Suede have been credited with kick-starting the whole "Brit-pop" phenomenon? If you believe the music press, they were the catalyst for that cycle. If you've heard any "brit-pop" then supposedly it's thanks to Suede...?...although I only read that recently. Having lived through it over here in the U.K. I would have thought them distinct from that whole movement.
Could be because smaller, independent labels are more flexible...?...whereas huge publishing behemoths are a lot slower and more cumbersome, if indeed they choose to move at all, when they probably don't really need to?
Also, I heard that the Led Zeppelin masters have deteriorated to the point where they're unusable...?...I'm not sure if that's true or if I'm just perpetuating a myth...?...but it might be that there would need to be a Peter Jackson,
Let it Be, style restoration that the market might not currently be able to support for less "globally ubiquitous" bands?
But it's possible that developments in AI might one day provide an app that lets us restore, enhance and convert stuff into multichannel on a PC just by checking a few boxes...I think it's probably inevitable, just a question of when such an app will emerge.
If you're a "
music's better on vinyl" and/or "
the artist intended the music to sound just like it sounds on vinyl" type person (we'll overlook your graphic equaliser 😊 ) who eschews high definition Blu-ray audio and the like...?...then the above probably sounds like an atrocity to you, but personally, I can't wait for it to get here. 😁
(hoping I don't get chased off of Quadraphonicqad.com by vinyl purists with torches and pitchforks for being an audiophilial heretic)
☺️
To be able to convert music to how it would have sounded in the studio...?...regardless of the source's sound quality...?...for me...?...would be absolutely amazing.
...and if we can nerf
Donovan's harmonica...?...so that I can listen to
To Try For the Sun at a reasonable volume without risking bursting my eardrums...?...it would be a definite plus.
But yeah...I digress. ☺️ ☺️ ☺️
I think it's probably financial, technical and bureaucratic restraints that are stopping the larger labels from releasing multichannel media; either that or they just don't need to (because they're already doing perfectly fine for their share-holders) and/or they just don't have the will to so?
...or it could be because they're worried it'll "break the charm" for the existing fans of the music and kill the cash-cow...?...don't try and fix what's not broken?
I can see that being the case with Zeppelin, specifically because that style of music tends to loose something when it's broken apart into discreet channels; it's not actually an improvement...?...blended into stereo it's more than the sum of its parts.
For instance, some
Pixies tracks just seem kind of bland when you hear it all pulled apart; the 5.1 mix of
Motorhead's stuff is very minimal, probably for that reason. "Wall of Sound" four-piece and "power-trio" stuff just doesn't seem to work that well in multichannel...prog is different, because of how multi-layered it is to begin with.
I recently heard the Quad release of
Mountain's
Nantucket Sleighride; an album I've wanted in surround for as long as I've known of 3D audio's existence, and I have to say I was pretty underwhelmed by it. For me, the one standout on the quad release of that album was
Animal Trainer and the Toad; a song I'd always just skipped past and basically ignored in it's stereo mix.
So yeah, I really think if we did get the early Zeppelin albums in 5.1, they'd probably be a bit disappointing, compared to what we might be expecting. 5.1 audio sounds like magic, but it's not, it's only as good as long as the music suits it, and sadly (largely) I don't think Zeppelin does? 😕🤷♂️
...as far as Zeppelin's concerned, based on my experience of similar types of music in 5.1...?...I think we've all been waiting for something we probably wouldn't really want if we got it.