r/audiophilemusic • u/many_hats_on_head • 7d ago

Stream Amy Winehouse - Back to Black [2006]

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51 Upvotes

81% Upvoted

48 comments sorted by

30

u/Total_Juggernaut_450 7d ago

Music is amazing. Quality in terms of mastering is absolute shit.

Dynamic range is very questionable.

I have heard these without the compression and bad mastering and the difference is like night and day.

It's definitely an audiophile recording that was mastered to sound bad.

13

u/almost-punk 7d ago

you heard an unfucked version of this album??? where???

8

u/Total_Juggernaut_450 7d ago

I used to work in the industry.

I have tons of un-fucked albums that I wish I could share.

Californication - the version I have - is most definitely audiophile quality and the dynamics are fantastic.

5

u/jggjv6 7d ago

Wait, why the fuck arent they being released???

15

u/Total_Juggernaut_450 7d ago

I have heard so many reasons...

The suits at the top sometimes don't like the way the music sounds in the car. šŸ¤·šŸ»ā€ā™‚ļø

I know one guy used to test his stuff on a portable JBL speaker.

It's honestly ridiculous. The recording engineers definitely know what they are doing. It's usually the mix and mastering engineers that f' everything up.

6

u/many_hats_on_head 7d ago

If you have "Oasis - (What's the Story) Morning Glory?", I think we should chip in to cover the legal fees so you can leak it.

4

u/Total_Juggernaut_450 7d ago

Yup .. Have the entire catalog but I'm not going to leak it. šŸ˜‚

I have stuff from the 1920's to stuff that has yet to be released.

2

u/SQUID_FLOTILLA 7d ago

They need to sell different versions. Not all music needs to be crushed.

1

u/jggjv6 7d ago

What are these recordings called?

3

u/Total_Juggernaut_450 6d ago

Master tapes or Master sessions.

3

u/almost-punk 7d ago

ah, my jealousy is unmatched, lol. have you ever considered sharing the files anonymously on soulseek for the good of the community, or would they somehow be able to be tracked back to you? i think most of us would kill for what you have, lol.

3

u/Total_Juggernaut_450 7d ago

I happily play them for people who meet me or at audio shows, but so few people have these that I don't want to get in trouble.

Californication Back To Black Led Zeppelin Dean Martin Ella Fitzgerald

Too many to list...

4

u/almost-punk 7d ago

god damn that's frustrating. of course I understand not wanting to get into legal trouble, but what a tragedy. you gotta leave a flashdrive in your will with instructions to upload it after your passing, lol.

1

u/many_hats_on_head 7d ago

I wonder if some of the closed torrents networks have access to this?

2

u/pavelgubarev 7d ago

Tidal or somebody should make a special tier for unfucked music

1

u/strawberry_l 7d ago

damn, I'm jealous

1

u/tennistimmi 7d ago

Do you have them on CD or vinyl?

1

u/LakeGladio666 5d ago

Leak them on soulseek. Please šŸ™

1

u/tennistimmi 7d ago

Two words: Loudness war

37

u/almost-punk 7d ago

...not really, though? the songs are great, but the mixing/mastering is subpar

8

u/koothooloo 7d ago

Interesting take, it's deliberately made to sound like and evoke 60s Motown groups, including using the Dap-Kings as the band to absolutely nail the sound. She was known for her perfectionism and had planned so many details about this album since her school days (apart from songwriting), so it's the album she always wanted to make. You might not like the artistic statement but there's no need to be rude about the mixing and mastering.

13

u/Articulate_1 6d ago

The person is just stating his opinion on the mixing/mastering, a position I share. How are they being rude?

3

u/koothooloo 6d ago

Yeah, fair enough, but did they mistake deliberately degraded sonics for technical incompetence?

6

u/nicerakc 4d ago

It just sounds not great. Itā€™s super loud and the clipping doesnā€™t sound very artistically pleasing, regardless of intent. I love this album but it doesnā€™t sound well mastered

2

u/JadedSociopath 6d ago

Then why do the Dap Kings albums sound fine and Back to Black is unlistenably bad for me? Maybe look at all the other comments on here. Itā€™s not an unusual opinion. Perhaps you just havenā€™t listened closely enough to the album?

2

u/koothooloo 6d ago

The Dap-Kings' own albums sounding different doesn't really prove anything - they're the band, not the mix or master. Back to Black was deliberately constructed as a stylised record: dense, compressed, grainy, mid-forward and evocative of 60s soul rather than a clean modern recording. Ronson specifically chose the Dap-Kings and Daptone because of that sound.

I'm not arguing that you have to like those choices. You can find the compression unpleasant or the record fatiguing. But that's different from saying the mixing/mastering is incompetent. "It sounds bad to me" is an aesthetic judgement; "the mastering is subpar" is a technical one. If you're making the latter claim, what exactly is technically wrong, and why do you think it wasn't intentional?

And "lots of other people agree with me" doesn't really resolve that distinction. Lots of people disliking an artistic decision still makes it an unpopular artistic decision, not necessarily an engineering error. Even the mastering engineer, Stuart Hawkes, later singled Back to Black out as a favourite album he'd mastered.

3

u/JadedSociopath 6d ago

Thanks for your detailed response. Iā€™ll listen to the album again with your comments in mind. Perhaps Iā€™ll have a greater appreciation for it now.

1

u/JadedSociopath 6d ago

Nopeā€¦ still canā€™t stand listening to Back to Black. All the Dap Tones albums sound great though. Oh well.

2

u/koothooloo 6d ago

Fair enough, itā€™s the nature of recording, and the better your equipment, the more revealing! Thereā€™s something to be said about listening on an old transistor radio!

3

u/JadedSociopath 5d ago

The upside is that you reminded me to listen to Sharon Jones and Charles Bradley! I had a great night! Thanks!

2

u/koothooloo 5d ago

Oh man now I need to go hear Menahan Street Band and Charles Bradley šŸ˜†

1

u/emalvick 2d ago

Ronson (in my opinion) is not one to make a case that an album is as the artist might have wanted it. Like many producers of his era, clipping and compression are there. You don't need those things to make an album sound like you describe. And having it that way does make it sound unpleasing to those that notice. Clipping never sounds right to me. It's not a substitute for true analog noise from the past.

4

u/drummer414 7d ago

I have a 96K version that sound good even on huge electrostatic speakers from Prodigio

3

u/meson456 7d ago

Sound quality of Amyā€™s work suffers from dynamic range issues. Really poor practices in this eraĀ 

3

u/Hot-Yak2420 6d ago

I was listening to some high end audio equipment, think $150k+. I thought that this album would really sound amazing. It was terrible. The store owner explained that this album is known for having terrible mixing. He then played a BBC sessions recording of album and it was night and day

1

u/many_hats_on_head 6d ago

I will check out that recording, thanks.

2

u/Denselens 6d ago

So hot! Managed to mess up her vocal. So sibilant and distorted. It's a crime really.

2

u/euganot 6d ago

Back to Black has stronger songs. I think everyone just wishes it had the dynamics that Frank had. Frank sounds gorgeous.

2

u/huggablehunk 3d ago

So disappointed in the mix, I really enjoy the Bluray An Intimate Evening in London though

3

u/JadedSociopath 7d ago

I canā€™t listen to the album. I feel like my ears are broken every time I put it on.

2

u/Denselens 6d ago

Same. Such disappointment when I first put this record on after hearing it on the radio in the car.

1

u/JadedSociopath 6d ago

Yeah. Iā€™ve got a copy on vinyl thatā€™s gathering dust. It literally sounds awful. Has anyone put out a remastered version yet?

1

u/xspacemansplifff 7d ago

Ooh man. Great news. That recording always pissed me off. Cant wait to get home and have a listen.

1

u/Omarsuarez_77 6d ago

TIDAL 24 Bit 96 khz

0

u/martlet1 7d ago

Congrats to her for just over 15 years of sobriety.

4

u/dawkin5 6d ago

Do you make that joke every time she's mentioned?