaron, can you give a listen and tell me if you think it's from vinyl?

I also found on Amazon today, 30-song collections by both Mary MacGregor and Shaun Cassidy, filling in a lot of missing gaps on CD, but unfortunately, both were taken from vinyl! Certainly the Cassidy collection was, and I think the MacGregor one was too but I'm not sure. It makes me wonder if the actual owners are really putting these up (too lazy to transfer tapes or find them) or if it's just fans and/or bootleg labels.

EdisonLite
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Posted: 27 December 2009 at 12:23pm \| IP Logged

BTW, Pat's site is highlighting (I assume, linking) words like "time", "CD", "domestic CDs", "songs" - but I'm not asking it to when I type in my text. It never did it before? Why is it all of a sudden doing it now?

aaronk
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Posted: 27 December 2009 at 12:45pm \| IP Logged

EdisonLite wrote:

...can you give a listen and tell me if you think it's from vinyl?

Ewww...bad sounding vinyl. You'll be better off doing the Stonebolt cleanup on your own.

EdisonLite wrote:

It makes me wonder if the actual owners are really putting these up (too lazy to transfer tapes or find them) or if it's just fans and/or bootleg labels.

I know for certain that fans and/or bootleg labels are not allowed to put things on iTunes. They require the person/company who owns the masters and rights to submit the songs. Now, it's possible that the original record labels would have given up the rights to the owners for some of those songs. I can't imagine it would be too profitable to spend any money or time on digging up the masters for songs like "I Will Still Love You" or "Holding On" by Tane Cain. In that case, the owners might not have had access to the master tapes. Perhaps they are lost or damaged. Maybe the owners even have the master tapes, but the tapes aren't playable any longer because of improper storage or lack of equipment.

By the way, the Tane Cain sounds like vinyl to me, and so does Pink Lady's "Kiss In The Dark." Eddie Schwartz sounds like a tape source.

The biggest shame is that iTunes still doesn't offer lossless.

aaronk
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Posted: 27 December 2009 at 12:49pm \| IP Logged

"Minimum Love" is definitely from vinyl, and "The Clapping Song" has vinyl ticks in it, too.

eriejwg
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Posted: 27 December 2009 at 1:23pm \| IP Logged

Is "Years" on the Wayne Newton Dynasty Collection a re-recording? "Daddy Don't You Walk So Fast" sounds like it is.

eriejwg
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Posted: 27 December 2009 at 1:24pm \| IP Logged

I have vinyl dubs of these 45's and the length seems to match the 45's lengths:

Jim Photoglo - Fool In Love With You
Tane Cain - Holding On
Stevie Woods - Steal The Night
Robbie Patton - Don't Give It Up
Greg Guidry - Goin' Down

Paul C
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Posted: 27 December 2009 at 5:20pm \| IP Logged

eriejwg wrote:

Is "Years" on the Wayne Newton Dynasty Collection a re-recording? "Daddy Don't You Walk So Fast" sounds like it is.

Yes, it's a re-recording (or at least a different recording than the hit 45).

EdisonLite
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Posted: 27 December 2009 at 5:45pm \| IP Logged

<Cliff Richard - Give A Little Bit More >

This one is also available on an import CD; just no domestic CD. This is from the Cliff Richard "I'm No Hero" CD released in the UK quite a few years ago. I was always surprised this #41 hit wasn't included on Razor & Tie's Cliff Richard compilation CD, given there were 20 songs on it, and it's not like Cliff had 20 top 40 U.S. hits that would have pushed this song off the collection!

So it seems like the initial list of iTunes finds in the first post above is nothing more than import CDs (released years ago) and vinyl transfers and re-recordings. I'm wondering if the Robbie Patton song is the only "find" in there. And now I'm wondering if it might have been taken from that cleaned-up-vinyl French CD and brightened up ... (If it IS from that CD, it's definitely brighter).... or if this is just another vinyl transfer ... or if someone actually got master tapes (or low gen tapes) for this one. Has anyone bought this mp3 or listened closely to the 30-second sample to tell what the source is on this one? (Aaron, have you? :)

Edited by EdisonLite on 27 December 2009 at 5:47pm

aaronk
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Posted: 27 December 2009 at 6:33pm \| IP Logged

Listening to the 30 second snippet, I don't hear anything that sounds like vinyl. It very well may be a master tape source. I did a vinyl transfer/cleanup on this song a couple years ago, and I'd take cleaned up vinyl over compressed, iTunes audio. If it were lossless, I'd buy it for sure.

bwolfe
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Posted: 27 December 2009 at 7:20pm \| IP Logged

I purchased "Give A Little Bit More" from ITunes and found it to be from a tape source. (it never played on the radio where I lived, it was played on American Bandstand a few times). I also bought "Dreaming" and "A Little In Love." I would prefer regular CD's to compressed audio too. It is a shame that ITunes doesn't "come clean" when it comes to tracks that are from vinyl. "Wired For Sound" from Cliff Richard is another great early 80s American low charter that's a great find too!

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EdisonLite
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Posted: 28 December 2009 at 1:17am \| IP Logged

<I'd take cleaned up vinyl over compressed, iTunes audio.>

Interesting, Aaron. I'm the opposite. If an iTunes or Rhapsody source was from master tape, and the mp3 was 320 or 256, I'd take it over any cleaned vinyl.

When I first started hearing mp3s ten years ago during the Napster days there were some really bad sounding mp3s and I didn't like the format at all. Now, when I make my own mp3s after my own mastering of WAVs from master tapes, I make them at 256 and choose the "high quality" option (it gives me 3 options at any speed - high, medium & low), I have to admit, when I play it back I can't tell it's an mp3 ... like those Napster ones from ten years ago that sounded so swooshy.

In fact, I recently made a 232-song "UK Hits of the '70s" CDR series, and 3 of the songs I took from mp3s (but the mp3s were made from CDs that used master tapes), and then I remastered those files, just like I did the other 229 songs. When I play back the whole series on CDR, I can't tell the 3 songs that are from mp3 (vs. the other 229 from WAVs). So I have a question for you Aaron - if you were to hear, say, 100 songs on CDR, would you be able to pick up on which 3 were actually from mp3s - especially since all the songs were mastered by the same person? Most of my friends say I have very picky ears (In fact, on CD I can often hear when a lead vocal is punched or goes from one take to another, and it drives me crazy because I can't enjoy the song as much when I hear all the defects!) but I CAN'T always hear the difference between, say, a well-made 320 or 256 mp3 and a WAV. So I just wonder if you always can. And I'm not talking about A-B'ing a 320 mp3 and a WAV to hear if there's a slight difference - I'm simply asking if you heard 100 songs on CD-R and were told ahead of time that 3 came from very well-remastered 320 mp3 sources, would you immediately pick up on which 3 those were?

Paul Haney
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Posted: 28 December 2009 at 7:03am \| IP Logged

I downloaded 5 of the songs off iTunes:

Tane Cain - correct 45 version - sounds like a tape source to my ears (if it's vinyl, it's VERY clean).

Tom Johnston - correct 45 version - tape source.

Patrick Simmons - correct 45 version - tape source.

Stevie Woods - Steal The Night - correct 45 version - vinyl source.

Stevie Woods - Just Can't Win 'Em All - LP length - vinyl source.

I didn't download "Years" by Wayne Newton, but it's almost certainly a re-recorded version.

Edited by Paul Haney on 28 December 2009 at 7:05am

aaronk
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Posted: 28 December 2009 at 10:31am \| IP Logged

Paul Haney wrote:

Tane Cain - correct 45 version - sounds like a tape source to my ears (if it's vinyl, it's VERY clean).

The snippet also sounded VERY clean, but I could hear some vinyl ticks in a couple places, which is what gave it away. I was listening in some high-end headphones. Also, there are other songs on the album that are easier to spot the vinyl artifacts.

Edited by aaronk on 28 December 2009 at 10:34am

aaronk
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Posted: 28 December 2009 at 10:50am \| IP Logged

EdisonLite wrote:

if you were to hear, say, 100 songs on CDR, would you be able to pick up on which 3 were actually from mp3s?

If I am listening carefully on a good system or high-end headphones, I can probably tell 9 out of 10 times. Perhaps I'm not giving iTunes a fair shot, since I haven't downloaded anything from there in a couple years. It just seems like everything I have purchased from them sounded "swooshy" to my ears. Pretty much all of the song samples also sound "swooshy" which is what makes me hesitant to purchase them.

The reason I would opt for cleaned up vinyl over mp3 (even from tape source) is that I have dozens of songs dubbed from vinyl using my own set up and cleaning techniques, and I cannot tell that they were taken from vinyl. The reverse is not true, though. There are very few mp3s that have tricked my ears.

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