Raspberries - Go All The Way

Which ERIC release is it on?

Some of the HTFHOCD series has been remastered. Maybe a cleaner copy since the issue you have?

Both “Go All The Way” and its follow-up, “I Wanna Be With You“, were
intentionally mixed this way because the band and producer Jimmy
Ienner were aiming for a sound that would later be dubbed ‘power pop’.
Both sound fantastic on a transistor radio, but not so fantastic on
anything more sophisticated. The session tapes have apparently not
survived, so it looks like these mixes are the only ones we are ever
going to hear.

What does an overdose of analog compression/limiting sound like? It sounds like "Go All The Way" by the Raspberries. I love it! It wouldn't have been a hit if it was mixed like Steely Dan. The song was also mixed in extremely narrow stereo, much like the Creedence Clearwater Revival records.

The mastering history is straightforward here.

The song turned up first (?) on JCI's Rockin' Seventies (1988). It sounds fine here.

There's a different analog transfer on Time-Life's Sounds Of The Seventies Vol. 3 1972 (1989). I prefer this over the JCI, because it has a teeny bit more high end in the EQ. The same analog transfer is used on:

• Rhino's Poptopia! The '70s (1997) - digitally identical
• Time-Life's AM Gold Vol. 28 Teen Idols Of The '70s (1999) - differently EQ'd digital clone

The Raspberries 3" CD on Rhino and Razor & Tie's 2-CD Suddenly '70s (1997) seem to use different analog transfers of the same source tape as Sounds Of The Seventies Vol. 3 1972.

There's a new analog transfer on the Raspberries collection Capitol Collectors Series (1991). It sounds just fine here, too, with just a little less high end than the Time-Life mastering. The same analog transfer is used on:

• Time-Life's Guitar Rock Vol. 11 The Early '70s (1994) - digitally exactly 0.6 dB louder
• Raspberries Greatest Hits (1995) - digitally identical
• Priority's I Love Rock And Roll Vol. 3 Hits Of The 70's (1996) - digitally exactly 2.14 dB quieter
• Time-Life's 2-CD Seventies Music Explosion Vol. 4 Magic (2005) - digitally exactly 0.39 dB quieter

Realistically, there's not a lot of difference between Sounds Of The Seventies Vol. 3 1972 (mastered by Ken Perry, project overseen by Bill Inglot) and Capitol Collectors Series (mastered by Kevin Reeves). I chose Capitol Collectors Series (1991) for my collection, but either one would work just fine.

CKLW demonstrated what John Gallagher mentions above many
times during the hit run.

I tried widening the stereo image, too, and got the same results as you. But I
never heard about the master tapes being lost. They wouldn't have been in the
Universal fire of 2007-ish, because EMI/Capitol hadn't yet been bought by
Universal at the time of the fire. And Raspberries were on Capitol.

Also, I knew about Go All the Way being virtually mono, but I didn't realize that
about I Wanna Be With You. Is that really the case, and is the LP version any
wider?