Al Stewart - Year of the Cat and Time Passages???

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ClarkNovak

1K Club - QQ Shooting Star
Since 2002/2003
Joined
Jul 11, 2003
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Over in this thread

https://www.quadraphonicquad.com/fo...atest-SACD-or-DVD-A-added-to-your-pile/page73

There's discussion of these two tracks, the title cuts of their respective Lps, being done by Alan Parsons and "on the shelf" somewhere. I'm curious about this, as I was a huge fan of Al's in the 70s and still regard "Year Of The Cat" as one of the best Lps ever. So what's all this noise, and more importantly, whose leg do we have to yank to get to hear these mixes?
 
Alan Parsons mixed these two tracks as a demo for the folks at Arista, in the hopes of a DVD-Audio release. Although they were, well, pretty amazing, he did not get the go ahead to do the project. In fact, he may have created these mixes on his own, I can't remember.

The fact that they made their way to a Mercedes Benz demo disc is quite remarkable. They were clearly meant to be "super secret", but now that they're out there, well,....
they're out there.

I have heard them, and the Year of the Cat is a 10 all the way. If you just listen to the rears, there is no vocal at all. A real "sing along"! :)
 
aww.. I got all excited that there might just be a release of these when I saw this come up in the QQ rumour mill.. :(

if only Alan Parsons knew that there's this hotbed of surroundaholics right here at QQ, who love quad and 5.1 music so much and count his work as among their all-time favourite surround music.. do any members know AP or have any links to him?

as a follow on, I'd like to get this off my chest. i doubt this is the best place to do it but its the QQ rumblesville plot, so here goes..

I'm sure guys like Steven Wilson, Lisa from Burning Shed, etc.. have spotted that 5,000+ QQ members is not inconsiderable.. and has got to represent a good enough target market for future surround releases.. or they wouldn't bother taking the time to stop by here and post, updating us, consulting us/considering us/taking us seriously, however you want to see it..

..and since quadtrade gave the first firm figures I've seen as to the numbers of surround discs pressed (on a QQ thread just the other day) with 5,000 discs per DTS title on an initial run (and I imagine more with the big sellers like Band on the Run, etc)..

.. 5,000 QQ members.. 5,000 DTS discs pressed..

..I know the maths relies on every QQ member buying one and that's obviously never gonna happen but my point is, say 50% of the QQ members buy these releases (could be a higher proportion/could be a lot lower.. how can we find out unless more people who sigh up chip in, vote in the QQ Polls, etc..!?)..

.. then factor in everyone else who buys these releases who either doesn't know of QQ's existence (yet) or for whatever reason hasn't joined QQ and suddenly (as a fair few of us here have suspected all along..) any accusations of lack of sales/lack of interest as justification for surround releases being limited to deluxe editions, box sets and so on, don't seem to hold water.

rant - or ramblings - or rumblings (or whatever it was!) over! :eek:
 
O'Boy, Al Stewart is one of my favorite artists and my first MFSL bought from Team Electronics (still has the team price sticker on it). Anyway, I pay just about anything for Al Stewart in Quad. Someone out there with the power to make it happen..Please...Please
 
Wait, what, huh? I don't get this. Okay, so Linda says here that the Al Stewart mixes are on the Mercedes Benz Signature Sound disc:
https://www.quadraphonicquad.com/fo...d-to-your-pile&p=164216&viewfull=1#post164216

But the original post about the disc says they're not:
https://www.quadraphonicquad.com/fo...ture-Sound-DVD&p=157922&viewfull=1#post157922

So they're on the disc, but not listed on the back?
Or are there different versions of the disc?

This disc is driving me nuts.

I think some enterprising chap (or chap-ess) may have burned QL a copy and tacked those two Al tracks on..
 
So they are not "out there", legit. That makes sense. Can't see how they would get on an MB demo disc. Hmmm.
 
roundhousequad said:
That would suck I just went to Mercedes and ordered the disc

You can order the disc from Mercedes?
 
do any members know AP or have any links to him?
It would be nice to think that Steven Wilson chatted to Alan Parsons about this subject when they worked together to record SW's album recently in LA.
 
Why?
these were done a long time ago for a release for miramar records which had started doing music in addition to films. They went under. They got Alan and were going to get Al also. Al had to get Time Machine back from them, in fact got a bunch of real cds. This mixing was done as a trade i remember. They were going to release a disc of multi music from a bunch of the artists they released. AP did the mixes when we still had hope for multi music. Again, this is a long time ago now. And even though they may have both done multichannel, the focus of musicians is always music when they are making it, rare they are worried about the mix early on. Even these guys. That comes later.
It would be nice to think that Steven Wilson chatted to Alan Parsons about this subject when they worked together to record SW's album recently in LA.
 
What I can't understand is the fact there is a growing SACD following and also a small following of these Japan SHM-CD, HQ CD and now BluSpec CD that cost a fortune but people are buying them. The record companies haven't realised that there is also a market for music in 5.1 or Quad formats that if marketed properly would wipe the floor of these ridiculous Japanese so called super CDs.
 
What I can't understand is the fact there is a growing SACD following and also a small following of these Japan SHM-CD, HQ CD and now BluSpec CD that cost a fortune but people are buying them. The record companies haven't realised that there is also a market for music in 5.1 or Quad formats that if marketed properly would wipe the floor of these ridiculous Japanese so called super CDs.

This is exactly why the Quadio brand should have been a big seller when compared to these SHM-CD and gold discs. They had the 4 channel masters all ready done. All they needed to do was encode them in their choice of format and offer them via their website. Low cost, big gain, especially at $30 a disc. Why the Quadio program took a hit because of politics is a freaking mystery to me. The Chicago disc now sells on eBay for well over $100.

You know, when you think about it, if Rhino sold the disc directly for $30, then they would probably, via uneducated guess, make at LEAST $20 from that sale. In order for them to make $20 from selling a CD, they'd probably have to sell over 50 at retail, maybe more by the time the distributers and retailers got their profit.

Shake my freaking head..........
 
Seemed like a perfect way to distribute the format but alas we don't always get what we want. First title sells out and the second choice stiffs from the looks of it. Would love some Al Stewart in surround.
 
Why the Quadio program took a hit because of politics is a freaking mystery to me. The Chicago disc now sells on eBay for well over $100.

It's no mystery to me! 20 years as an insider taught me that the record industry has always been a Frankenstein's monster: creative people controlled by suits and bean-counters. It's run by people who give lip-service to quality, but truly value only quantity. Rhino was once a small company run by true believers. When it became a corporate division, the true believers clashed with the suits and fled. So has it ever been... so shall it ever be.

These days, Rhino is a shell of its former self. I used to snap up their collections as soon as they were released - couldn't wait to hear the music lovingly remastered, read the liner notes and essays so superbly written. When WEA fired almost all the staff a few years back (at the time of the Quadio discontinuance), the remainder of the true believers went away. I haven't bought a Rhino title since - there's nothing there for me now.
 
I picked up a shm-cd. Michael Omartian-white horse. This one is terrible. Ran this one thru the computer and this one is walled at the bottom end. It is flat, they just elimininated the bottom end. What makes these anything more than a gimmick? Special material for the physical medium? I think the Japanese music companies are marketing better than the rest of the world. That is not a better product. It is called marketing to earbuds. Maybe that is why i listen to talk radio more and more.
 
i have this album on LP. not my music but i collect mainly everything, where AP involved.
very nice sounding release. i can imagine how good it would be even just in a flat transfer
from master to 96/24. main problem with majority of japanese re-issues seems like in
re-mastering of original sources. perhaps everyone of them wanted to be equal to Parson
or Rudy Van Gelder but it's not the case.
 
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