"Suddenly Last Summer" - Motels

Does anyone have a recommendation for a good-sounding
version of this song? I have a suspicion that it's the
way it was recorded--almost like they overdubbed a rough
demo or something--but I've wondered if there's a truly
good-sounding version out there. Calling Ron...

It's most definitely intentional. The vocals sound great throughout, as does the shaky-sounding percussion in the pre-chorus and occasional crash cymbal fills. I don't know why the drum machine was mixed to sound so weird, but it gives the song a really distinctive sound, and calls that much more attention to the fills.

The oldest version I've heard on CD is Capitol's Motels best-of CD No Vacancy (1990), which sounds quite nice. Excellent dynamic range, nice EQ, and no evidence of noise reduction. The volume level is a bit low, but that's not much of an issue. This is an excellent-sounding CD.

The same analog transfer is used for Sandstone's Rock The First Vol. 5 (1992; absolute polarity inverted, which doesn't affect the sound), which also has a nice dynamic range, nice EQ, no noise reduction. Lots of CD use the same analog transfer as Rock The First Vol. 5:

• Cema's Greatest Hits Of The 80's Vol. 1 Turbo Mania (1994; digitally exactly 0.864 dB louder)
• Cema's 2-CD Cool Rock (1995; differently-EQ'd digital clone)
• Time-Life's 2-CD Sounds Of The Eighties Vol. 11 1983-1984 (1995; differently-EQ'd digital clone)
• Priority's I Love Rock And Roll Vol. 4 Hits Of The 80's (1996; tail of fade is a few seconds shorter)
• Madacy's Rock On 1983 (1996; differently-EQ'd digital clone)
• Time-Life's 2-CD Modern Rock Vol. 8 Early '80s (2000; differently-EQ'd digital clone)

The Sandstone, Cema and Time-Life discs all sound just fine, and all sound pretty close to No Vacancy.

There are other outliers:

• Priority's Rock Of The '80s Vol. 14 (1994; just a tiny bit compressed compared to the above; it sounds pretty good here)
• EMI Australia's 5-CD Eighties Complete Vol. 2 (1999; fades about 9 seconds early - avoid)
• Rhino's 7-CD Like Omigod (2002) sounds quite nice, but has a slightly boosted high end, which really cranks up the hiss on the fade

My recommendation:

Go with Capitol's No Vacancy (1990). If you don't have that disc, then go with Sandstone's Rock The First Vol. 5 (1992), or any of the differently-EQ'd digital clones. All sound very similar.

(Thanks to Jim for sending me the version from No Vacancy. I edited this post to include the No Vacancy info.)

Edited by crapfromthepast