[.ca] Rockin'/Flavours

hang on to your vinyl:
1972's Rockin' ranks as one of The Guess Who's best (if not, the best) albums. The mix is closer the original than any of the other albums. It's not exact, but it's close. There are dropouts during the fade on "Get Your Ribbons On" along with some major equalization on "Heaven Only Moved Once Yesterday"--effectively ruining the song. The rest of the album is about as close to the original vinyl as you're going to get with these CDs. Pairing Rockin' with Flavours (1975) is the musical equivalent of mixing apples and oranges. We're talking two completely different bands at this point in the group's history. The equalization and mix on most of Flavours is just plain terrible. Cummings' piano is buried on "Dancin' Fool" and the vocals are too loud. The acoustic guitar on "Hoe Down Time" sounds unnatural now, due to the EQ boost. From there, it's one extreme to the other. "Nobody Knows His Name" has too much bass. "Diggin' Yourself" has been compressed and the high end is muffled. "Seems Like I Can't Live with You..." suffers from too much bass and major noise reduction at the end. "Dirty" also has major equalization and compression, and awful noise reduction at the end. The rest of the album doesn't fare any better.

Yet another odd pairing...really odd:
To rehash the same criticism yet again, why pair an album released in 1972 with one incarnation of the Guess Who with an album released in 1974 that is very different in sound and has only two members of the band in common with the '72 album? Sure, it would be nitpicking if the two albums weren't so dissimilar, but ROCKIN' is both different from and also head, hands and feet way, way better than FLAVOURS overall! The underdog first: FLAVOURS sole redeeming feature is "Dancin' Fool," already available on umpty-ump "greatest hits" collections BMG has made of the band. The rest of the album is a hodge-podge of styles, which itself isn't all that different from the way the Guess Who put together previous recordings (look at the differences in musical styles throughout SO LONG, BANNATYNE and ARTIFICIAL PARADISE, for example). But this time out, it's as if Burton Cummings and crew just took half-realized ideas and stuck 'em together without much thought. The nadir is "Seems Like I Can't Live With You, But I Can't Live Without You," an UN-parody of George Jones-style country-and-western that cries out for a raspberry in the middle somewhere and gets none. ROCKIN', on the other hand, is one of the G Who's best albums ever. "Heartbroken Bopper" and "Arrivederci Girl" should've been stable-mates with songs like "Mississippi Queen" on the radio of the '70s, and "Guns, Guns, Guns" is about the best anti-hunter (or, more accurately, anti-AMERICAN hunter) song ever. There's more, though; "Smoke Big Factory" features some of the most gorgeous harmonizing the band ever put to tape, while "Your Nashville Sneakers," "Running Bear" and "Get Your Ribbons On" show off the band's sense of humor and, in the case of the first song, their ability to swing as well as rock. If there's any one criticism I have, it's that ROCKIN' is much too short an album----so you gotta play it again! I don't know what the reasons were for this peculiar pairing, but I suspect that whoever was serving as archivist/compiler surmised that ROCKIN' was a strong enough album to pull the less-compelling FLAVOURS with it and made the descision based on that. If I didn't already have ROCKIN' on CD, I probably would buy this two-fer using that logic. But I do, so I won't need to.

Shifting From Good to Best:
Ok, so the CD is not as good as the vinyl. We got that part, however the Music is The Guess Who all the way. Rock/Harmony/Crooning/Beat/Swing. Where are all the other bands who can even try to go from "Heartbroken Bopper" to "Nashville Sneakers"? For the dedicated fans remember Burton's "Takes a Fool to Love a Fool" from his solo career -- sure you're going to hear a little country. Why sell such opposite albums on one CD??? Pure and Simple, you are going to play for your kids the most versatile rock n roll band that ever swept Canada and the USA. Ya got to own this one!

4 for the music, 2 for the sound quality:
As time goes on, I become more and more picky about sound quality in the recordings I buy. I realize some recordings are meant to be lo-fi (there's an entire genre dedicated to those), but professional/big budget/major label releases should never sound sub par (unless they're meant to). That includes re-issues. The band with the most botched back catalogue has to be the Guess Who. The first time their albums were issued on disc, they weren't available in the States, and some weren't available anywhere ('Flavours', for one). My CD copy of 'So Long, Bannatyne' (BMG, 1991) was clearly transfered to disc from vinyl! I suppose a label could redeem itself by issuing one or two pristine sounding anthologies, but the Guess Who have had tons, and none are spectacular. The best is probably 'The Ultimate Collection', released in the late '90s, but the bass in the mix is annoyingly high. I thought BMG might get their stuff together with these re-issues, but I was wrong. After reading the reviews here, I was very reluctant to purchase any of them, since they're pretty expensive here in the States. I decided to buy this one, because I wanted to have one Troiano-era album on disc, and because 'Rockin'' is one of my favorite mid-period GW albums. As stated in other reviews, the sound is embarassing, period. If it were any worse, BMG would be taking back all of these discs in mass quanities and would be hard at work on the re-re-issues. It's just good enough to be listenable, but it's a frustrating listen. Certain elements in the mix sound strange: the cymbals are too loud, the S's in the vocals are hissy, everything is tinny and cheap sounding overall. A real dissapointment coming from a major record label and considering how badly the Guess Who's catalog has been butchered. The bottom line: if your vinyl is still in good shape and you have good audio equipment, transfer your records to disc. I guarantee they'll sound better than these. A solid 4 for the music and a low 2 for the sound quality equals a reluctant 3. This is the sound of a couple great albums being carelessly tossed aside.

I Hoped They Were Wrong Here Too...:
My disappointment on mastering of this CD is the same that I wrote in my review of the 'Wheatfield Soul' / 'Artificial Paradise' CD. In this case, I bought the CD in hopes of better mastering of 'Rockin' from the single CD already have--but NO! Of the BMG single CD releases, 'Rockin' had the worst mastering, particularly frustrating with a power song like 'Heartbrokin Bopper'. Unfortunately, I bought before the other reviews were posted. I haven't decided whether this new CD is actually worse than the single of 'Rockin', it's just too disappointing to carefully compare them. My other reason was to hear 'Flavours' again and see if it hit me better than when originally released. As Cummings said in the liner notes of their 2-disc Anthology, 'Flavours' and 'Power In The Music' were not really the Guess Who. To me, it was closer to Cummings' upcoming solo work, but not quite that good. Obviously the mediocre mastering didn't help. All in all, if this is the only way to get your hands on 'Rockin', buy it.

• Heartbroken Bopper
• Get Your Ribbons On
• Smoke Big Factory
• Arrivederci Girl
• Guns, Guns, Guns
• Running Bear
• Back to the City
• Your Nashville Sneakers
• Herbert's a Loser
• Hi Rockers
• Dancin' Fool
• Hoe Down Time
• Nobody Knows His Name
• Diggin' Yourself
• Seems Like I Can't Live With You, But I Can't Live Without You
• Dirty
• Eye
• Loves Me Like a Brother
• Long Gone