New Wave Outpost Forum

Coming out in Japan are paper-sleeve, SHM-CDs of The Human League’s six Virgin albums; Reproduction, Travelogue, Dare, Hysteria, Crash and Romantic? Be interesting if these are remastered too, especially Romantic which has never had an upgrade. I also wonder if Reproduction will include the original vinyl mixes that were changed when they debuted on CD. I suspect not and expect they will follow the track listings (with bonuses on the first two) of the current UK CD editions.

i did not buy the expensive box set but I do think it is time ( if the material is out there) to do some deluxe versions of the first three albums like they did for tears for fears . still never seen Marianne ( Australian version) on CD before and its a great version plus I am sure when they were compiling the box set last year they came across a lot more material of the early years

Looking forward to the soft cell box set that has been announced on their facebook page

nice, will probably pick up dare, and romantic..

don't really need the other ones.

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I agree. Dare sounds cool...I looked it up and it is a new 2017 remaster from the master tapes. Hopefully very little if any compression used. If so, I might be interested in a few of these. Not sure how much better the first two albums can sound though...they are fairly primitive. Dare would seem to be worth it. I was kind've off of the HL bandwagon by the time Romantic came around, although I recall it being a decent album.

ABOATES wrote:I agree. Dare sounds cool...I looked it up and it is a new 2017 remaster from the master tapes. Hopefully very little if any compression used. If so, I might be interested in a few of these. Not sure how much better the first two albums can sound though...they are fairly primitive. Dare would seem to be worth it. I was kind've off of the HL bandwagon by the time Romantic came around, although I recall it being a decent album.

i have at least 3 remasters of dare, so i'm not sure what else they're doing to it.

the only thing i don't have is the SACD version.

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Ha! Three remasters of Dare...you are quite the collector! I just have the original CD so i should think that a recent remaster would be an improvement...unless, of course, things have been compressed to make them louder, then all bets are off. I think labels are starting to come around to the idea that compressing the heck out of masters to make them louder for today's iphones is a mistake. At least some labels are getting it anyway.

On a bit of a different note..although still on the subject of mixing and compression, three current bands that i really like that I also wish would get the hint about mastering are Bon Iver, The National, and St. Vincent. I love all three bands despite the horrid mixes, but I actually have trouble listening to their albums because they are mixed so compressed. When a bass line plays it just comes across as this super loud boomy wall of sound with very little imaging. If you listen on a decent system you will know what I mean. The songs still shine through, but they need a quality producer and engineer who isn't trying to make them sound good on itunes.

I have the Dare/Fascination remaster from 2012 which is excellent. Do we really need another 2017 remaster of Dare? Also have the Caroline versions of Hysteria and Crash from 2005 which were fairly good. So i'll be skipping these Japanese CDs.

omar wrote:I have the Dare/Fascination remaster from 2012 which is excellent. Do we really need another 2017 remaster of Dare? Also have the Caroline versions of Hysteria and Crash from 2005 which were fairly good. So i'll be skipping these Japanese CDs.

Same here, real shame about some missing tracks on that Dare/Fascination remaster boxset: no Hard Times/Love Action (I Believe In Love) 12'' (only the instrumental again) and no Fascination 7''. There was space enough for it to include on the second disc. The rest was top notch.

I've noticed that many of the postings on this site bemoan extra tracks being omitted or not having every 12" mix on a bonus disc...etc. Being that I am not a fan of 12" mixes typicality, (i.e. not into dance music) I actually prefer it when the original album artwork and track order is followed. I like the Japan CD reissues because they do their best to emulate the original album as close as possible. For example, the perforated back sleeve on Oh No It's Devo or the replica of the Working in a Coal Mine 45 for New Traditionalists. I think that's cool. I am more of an album guy than a singles guy so I have no interest in bonus tracks normally. This goes for live stuff too.

There is nothing wrong with this previous two remasters of Dare so we don't need another one. The only one of interest here is Romantic as that has never been remastered but then it's actually quite a crap album apart from Heart Like A Wheel. Oh and keep those reissues coming with loads of bonus tracks and 12 inch mixes as the vast majority of people here do care about that kind of thing

As long as people buy these collectors versions, and since they are japanese only, it's not that big a deal that
they're remastering them yet again. I doubt they will sell that many, since they are limited editions.

As far as extra tracks go, sure, throw what you can on their if it works. Otherwise, you'll have to settle
for either the remix compilations, or hunt down the cd singles for the latter ones.

Unless there's some kind of super deluxe version someday (50th anniversary), that might be the only
time everything gets released.

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I get it..for the completest you want every track...that's fine...my main goal w a reissue is improved sound quality of the original album..if it doesn't achieve that I am not interested in Razormaid remixes and 25 diff mixes of Enjoy the Silence and such...but yes I have noticed that many here are into that stuff. Cool w me just not my bag.

What i'd really like is a proper reissue/remastered version of Hysteria. It was their second most popular album in the UK at least and has been remastered only once by Caroline Records in 2005. Apparently the band recorded tracks with producers Chris Thomas and Martin Rushent in 1983/84 before having Hugh Padgham remixing and re-producing almost the entire album again. It'll be nice to hear the original Thomas/Rushent mixes if they exist.

omar wrote:What i'd really like is a proper reissue/remastered version of Hysteria. It was their second most popular album in the UK at least and has been remastered only once by Caroline Records in 2005. Apparently the band recorded tracks with producers Chris Thomas and Martin Rushent in 1983/84 before having Hugh Padgham remixing and re-producing almost the entire album again. It'll be nice to hear the original Thomas/Rushent mixes if they exist.

From what I remember from my vinyl 12'', I was really missing the instrumental version of The Lebanon on that 2005 Caroline reissue. Such a killer track!

It looks like these have been delayed until late september.

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