The Police M/C Greatest Hits

Has anyone picked up the Police GH album. Im curious if I should pick it up....if it's worth it.

Any input would be great.

Thanks

Doug

If you like the songs it's a great deal
the CD transfer sounds good. The stereo SACD is good and most of the Multi channel stuff is good.
Warning The Police were a three man band so I was surprised how sparse some of the songs are. It's also interesting to see how much they did with bass, drums and one guitar. The later songs have some strings and synth and overdub with the guitar.

Which songs/ how many are M/C?

Yea the whole disc is multi channel
From what I'Ve read here it is the same mix as the DTS version
Great price for a muti channel disc
the other Police SACD discs are stereo only and not hybrids

I agree, the last 2 songs are inferior to the others. The rest sounds fantastic

The last two tracks SHOULD have been "Synchronicity II" and "Murder By Numbers" logically. There was also significant time left on the disc to add "So Lonely", "When The World Is Running Down", and "....add your left-off favorite here.....". I suppose they wanted to keep the re-issue in line with the original 1995 compilation for whatever reason. And while I'm playing 20/20 hindsight for Universal/A&M, the five studio albums should have been freshly remixed for 5.1 - especially Synchronicity. What were they thinking?

At any rate - it is a fine M-C SACD, and it's also the first mass-market SACD in the US (available at Walmart, Target, K-Mart, etc.) making it somewhat historic.

Okay, I'm glad I'm not crazy here. (Well that's still up for debate...) I was almost positive I'd read that the new discs were supposed to be hybrid discs - and in fact, the sticker on my "Synchronicity" disc even indicates it's a hybrid. But apparently they're not. I guess they figured that since they'd just upgraded the catalog a couple years ago, it wasn't worth the expense to produce hybrid discs. Only problem is that now the damn things won't play in my computer CD-ROM drive! Bastards...

And I won't be buying any of the other Police discs as they are stereo. I will get Peter Gabriels - Up when it comes out as it is MC but not any of the other discs as they are stereo. I started with DVD-Audio and I like SACD a lot but I am not going back to stereo.

Actually the 22 Rolling Stones Remastered Series were the first big name, single inventory Hybrid SACDs to show up at the mass market outlets last year.

That helps explain how the Stones SACDs passed the 2 Million sales mark last December.

Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells Multichannel was also carried by some mass market outlets when it came out, even though a Stereo CD was also available.

Yes, Brian, the Stones' SACD's were historic in the fact they were the first HYBRID SACD's on the mass market - but they were STEREO, not MULTI-CHANNEL (and this is a surround sound forum primarily, isn't it? I mean, stereo's fine and all, but I'm here for the surround information).

Mike Oldfield "Tubular Bells" has clearly never been a title you can pick up at your local Walmart, Target, K-Mart, etc. Sure - you may be able to find it at "SOME" Best Buys (but certainly not at my nearest one - which hasn't been open long - in Pensacola), or Tower or Virgin Megastores (none of which I consider mass market, but rather specialized retailers). In fact, Tubular Bells is still a title that's not all that easy to find, even online - most retailers are consistently out of stock - and maaan, have you seen how much Amazon.com charges for it?? Highway robbery!! I know there are exceptions, and cheap low prices in certain spots around the country - but for the average Joe on a mission, he's way more likely to be able to pick up the Police - and now the Pink Floyd disc - just about anywhere (except for our poor Canadian brethren - my heart goes out to those guys up there who got screwed this week on that release!).

My point was about surround sound and Multi-Channel - and I stand by my statement that the Police hits hybrid MULTI-CHANNEL disc is the first SURROUND SOUND SACD (or DVD-A for that matter) to be available within 50 miles of just about every residence in the lower 48. Remember, Walmart is the USA's biggest music retailer, not Tower and certainly not Best Buy. And the most important step that needs to be paid attention to right now in order to further the cause of surround-sound is availablility and public awareness - Walmart and the like are the key here.

Also, as far as the Stones go - how many of the people who bought the 2 million copies of the SACD's actually even know they OWN SACD's? I would venture that it's a low percentage considering how Abkco basically buried the info on their own releases! That was a perfect opportunity wasted. And if Capitol doesn't do a TV ad campaign touting the 5.1 sound of DSOTM and the SACD layer - they'll only be shooting themselves in the foot. At least it's got a sticker on the front somewhat explaining the bonus surround value buyers are getting.

I'm with Guy, I'm not buying the stereo discs for the Police or Peter Gabriel. At least not yet. It's not that I'm against stereo or that I'm presuming they don't sound fantastic, it's because I'm voting with my money, and my vote goes squarely for surround-sound. Surround-sound is what it's all about for me - not SACD, not DVD-A, not any specific format including Q8, DTS discs or 4 copies of redbook Zaireeka's. Whatever media surround is available on, I'm there. There's plenty of stereo (and stereo-purists to fight that fight) out there, I don't want any part of that - give me surround.

And, honestly, hybrid-schmybrid - I don't care as long as there's multi-channel involved. It's great for backward compatibility and letting people who don't have a multi-channel player build a small collection so that when they do get a player they'll not be stuck listening to Billy Joel "The Stranger" 12 times in a row because it's their only disc. But, hybrid is not the selling point for this consumer - multi-channel is. Universal/A&M lost sales from me on 6 titles and the ONLY reason I bought the Police disc was because it was multi-channel. God knows I've had the original vinyl since their release, not to mention the original A&M stereo CDs and the UK 12 inches and the complete Box Set - I did not need the stereo mix of "Every Breath You Take" in my collection for the 5th time no matter how good the stereo mix has been cleaned up - I mean, I'm SICK of that song. However, in multi-channel, I find myself listening to that song a lot these days and I realized that I actually DO like that song. Funny what multi-channel can do - not SACD or DVD-A, but multi-channel. That's the biggest endorsement I can give to this Police SACD = the multi-channel mix made me like these songs (that I've been completely sick and tired of for the past 2 decades) again - that's a feat in itself.

I couldn't have said it better myself DotCotton. Those are my feelings exactly.

Yea I don't really need a hybrid for the old stuff, it's a minor plus. But on new SACD's like beck I would love it to be able to play in my car. I'm no big police fan, had the records but no CD's. Now I love the fact I have a CD version as well as the SACD Multi-channel version. My favorite disc now is Groove Armada and it get heavy use as a CD in the car and a SACD at home. I feel all SACD's should be Hybrid and multi channel. Hear in Canada the Stereo only SACD's of the police cost more than the Hybrid Multi-channel EBYT. Whats up with that.

Make the music companies work for their millions

I agree - I'm not against hybrids at all, it's just not a factor that sways me one way or the other when it comes to buying a disc. Like you, I love hybrids for the plain fact that I can play them in the car (the Floyd red-book, with it's cleaned and pumped bass is amazing with my subwoofer - and the best red-book layer on an SACD I've heard so far is the Frankie Goes To Hollywood disc - whoa, that one really lights the car up!).

Hybrid CD's are vital to the survival of the format. Most people aren't going to buy players until they have a decent amount of media, and they aren't going to have any media unless they have plenty of hybrid titles to choose from.

At this point, just about every SACD label is now issuing Hybrid SACDs.

And Sony has announced that their new Bob Dylan SACDs will also be Hybrid.

So I think the record companies understand that Hybrid SACDs are the way to go. Now that more Hybrid SACD plants are on line, that is more do-able than it was just a year ago.

This is a pretty good sounding disc. Dunno about de do do do.....that's a pretty lame version....and why Synchronicity 1 or 2 is not here I have no idea. But overall, and for the price, it's great

Hey I didn't know that the original version of de do do do is on the STEREO layer of the disc and the remade one is on the MC layer......THAT is cool!

My understanding is that when they did the Multichannel remix on the album, the demo version of Dee Do Do Do lent itself better for a surround mix so they used that track vs. the original.

I agree that the SACD approach of using the original version on the Stereo CD and Stereo SACD layers and the demo version on the Surround SACD layer is pretty clever. That way, you get both - so to speak !