Quad LP/Tape Poll Simon, Carly: Carly Simon [CD-4/Q8/QR]

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Rate Carly's debut

  • 10: Great sound, mix, content

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 5: Mediocrity Central

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 4

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 3

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 2

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 1: Sux

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    7

EMB

2K Club - QQ Super Nova
Since 2002/2003
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Her 1971 Elektra debut, EQ 4082.


Side 1:

1. That's the Way I've Always Heard it Should Be
2. Alone
3. One More Time
4. The Best Thing
5. Just a Sinner

Side 2:

1. Dan, My Fling
2. Another Door
3. Reunions
4. Rolling Down the Hills
5. The Love's Still Growing


ED :)
 
6. The big hit is wonderful. Much of the rest is forgettable. Mix is good.

Carly-Simon-Carly-Simon---Qua-357031.jpg
 
I'll rate it a '7' since the mix is pretty good, but agreed that aside from the hit, and maybe "The Love's Still Growing" there isn't much of interest in the material--and even that hit wasn't of the quality of what was to come. I'll never understand why the far superior ANTICIPATION didn't get a quad mix (although a few cuts did make the BEST OF comp).

ED :)
 
I remember seeing Carly when she toured to promote this album! First off, it was a long time ago, and secondly, I can't believe I remember going. It may have been one of the first concerts I'd ever been to. It was at the Bushnell Memorial, in Hartford, CT. The only tune I knew of her's was the hit, but my best friend and I took a couple of forgotten girls to the concert. I think the reason I remember going is that I was totally underwhelmed by most of the tunes. I distinctly remember the tune "Dan, My Fling" and thinking that this girl will be a one hit wonder.

Hey, I'm not always right! :)
 
Funny, at the time I felt exactly the same way. I'd heard of her--I had the old '64 Kapp single "Wynken, Blynken and Nod" she did with sister Lucy--and found a promo copy of this album for a few bucks at a local record store. What we forget is that her hit single was an unlikely one--ran over four minutes, kind of dour and sad. Elektra must have promoted the hell out of it, and her, to get it so high on the charts. But if this album was a tentative first try, she found her muse quickly enough with the next album, which was loaded with strong, memorable songs. After I bought ANTICIPATION I knew she was gonna be a star--she had confidence her first album lacked. The autobiographical NO SECRETS, with that luscious, iconic cover photo, cemented her rep for life. Still haven't seen her in concert, though always wanted to.

ED :)
 
The big hit is wonderful. Much of the rest is forgettable.

Interestingly enough, I had the opposite reaction. “That’s The Way I’ve Heard It Should Be” is actually one of my least favorite songs on the album, and--to make matters worse--I felt the quad mix really lets it down. The drums over the chorus seem pushed into the background when they should be thunderous and powerful. I noticed the same problem with the famous drum break in “Anticipation” on the Best Of Carly Simon quad mix - completely 'de-balled' in comparison to the stereo.

I will concede that not all the songs here are particularly memorable (I could do without "Rolling Down The Hills" in particular), but in some ways I actually prefer this album to No Secrets. It kinda feels like Carly’s venturing out of her comfort zone (or desperate to try anything, depending on how you look at it) and into a variety of different genres. “One More Time” borders on country, and “Just A Sinner” is about as hard as I’ve heard her rock out.

The quad mix is generally quite good, if not a tad strange at times - I noticed there’s a lot of diagonal panning going on. “That’s The Way...” has the drum kit mixed in stereo between front left and rear right. In “One More Time”, the steel guitar solo is centered between front right and rear left, as is the main string part in “Reunion”. There are various other examples of it throughout. I’m guessing the reason they did this has something to do with the way the album folds down to stereo, but who knows?

“Another Door” is my favorite track on the album (I love the interplay between the acoustic guitars and piano) and the quad mix is a revelation compared to the stereo. There’s an additional acoustic guitar part in right rear that I don’t recall from the stereo cut, and during the chorus there’s a very cool high harmony vocal isolated in the left front speaker. It's worth picking up the quad album just for this track, IMO.

Going with a "9". I'd love to see all of Carly's quad mixes receive digital releases - supposedly Another Passenger was mixed for quad, and I'd guess Anticipation may have been as well since two tracks from that album ("Legend In Your Own Time", "Anticipation") appear in genuine quad on the Best Of. I also think the quad version of No Secrets is better than the new 5.1 mix.
 
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Perhaps I should listen to Carly's first album again. I bought that one on CD-4, CD & 2ch SACD.

I love the other 4 CD-4's. They are among my most listened to Quads. I rebought those on CD & SACD. Have Q8's of No Secrets and Best of, too.

Listened to Best of many times on my car Q8. I had just bought a new car when it was released.

Had auto-reverse cassette & Q8 on slide mount. Would choose the cassette once or twice a week. Mostly 2ch mix tapes. Also remember making Quad mix tapes on my Akai. I still have it and the tapes. Columbia Converta-Quad 8tk blanks. Later, Maxell & TDK started making their blanks w/removable tabs.

The thrll of buying a Q8, removing the wrapper, and listening to it when you drive away. Today, I have a killer car-fi in my convertible that plays CD, DVD-V and DVD-A. But, it's just not the same. There were new Quads every week for a couple years. Those were the days.

Another Passenger is also an album I'd played countless times. Would love to hear it in Quad.
 
The quad mix is generally quite good, if not a tad strange at times - I noticed there’s a lot of diagonal panning going on. “That’s The Way...” has the drum kit mixed in stereo between front left and rear right. In “One More Time”, the steel guitar solo is centered between front right and rear left, as is the main string part in “Reunion”. There are various other examples of it throughout. I’m guessing the reason they did this has something to do with the way the album folds down to stereo, but who knows?

That's interesting, because as we've established, diagonal panning was generally only a workaround for putting things "quad center" within the limitations of SQ matrix encoding.

It makes me wonder if this was actually mixed for quad in 1971 along with the stereo mix - there's an interview with Keith Holzman, who was in charge of Elektra's quad program in the January 15th, 1972 issue of Billboard, where he says:

"We are not pleased with any compatible disk system we have seen, and, in effect, we are holding out for a discrete concept. In the meantime, we are building up a library of discrete 4-channel masters and are waiting for further technical developments and equipment suited to our desires.
It's possible we might release a few quadraphic titles sometime in 1972, but frankly we see 4-channel as an audiophile item rather than a mass marketing sale."


Unlike Warner and Atlantic, Elektra didn't license any of their quad masters to Ampex to make Q8s in 1971 or 1972, so they didn't end up releasing any quad until August 1973 when WEA made their big QuadraDisc announcement and release of 25 titles.

Might this album (along with maybe Mickey Newbury's Frisco Mabel Joy, another 1971 album) be one of those "library of 4-channel masters" that Holzman was talking about? If so, then the diagonal pans would make sense, because in 1971 matrix-encoded LPs were the only game in town if you wanted to get quad on an LP, so maybe they mixed them to be matrix-compliant, even if they didn't have immediate plans to release them. There's no dedicated remix credits on the Carly Simon quad LPs, but Eddie Kramer was the engineer and producer of this LP, and the studio it was recorded at, Electric Lady, got quad mixdown capability in mid-1971, right around the time this album was recorded, so it's entirely possible that Kramer did the stereo and quad mixes at the same time. He also mentioned diagonal pans in that 1976 interview I found where he was discussing the quad mix he did of Led Zeppelin's The Song Remains the Same so it certainly seems like a technique he was familiar with.

The stereo versions of all of Simon's subsequent quad albums (No Secrets, Hotcakes and Playing Possum) were done by the team of producer Richard Perry and engineer Bill Schnee, they of Art Garfunkel Breakaway fame, and the quad mixes of all three of those albums sound quite similar, and unlike the quad mix for the self-titled album. I recall reading an interview somewhere with Perry where he mentioned how enjoyable it was mixing No Secrets in quad, and given how accomplished the quad mix of Breakaway is, I suspect the Perry/Schnee combo did those three quad mixes, and someone else, maybe Kramer, did the self-titled album.
 
a tawdry tale.. i never got to hear my Carly Simon Q8 because even though it was factory sealed the tape had been wound onto the hub back to front and i couldn't be arsed faffing about with unspooling it and getting it back on the right way around! of all the rotten luck i tell's ya 🤣
 
Another compromise "8." (I listened to a very good CD-4 conversion, but the sonics--combination of vinyl and production style--still keep it out of the top ranks for me. The quieter tunes, and the quieter passages on the louder tunes, fare better. I might go higher after hearing a clean quad reel.)

I agree that this album is due for a reappraisal. "That's the Way" is almost worthy of Laura Nyro, and the country-flavored tunes remind me, anachronistically, of Maggie & Terre Roche's debut, Seductive Reasoning. Great back-up players (David Bromberg! Tony Levin!--and Skunk Baxter on pedal steel!). And even if Simon hasn't quite settled into a specific idiom yet, she's already got all kinds of confidence, and such great pipes.
 
...the recent MoFi SACD Stereo remaster is absolutely STUNNING!

Despite my dislike for MoFi, I caved and picked up the stereo SACD of Anticipation - it does indeed sound amazing. The drum break on the title track has to be heard to be believed. I'm sure their other '70s Carly titles also sound great, but no quad mix = no purchase from me.
 
Despite my dislike for MoFi, I caved and picked up the stereo SACD of Anticipation - it does indeed sound amazing. The drum break on the title track has to be heard to be believed. I'm sure their other '70s Carly titles also sound great, but no quad mix = no purchase from me.

This anti~MoFi campaign because they NO longer do QUAD/5.1 SACDs has grown old. I felt the exact same way but MoFi's stereo SACD remasters are SO amazing, why deprive oneself of the privilege of owning one. If and when Warner/Rhino decides [if EVER] to license out their QUAD masters, I would certainly double dip .... but I wouldn't hold one's breath. 256DSD remastered from the original Stereo Masters is one paramount reason to consider MoFi's Stereo SACDs and we ALL know, or should, they sound better than Warner's CD~4 or Q8 QUAD offerings and probably even better the QUAD OR....as they're derived from 15 ips pristine master tapes. Your LOSS[Y} ...... MY GAIN!
 
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If and when Warner/Rhino decides [if EVER] to license out their QUAD masters, I would certainly double dip .... but I wouldn't hold your breath

I won't hold my breath, but I will continue listening to my CD-4 LP. The stereo mix sounds flat and uninteresting to me now that I've heard the quad.
 
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