The Police – Certifiable : Live in Buenos Aires (3 LP, Cherrytree/A&M Records B0011945-01, 2008) ($24.99) You’d think with all of the time that I spend reading about music, things like this wouldn’t take me by surprise. Thank goodness for the Sunday BestBuy flier which informed me that today there would be an exclusive Police Live CD/DVD of their live concert from Buenos Aires called Certifiable. The Police played there two nights, December 1 & 2, 2007. I can’t find anything that tells me which “especially hot night” (quote from the press release) it was. There would be a limited 180g 3 LP version of this album. Well, sort of limited, the flier said “a minimum of three per store” and according to this Wikipedia article, there are 962 stores. When I called this morning, Cedar Rapids had five copies. When I got there a guy was there with a copy under his arm chatting with an employee about digging his turntable out for the first time in ten years recently and listening to Quadrophenia by the Who. The records weren’t on the shelves, so I had to ask this employee where the records were. He had to go to the warehouse to get it. This guy wanted to pull on my ear for a bit about how excited he was to listen to vinyl again after all these years.
The three records are in a massive gatefold with a collage of photos from the tour. In addition to the records, there is a single sheet with another collage of photos and a code for an mp3 download. The resulting download are 256Kbps mp3’s which is acceptible. The mp3’s are handled by same folks who do the downloads for the new Beck and the new Ryan Adams.
Click Here for the Police Certifiable Page
Click Here for the Best Buy Exclusive Certifiable Page
I’d spotted it as well in Marin City, CA – they have a standalone cardboard display just for this release and it has an actual 12″ slot just for the LPs! My question is, is this an analog recording or a different mix on the LP, or is it just the digital mix with some bass rolled off (for LP cutter head issues) and treble boosted for RIAA EQ (all of which should supposedly be re-equalized in playback)? In other words, how does it SOUND? Lately there have been a lot of online debates about producers pressured to make their recordings sound LOUD, basically squashing all the dynamic range out of them. Sting’s LPs were often masterpieces of subtlety, but a live reunion show sounds like it’s a long way from lute music! So how’s the vinyl, and how does the sound compare to the 256k MP3 or CD?
I can’t answer about the vinyl because I don’t own or plan to own a copy.
But I own a copy of the CD and it’s one of those too damn loud masterings we have been getting from our dear music producers for the past 6 years or so.
It’s not completely unlisteneable like other cds (Counting Crows and REM latest releases) but there’s no dynamics at all.
All the show sounds at the same volume.
They managed to screw up the two best shows of the tour…well, the only two I attended actually
I have to agree with yescool2002. I finally got a chance to throw the slab on this week– I’d been listening to the mp3’s in the car since I got the vinyl. But, the vinyl sounds pretty much like the mp3’s do– flat and pushed waaay the heck up in the headspace. No dynamics.
Although, PhilHarmonic makes a good point– it’s a live recording in front of thousands of people– not very intimate, so that probably plays into it somewhat.
The performance is pretty good and shows the band at a pretty good place, but WTF about the backing vocals???? All the songs I was expecting backing vocals, I couldn’t hear them at all! I’m not sure if this is a factor of the mixing, the recording, or Sting’s ego…
I guess one question would be how the DVD sounds? Since they would have tried to mix for 5.1 they might have had some headroom.
I wonder what the new Police reissues on vinyl sound like? Do I need to go back to the original pressings?
Not sure what you mean by Sting’s ego…. 🙂
I was at those 2 concerts. Apart from some very low in the mix backing vocals by Andy Summers, the backing vocals were pre-recorded by Sting.
And for the cd release they are mixed much much lower than at the concert.