Horrible remasters (compared to the original)

Just compared the 2005 remaster of Talking Heads' "Born Under Punches" on Spotify, back to back with the original. Yow! It's like all they've done is cranked up the bass and applied some heavy limiting. I have to turn the original up a LOT to match the remaster volume, but I much prefer it. It sounds so much more open and dynamic. So many classic tracks desecrated like this, to the point where I naturally recoil from anything with "remastered" added to the title. Any other glaring examples you'd like to share? 

George Harrison's All Things Must Pass. I can't listen to the latest remaster.

That Dire Straits example is dire, indeed.  Remaster for remastering sake is insane.  Have had issues with moving material from analogue to digital and losing the acoustic element/feel.  I much prefer the remixes with creative spins or samples that create a new work entirely.  Especially with hit songs that have turned into moldy oldies, there is another concept of recycling here that does not appeal to me. 

The old Deep Purple stuff comes to mind. 
 
To be perfectly honest, I don't understand why people are still doing it. I can't conceive that a musician who has the least bit of control over his work and his own legacy will hear his work like that and give his ok.
 
More and more when I look up albums on Wikipedia, there seem to be references to the negative reaction to that album's mastering and loudness war. When Metallica's Death Magnetic came out a few years ago, people used the more natural sounding Guitar Hero version of the songs to create and distribute their own master. 
 
I'm sure that record companies and artists could actually cash in on the fact that people like me would actually pay to get their hands on albums that haven't been so severely limited. Technically, Nine Inch Nails offered something of the sort for their last record - though I couldn't bring myself to buy the album because I had no interest in it. But I love the idea. 
 
If I had the option, I'd always buy the mix as it was heard coming out of the stereo master bus in the studio. I don't know how many albums in recent years I've tried to listen to which seemed to have interesting sounds and music on them, and maybe even good mixes, but were totally obliterated by mastering.
 
At this point, I sometimes feel like this whole thing is kind of a systematic over-reaction to an imaginary treat - I just don't believe that people would NOT buy a record because it hasn't been brickwall limited. If anything, I think that they would get people like me to lift their boycott.

some of the worst
Rolling Stones 70s+ UM remasters
Ultimate Collection-Sade
Mothership-Led Zeppelin
Ozark Mountain Daredevils/It'll Shine... (BGO)
REO/REO T.W.O. (BGO)
Chicago II
Bat Out Of Hell-Meat Loaf
Iggy Pop's 'Raw Power'
Billy Idol "Rebel Yell"
Bloody Tourists by 10cc
Jethro Tull - Aqualung 25th
Ozzy Osbourne - the '02 versions of Blizzard and Diary
Kiss - Hotter Than Hell
Queensryche: 2003 EMI Remasters
Judas Priest: Columbia/Legacy Remasters
Red Hot Chili Peppers, Californication (1999) (the original recording, ridiculous)
pearl jam "10"
nirvana "nevermind"

sharke
It's a marketing ploy for sure. Why else would people buy new copies of music they already have? I think the public hears the words "digitally remastered" and what immediately comes to mind is a clearer, higher resolution, "restored" sound which fixes some non-existent technical limitations the original is supposed to have had. They also confuse the concept with digital remastering or "enhancing" of old movies, which quite often does result in an improvement.

Technically, that's actually what "digitally remastered" should stand for. Back in the early days of CDs, albums that were transferred to the new media w/o any other care probably didn't sound as good as they could have. 
 
Then the record companies must have seen the opportunity to pull a George Lucas on people by re-re-releasing digitally enhanced versions every couple of years.
 
Incidentally, am I the only one to notice that MP3s and other formats of compressed audio don't seem to be as detrimental to albums that aren't squashed in the first place? I can listen to the mp3s  of old classics and compare them side by side with the CD and the compressed version is actually not that bad - I get the impression that there is a difference in depth and width, but overall, nothing that would prevent one from enjoying the album.
 
Whereas recent albums that have been so severely compressed and limited are totally compromised. Heavy guitars in particular seem to modulate as if there was a parallel mix running through a chorus or something...

drewfx1

RainIncidentally, am I the only one to notice that MP3s and other formats of compressed audio don't seem to be as detrimental to albums that aren't squashed in the first place? I can listen to the mp3s  of old classics and compare them side by side with the CD and the compressed version is actually not that bad - I get the impression that there is a difference in depth and width, but overall, nothing that would prevent one from enjoying the album.
 

Most people fail miserably when trying to do an ABX test between an uncompressed original and a reasonably high rate MP3 encoded with a modern encoder. There are certain killer samples that are hard to compress, but they are exceptions not the rule.
 
The difference in "depth and width" is most likely meaningless drivel you imagine because you think something audible is supposed to be missing. But lossy compression doesn't work that way - you're more likely to hear artifacts than loss of depth or imagining or air or any of those other undefinable subjective terms that people use that might mean something in some cases, but also are vague enough that they can be used whenever people don't understand what they are supposed to be imagining.
 
The difference is real artifacts are still audible under ABX and/or double blind testing.
 
The sad part is people are afraid to acknowledge that they can't really hear any difference because they are afraid they will be made to look bad by pretentious idiots.

Makes sense. 
 
For whatever it's worth, one of the reasons I posted that remark is that I am in no way ashamed to admit that the difference I seem to hear is very, very subtle. In a blind test, I'm not so sure that I would hear it. 
 
One of the albums I picked was the first Black Sabbath record which I had a compressed copy of while we were on the road and bought the CD version of again a few months back. And I did compare them because I noticed in the first place that there didn't seem to be any obvious difference. Though I spoke in very vague terms, everything being relative, I thought that if there was any actual explanation to my impression, maybe a part of the audio data which allows one to establish a relation between the various elements in the audio had been compromised - certain barely audible elements which were compromised.
 
But overall, as I said, admitting that I even did hear a difference, it was nothing that made the album less enjoyable, and I'd be hard pressed to even tell that one sounds "better". So I didn't waste time further analyzing that stuff.
 
The more recent albums though, I swear that the difference is quite obvious - the chorus-like effect on the overdriven guitars gives those away immediately. 

Hi,
 
NOTE: I'm a visual person. Listening to music for me is about how much does it open up and get the movie going in my head. Thus, lyrics, or a solo, or a sample, are nothing to my imagination, because the lyrics in rock music tend to go in completely different direction than the music itself, not to mention use centuries old ideas, like major is happy and minor is sad.
 
Of ALL the remasters I have heard, there is only ONE that has stood out, and it was not because of the remastering, as much as it was the fact that it did what should have been done before, and wasn't. The album is CARAVAN's New Symfonia, which is some of their music done with an orchestra. The original album had the concert out of order, so they could fit in the LP, and they cut down the material. The "remaster" had almost ALL the material and you could actually HEAR the orchestra, whereas the LP, was very spotty. Plus the "remaster" has the new stuff that you had not heard which made it better all around.
 
It still is, for me, the best orchestra/rock mix ever done in a live situation. Not pretentious and the story goes that the orchestra even was about to not go do the encore because of money and Pye Hastings told them to buck off, but they were going on, and then the orchestra showed up. The encore is magnificent (usually it was "For Richard").
 
Steven Wilson. Being that my tendency is towards visualization in all music, you can see why I have thought that his redoings of King Crimson are horrible, and just fabricated ideas that have nothing to do with the music itself, because he does not have the feeling and idea what the whole thing is about. He didn't have to be there, but all he needed to do was talk to his mom and dad, and he might have learnt and appreciated something about bombs going off and killing folks, be it in the "IRA just hit London" thing, or the VietNam thing as is so gloriously illustrated by "Apocalypse Now". Steven did not understand this, when he did the first piece, and then had no idea that "Epitath" was the other side of the equation ... your friend is gone! Dead!
 
Moving an instrument in the "remaster" or "remix", as I felt that Steven had done, did not make the music better. In fact, it gave it an "isolation" feeling that I felt hurt the music. On top of it, the song is exactly about this, as are the next couple of pieces in the album! Steven did not LISTEN to the lyrics, and figured they were not important to the album! He "didn't get it".
 
Some "remasters" are a rip off!
 
Almost ALL the Beatles, Rolling Stones and Pink Floyd are for the American market because the original copies of the LP's were so badly copied off a overused master, that you could not hear details very well. If you "bought" the import LP at the time, you heard the difference and it was like this was a completely different band! The last Pink Floyd album to do this was "Dark Side of the Moon" where the English LP, even had different posters! This changed on the next album and from then on as fas as I know. I have not found a difference in "The Wall" in either version for example, so "remastering or remixing" those might sound ridiculous.
 
Albums I would like to see redone, simply because they need it!
 
CAN - Future Days. Too much of the guitar is in the background, which is nice and gives it a very pretty atmosphere, that is very different from the rock audience bullcrap of kiss me gritz! But there are also some wonderful moments that deserve to be heard a lot better.
 
AMON DUUL 2 - Wolf City. The mix in there is interesting but in most cases it's like there are only two tracks and it's all muddled through. The beauty of the music itself carries the album, and there are some magic moments. The transition between "Surrounded by the Stars" and the next song is one of the prettiest ever. The use of the wah wah in the next piece is totally out of this world and not something that most guitarists have the ability to even try and do.
 
BANCO - The first album. One of the most unusual sounding rock bands ever, had a bunch of really well designed and done albums, that were well recorded, but it was only that famous TEAC. The music is so good, and so well designed that listening to it is exhilerating. It just needs to be cleaned up a bit, nothing drastic.
 
REFUGEE - Patrick Moraz should have done this, but I don't think the other mate has allowed it or the estate of the other member. Very well done album but the synthesizer recording is like two speakers in front of you and a microphone 10 ft away. The subtlety and punch that some of that keyboard work has is missing!
 
KEVIN AYERS - The Confessions of Dr. Dream. Crazy album that got a few people noticed and where Bryan Eno probably really learned how to play with knobs on a synthesizer, but the sound is not crisp, specially after the long cut after the poem, that is the signature of the whole album and its very inventive design. Massive kudos. Bad recording. No money for it, in the "Harvest" vaults to ever clean these up. But this album deserves it.
 
ROY HARPER - Either "Stormcock" or "Jugula +4". Both albums also have Jimmy Page, and him, I do not trust touching these albums! But they need to be cleaner, and Jimmy needs to stop hiding in his friend's albums!
 
SEVENTH WAVE - Things to Come. This massive keyboard blowout, is a great listen when it came out as an LP. But it's recording was very simplistic, and yet, it sounded great. A clean up of the recording and at least a few of the old swishes moving around your head would make this album ... unreal and off its rocker!
 
HAWKWIND - Space Ritual. The original, LP double album was not very well recorded and sounded really poor is places. A better show of the blowout, would be an even more fun listen for this idiot! It's still a great concert regardless, besides not having Bapu!
 
I can go on forever on these ... How about Ray Charles in the album "I can't stop loving you!"

Excellent points. 
 
My test was indeed flawed as I cannot guarantee that the MP3 and the wav were from the same source. In fact, saying it was a test is pushing it - a quick comparison of both versions would be a bit ore accurate. I'll have to try that one again, and encode my own MP3 version. 
 
But overall, my impression remains - I did that quick comparison because I didn't feel that there was such a significant improvement when I bought the CD. If there is, it will be subtle, for my own taste anyway.