Top 40 Music on Compact Disc: Time Life CDs

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Fetta
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Posted: 25 October 2007 at 7:13am \| IP Logged

Does anyone know where I can get a comprehensive list of Time Life CDs. I am most interested in "Rock and Roll Era", "Classic Rock", "Sounds of 70's", "Sound of 80s" and "Your Hit Parade"

Would like to cross reference with my collections to make sure I am not missing anything.

Thanks all

Edited by Fetta on 25 October 2007 at 7:14am

crapfromthepast
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Posted: 25 October 2007 at 7:55am \| IP Logged

Boy is today your lucky day.

I just happened to have such a page:

http://www.crapfromthepast.com/favorites/compilations/timeli fe/index.htm

I don't have "Your Hit Parade", though, so I defer to the excellent discography at the Both Sides Now site:

http://www.bsnpubs.com/warner/time-life/time-lifestory.html

Edited by crapfromthepast on 07 September 2016 at 12:58pm

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eriejwg
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Posted: 25 October 2007 at 8:21am \| IP Logged

From what I understand, many of T-L's compilation series have been reworked. For example, Sounds of the Seventies is now called Ultimate Seventies, which is basically Sound of the Seventies I and II in one package. Shame really, as there were some other discs in that original package that had some high/low/no chart material.

I think Sounds of the Eighties may also be out of print. Best bet is to check eBay. Ron's listing on the site he gave you will at least give you a strong start on what to look for.

Fetta
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Posted: 25 October 2007 at 8:42am \| IP Logged

Thanks for the info all.

I probably have complete series (maybe 1 or 2 missing) but wanted to confirm.

I've seen the Ultimate Seventies and they seem to be not as good as the Sounds Of The 70s. Time Life, to me anyway, doesnt seem to be putting out series the way they used to. Could have lots to do with the state of the CD format these days. May not be worth their while any longer. What a shame!!!

Edited by Fetta on 25 October 2007 at 8:42am

crapfromthepast
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Posted: 25 October 2007 at 9:03am \| IP Logged

If you have the compulsive urge to collect (as I would assume many of us on this forum do), you might want to hunt down Time-Life's Solid Gold Soul series. Some volumes are repackaged from the discontinued Rhythm & Blues series, and there are quite a few new entries. There are single-CD volumes for each year from 1956 (1954 and 1955 were available only as as Rhythm & Blues) through 1979, with an early '80s entry, a mid-'80s entry, and a few others. The '70s-era single-year CDs are really outstanding, with superb track selection, and great sound quality (mastering by Dennis Drake). Well worth the hunt, although a lot of these are getting pricey.

The AM Gold series seems to carry a lot of weight with collectors also. Many of the earlier years are repackaged Superhits collections. These, too, extend out to 1979, and I recommend the later ones.

Some seem to like the 2-CD sets for Singers And Songwriters. I don't have many of them, so I can't comment.

In general, if you can find collections released on Rhino, Razor & Tie, or Time-Life released between 1992 and 1996, you'll be satisfied. Anything released after 1996 is generally mastered too loud, with compression/maximization ruining the sound quality (do a search on "the loudness wars" on the stevehoffman.tv, for more info.) There are a handful of Time-Life collections released between 1996 till around 2002 that aren't mastered too loud, but those are the exceptions rather than the rule.

Brian W.
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Posted: 25 October 2007 at 6:00pm \| IP Logged

crapfromthepast wrote:

The AM Gold series seems to carry a lot of weight with collectors also.

That's because the sound quality on AM Gold is generally considered superior to that on Sounds of the Seventies. Very good sound on the AM Gold series.

eriejwg
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Posted: 25 October 2007 at 6:04pm \| IP Logged

Reason being - Sounds Of The Seventies uses analog sources - AM Gold uses digital.

aaronk
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Posted: 25 October 2007 at 10:09pm \| IP Logged

eriejwg wrote:

Reason being - Sounds Of The Seventies uses analog sources - AM Gold uses digital.

I'm not sure what you mean. Any music recorded prior to 1988 or so is all from analog sources. They didn't start using digital recording until the late '80s.

eriejwg
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Posted: 25 October 2007 at 10:43pm \| IP Logged

Hey Aaron,

I think the AM Gold series was released starting in 1993 or 1994. Sounds Of The Seventies has dates of 1988 or 1989-1991 as I recall. On the back of my SOS discs, it says The high resolution of this compact disc may reveal limitations inherent in the original analog recordings.

aaronk
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Posted: 25 October 2007 at 11:07pm \| IP Logged

Ah, I see what you're getting at. Perhaps they did have better technology and mastering techniques by the early to mid '90s, which is why the AM Gold discs could possibly sound better. It's the same analog sources though, since they would've come from the master tapes that the songs were originally recorded on.

I always thought the "disclaimer" on those '80s-era CDs was unnecessary. After all, they never bothered to put one on LPs that read "Because of record groove noise and the limitatiosn of your turntable, you will not be getting the true sound of the master recording."

crapfromthepast
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Posted: 06 September 2016 at 7:12pm \| IP Logged

...nine years later...

So I need a little favor to help me sort out some questions about the Time-Life Sounds Of The Seventies series.

Some of you may have noticed that for some discs, the matrix number (i.e., that number printed on the disc circumferentially around the center hole) has a notation of "RE-1". That signifies that it's a remaster of the disc. The original pressing had no "RE" at all. Some discs have an "RE-2" (a second remaster), or even an "RE-3" (a third remaster - I saw this on Rock 'N' Roll Era Vol. 11 1960).

I realized that for a handful of the Seventies discs, I have the original but not the remaster, or the remaster but not the original. I'd like to post the differences between original and RE-1 remaster, and that's where I need your help.

Does anyone have the original releases (no RE-1) of the following discs? I have the RE-1 remasters of these:

Sounds Of The Seventies Vol. 4 1976 (1989)
Sounds Of The Seventies Vol. 13 1972 Take Two (1991)
Sounds Of The Seventies Vol. 23 Guitar Power (1992 - I only have the RE-2 of this)
Sounds Of The Seventies Vol. 27 Dance Fever (1992)
Sounds Of The Seventies Vol. 28 FM Rock III (1992)

Does anyone have the RE-1 remasters of the following?

Sounds Of The Seventies Vol. 18 1976 Take Two (1991)
Sounds Of The Seventies Vol. 23 Guitar Power (1992 - I only have the RE-2 of this)

For completeness, I have both the original and RE-1 remasters of the following:

Sounds Of The Seventies Vol. 5 1977 (1990)
Sounds Of The Seventies Vol. 17 1977 Take Two (1991)

If any of you know of any other RE-1 (or even RE-2) remasters out there, please let me know. This info is very specific to us collectors (i.e., the general population couldn't care less), and doesn't appear anywhere else on the web, as far as I know.

Will gladly post info once I figure out what's a good format for it. (Maybe a separate thread for each title?)

Edited by crapfromthepast on 07 September 2016 at 6:20am

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The Hits Man
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Posted: 06 September 2016 at 8:37pm \| IP Logged

aaronk wrote:

eriejwg wrote:

Reason being - Sounds
Of The Seventies uses analog sources - AM Gold
uses digital.

I'm not sure what you mean. Any music recorded prior to
1988 or so is all from analog sources. They didn't start
using digital recording until the late '80s.

Aaron, I have a lot of music that was recorded
digitally from as far back as 1979 from Ry Cooder,
Fleetwood Mac, Stevie Wonder, Dave Grusin, and many
others.

Edited by The Hits Man on 06 September 2016 at 8:38pm

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padj79
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Posted: 06 September 2016 at 9:09pm \| IP Logged

Please keep in mind that an RE-1, RE-2, etc. designation does not necessarily mean that a disc is "remastered" in an audio sense. I worked in R&D engineering at Specialty Records/WEA Manufacturing from 1988-1997 and was fully immersed in this nomenclature. The Time-Life series was for the most part manufactured at Specialty/WEA during this time.

The RE designation means that a glass master has been redone because something went wrong during its initial creation or a new (but not necessarily different) digital audio source has been supplied to create a new glass master. The addition of the RE in the matrix allows the catalog (matrix) number of the glass master to be maintained with only the addition of the RE.

Resupplying the digital audio source was a common occurrence in those days, since the source was a Sony U-Matic 1630 PCM tape - essentially videotape. The tapes wore out always and often. When a new tape was supplied, the RE number was incremented by 1 for all glass masters made from that new tape. Once that tape wore out, it was replaced and the RE number was again incremented by 1 for all glass masters made from that next tape. And the process continued.

So that is why you can find The Eagles - Their Greatest Hits 1971-75 with an RE-58. It wasn't remastered in an audio sense 58 times. The U-Matic 1630 kept wearing out or failing from overuse! Delivery to manufacturing by CD-R was not really widespread until 1996, ending the tape wear-and-tear issues.

So, the chance of these Time Life CDs sounding different due to RE designation is very low. It would be really cool though if you do find out that they do sound different.

Brian W.
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Posted: 06 September 2016 at 11:24pm \| IP Logged

Actually, Aaron, Grant is ri-- (cough cough)... Grant
is ri-- ri-- agh, gah huh-guh-huh... Grant is right.

Digital recording dates back to the late 1970s. Billy
Joel's "Nylon Curtain" album is a digital recording.
"Like a Virgin" was recorded digitally.

According to Wikipedia, Archie Shepp's "On Green
Dolphin Street" was the first released digitally
recorded album, in 1977 (though it was not released on
CD until years later, of course).

crapfromthepast
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Posted: 07 September 2016 at 7:09am \| IP Logged

This is what I had in mind (thanks to Jeff K, so far, and still looking for more info):

Sounds Of The Seventies Vol. 5 1977 (1990)

Track 2 on original release is "Dancing Queen" by Abba
Track 2 on RE-1 reissue is "Serpentine Fire" by Earth Wind And Fire
The remaining tracks on RE-1 reissue are digitally identical to those on original release

Sounds Of The Seventies Vol. 17 1977 Take Two (1991)

Track 14 on original release is "Sleepwalker" by the Kinks
Track 14 on RE-1 reissue is "Don't Stop" by Fleetwood Mac
The remaining tracks on RE-1 reissue are digital clones of those on original release, but all have volume increases. I found volume boosts of 1.4 dB, 1.6 dB, 1.8 dB, 1.9 dB, and 2.2 dB.

Sounds Of The Seventies Vol. 20 1978 Take Two (1991)

Track 7 on original release is "A Rock 'N' Roll Fantasy" by the Kinks
Track 7 on RE-1 reissue is "Every Kinda People" by Robert Palmer

Sounds Of The Seventies Vol. 22 Seventies Top Forty (1992)

Track 9 on original release is "Little Willy" by Sweet
Track 9 on RE-1 reissue is "I Need You" by America

Sounds Of The Seventies Vol. 28 FM Rock III (1992)

Still need info for original release
Track 2 on RE-1 reissue is "Take Me To The Pilot" by Elton John
Track 2 on RE-2 reissue is "Nobody" by the Doobie Brothers

Sounds Of The Seventies Vol. 29 FM Rock IV (1993)

Track 13 on original release is "Don't Look Back (You've Gotta Walk)" by Peter Tosh
Track 13 on RE-1 reissue is "Never In My Life" by Mountain
Track 18 on original release is "Bridge Of Sighs" by Robin Trower
Track 18 on RE-1 reissue is "Message From The Country" by The Move

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aaronk
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Posted: 07 September 2016 at 12:25pm \| IP Logged

The Hits Man wrote:

aaronk wrote:

eriejwg wrote:

Reason being - Sounds
Of The Seventies uses analog sources - AM Gold
uses digital.

I'm not sure what you mean. Any music recorded prior to
1988 or so is all from analog sources. They didn't start
using digital recording until the late '80s.

Aaron, I have a lot of music that was recorded
digitally from as far back as 1979 from Ry Cooder,
Fleetwood Mac, Stevie Wonder, Dave Grusin, and many
others.

Yes, I stand corrected on this. I didn't realize they were making full digital audio recordings as early as 1979. I assume the AM Gold series referred to up-thread would have contained songs all recorded prior to this, though, so the original master tapes for those songs would've been analog.

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crapfromthepast
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Posted: 07 September 2016 at 12:45pm \| IP Logged

To be clear, the AM Gold discs use the same sources as Sounds Of The Seventies, Body Talk, Solid Gold Soul, or any of the other Time-Life collections.

Concrete example: For AM Gold Vol. 21 1974 through AM Gold Vol. 26 1979, all released in 1996-97, I determined that just about every track is a digital clone of a mastering from an earlier CD, usually with a volume change. Out of the 118 songs on these discs, I identified the earlier masterings on all but 12 tracks, just because I don't have every CD ever released.

For the Time-Life series that I mentioned above, virtually all the tracks use the same analog transfer as some earlier CDs. For the Sounds Of The Seventies tracks on which a song makes its first appearance on CD, the source is usually a dub from a source tape supplied by the record company.

Hope that helps.

Edited by crapfromthepast on 08 September 2016 at 6:31am

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KentT
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Posted: 08 September 2016 at 9:34am \| IP Logged

Some of the Sounds Of The Seventies and AM Gold volumes got redone due to licensing changes and a track or two which was not available.

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JMD1961
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Posted: 08 September 2016 at 5:45pm \| IP Logged

I have vols. 4, 13 & 27. What can I help you with?

whyaduck
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Posted: 21 September 2016 at 7:27pm \| IP Logged

KentT wrote:

Some of the Sounds Of The Seventies and AM Gold volumes got redone due to licensing changes and a track or two which was not available.

Same with many of the Rhino series' which started in the late 80's. I've nearly completed a "Billboard Top Rock and Roll" [Billboard Top Hits after 1975 onward] master sets.

Ron/CrapFromThePast, do you have any info on that series as to the many changes?

Edited by whyaduck on 21 September 2016 at 7:28pm

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