 |
 |
Found a remaindered copy of a later Epic CD incarntaion of "Cheap Trick at Budokan" which I have been listening to in the car. Apart from the fact that I feel that it is one of the best albums ever to go triple-platinum, there are some questions about its recording that I'm hoping the combined wisdom here might help illuminate. When the import release arrived in the little store that was my haunt in late 1978 there were several things about it that were waaaaay unusual. The quality of the photography -- even though shot in the dark, and somewhat enhanced because of that -- and of the album jacket printing was a king's mile above the average, and the later US version kind of darkened and blurred both by comparison. However, the sound of the disc was realistic in a way I had never before experienced; it was so good that it still took me additional years to notice that the music was good also. The earlier LP versions stated that "Cheap Trick at Budokan" was in SONY STEREO. I remember a record store clerk excitedly telling me that Sony stereo was better than regular stereo and my bullcrap detector going off as a result. Now, though, I wonder if he was in some way -- correct? Is it possible that digital was somewhere in the chain of "Cheap Trick at Budokan." Historically it is possible: http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/CorporateInfo/History/SonyHistory/2-07.html The PCM-1 was in use and already being marketed by April of 1978 when the Budokan concerts were recorded. At that time, Sony was using 2" Betamax tapes; the disc was being developed, but was not putting out acceptable results yet as either a recording or playback format. However, April 1978 is a bit before the fateful meeting with Karajan mentioned in this corporate history. In my car, the recording sounds digital, but it is after all being played back from a CD. Elsewhere I've read that the first digital recording in the US was the Zubin Mehta/NYP recording of Stravinsky's "Petrushka" from June 1979. But I also recall that Fleetwood Mac's album "Tusk" was at least partly digital and it was on the market by the fall of '79. That was on the WB, not CBS. Uncle Dave Lewis Lebanon, OH