The reissue market has been strong for some time. What separates some of them is the ability to create collectible packaging, and further, to remaster the album to become the best sounding of them all. I’ve seen plenty of them. Some just reissue albums to provide availability, no fancy frills. Others create nice, collectible packaging with updated remastering. And some, like Culture Factory take it a step further.
Culture Factory USA has created an ongoing series of remasters (in 96kHz/24-bit) called The Legends Of Rock. While CDs are 16-bit standard, the sound is supposed to retain the quality of the high resolution remaster. You can read about the process here. In addition, Culture Factory USA has employed the use of the mini-LP CD once championed by the Japanese marketplace.
I recently acquired several copies of album remasters that include two absolute favorites of mine, the self-titled David Johansen Blue Sky debut, and his excellent follow-up, In Style (I LOVE “Big City”). Needless to say, I enjoyed the whole experience. The music was clean, giving me audio pleasure listening to something that I like quite well. I also picked up the second album from New York Dolls, Too Much Too Soon.
I’m also a John Cale fan. The label has several classic Cale releases available (Helen Of Troy, Fear, and Slow Dazzle. And since I’m a big Hot Tuna fan, it is notable to me that the label has remastered and reissued all of the Hot Tuna catalog. Guess who has to get those?!
All of the CDs have a painted top that is designed to look like vinyl with the nice bonus of replicating the original label. The CD is then placed in a glossy paper sleeve replicating the original sleeve, and then housed in a durable cardboard jacket.
Culture Factory has a nice selection of available reissue CDs. There’s James Taylor, Kim Wilde, Moon Martin, Paul Collins’ Beat, Murray Head, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Robert Palmer, The Motels, The Romantics, Mink DeVille, Flamin’ Groovies, and a few others. There are also a batch of soundtracks as well. But even more exciting are the upcoming reissues expected. Live Dates from Wishbone Ash in a double CD (double LP) format with a gatefold is one that I’m very anxious for. This could lead to the remastered catalog of Wishbone Ash, something I ALWAYS look for. Live Dates II is also scheduled
Culture Factory also have the entire catalog from Blue Oyster Cult coming shortly along with titles from The Supremes, Kim Carnes, Diana Ross, Wang Chung, and .38 Special.
All titles are Limited Editions, with already a few titles in danger of disappearing. The Legends Of Rock series remastered reissues are nice affordable updates to favored albums.
Check them out at their website!
RE: “While CDs are 16-bit standard, the sound is supposed to retain the quality of the high resolution remaster.”
So, in your opinion, do they?
Bill…I like a good sounding CD, and these sound pretty good. 24=bit good is an impossibility. But it is quite good.
I have three of the Robert Palmer reissue CDs from Culture Factory, “Clues” and “Pride” reissued last year and the just-released “Sneakin’ Sally Through the Alley”. While I am very glad to see them in print at last, and the artwork on them reproduced so nicely, the sound quality is just not that great. There are intermittent stereo imaging issues on the 2012 discs, and all of them have very compressed dynamics. Whoever mastered them (there is no credit on the discs themselves) was either provided with an inferior source or did not know what else to do but squash the sound in an attempt to fix these issues. 24bit is great when the source is good, but garbage in always gives garbage out.