Midnight Oil remastered on iTunes

[jaybag]

Apologies if this was posted before - did a search and couldn't find anything on it ...

I've been waiting for years for Midnight Oil to put out remastered versions of their older albums because the CD's of everything prior to Diesel And Dust sound awful - like really bad cassettes. Just checked their website to find that their first six albums and two EP's are available remastered at iTunes. The news story (printed in full below if anyone wants to read it) says they'll eventually be put on CD (the format I'd much prefer) but I'm not sure how long that'll take - they're not even out in Australia yet. Anyway here's the full story:

Midnight Oil Catalogue To Be Made Available Online
29.08.08
Midnight Oil's catalogue will be available digitally for the first time on Tuesday 2nd September. It's 30 years since the release of the band's first LP 'Midnight Oil' and of course there have been major improvements in mastering technology since.

According to Jim Moginie who has been busy overseeing the project, revisiting original tapes and working with producers Nick Launay and Warne Livesey to ensure that everything sounds as good as it can;

"a lot of these [older] records were made for vinyl, so a lot of the frequencies were cut out because there were certain sounds you couldn't put on records. This was a good chance to get them back up to scratch, because now we can make them as loud and big sounding as [we] want, with all the added depth using the original master tapes. It's the audiophile nerd side of us that accounts for some of that."

The new masters will find their way onto CD eventually, the first off the block being this year's 'Diesel and Dust'.

In the meantime all the band's albums and eps are available on itunes from Tuesday 2nd September.

itunes will have a 30 day exclusive on the release.

Midnight Oil titles available digitally: * indicates remastered titles

Midnight Oil 1978*
Head Injuries 1979*
Bird Noises EP 1980*
Place Without A Postcard 1981*
10.9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1 1982*
Red Sails in the Sunset 1984*
Species Deceases EP 1985*
Diesel & Dust 1987 (reissued 2008)*
Blue Sky Mining 1990
Scream In Blue 1992
Earth & Sun & Moon 1993
Breathe 1996
20,000 Watt RSL (The Collection) 1997
Redneck Wonderland 1998
The Real Thing 2000
Capricornia 2002
Flat Chat - compilation 2006

[bigwavedave]

Thanks for the post. I am really looking forward to 10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1 on remastered cd!

[jaybag]

You won't be disappointed Dave. I couldn't wait and ordered them all from iTunes - I wasn't sure when (or if) the CD's would be available in the U.S. and they're one of my favorite bands. I did a compare/contrast between my CD version of 10-to-1 and the one I just downloaded. It's not even close. For one thing the new versions are about twice as loud (the purists will probably do a test and find that they've been brickwalled, but my equipment isn't that sophisticated so I can't tell). And the sound is 10x better. Power And The Passion even sounds noticeably better than the version on 20,000 Watt R.S.L.

My only complaint is that I had quite a few errors on my downloads (i.e. the file wouldn't download properly and I got an error message). Most of them were cured by another attempt, but Armistice Day (from Places Without A Postcard) took about 40 attempts before it finally downloaded correctly (no exaggeration).

[bigwavedave]

Thanks for the update. Now hopefully they will see the project all the way through to the cd phase.

[SallyLightfoot]

The remasters don't seem to be available on Amazon yet.

[tileboy]

Good news. I always thought Red Sails in the Sunset was an overlooked cd of theirs.

[StormyPetrel]

I can't wait for 10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1!

-~Obscene dreams in rusty beds.~-

[SallyLightfoot]

[quote][i]Originally posted by StormyPetrel[/i]
<br>I can't wait for 10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1!

-~Obscene dreams in rusty beds.~-
[/quote]That's the one I want remastered. One of my favorite albums.