Original is the original, and a re-recording rare enough in beauty to the original zoom. So it is with most hits by Howard Carpendale, I think, anyway. And so at first I was delighted when I discovered this double CD of his former record label shortly after publication of Carpendale farewell album, which contains only admissions of old hits and completely new songs: 40 original recordings, including virtually all his hits , moreover in contemporary sound quality. That sounded very promising. On closer inspection, or when playing the two discs but soon came the disillusionment. That with the "contemporary sound quality" is simple: The old records were not in my view geremastert digitally using the original studio tapes of the first generation. Instead, the old Carpendale CDs were easily chased through a device apparently that the volume a little lifting. The recordings sound therefore no better than before, they are just that loud. Clearly hear is the noise, which was thus also strengthened. Even more annoying, however, is the fact that several well-known songs were shortened. Considering that just Howard Carpendale had many hits that are unusually long for singles ("Who ..." 5'14, "At night, when everyone is asleep" 4'55, "If you exist somewhere" and 4'52 many others who are more than four minutes), has to be asked how then bitteschön 20 such songs to be found on a CD space. The answer is obtained when you listen to this double CD. The mutilations fall immediately. Just two examples: "Laura Jane" was reduced by half a minute in the original 54 seconds long intro. The cut was made extremely amateurish and just sounds awful. "At night, when everyone is asleep" is more than a minute of his original term was robbed. I wonder what the EMI folks have been thinking. Whether they believed that no one would notice? The double-CD by the way includes several bonus tracks that do not originate from Howard Carpendale's hit list. Had that can not omit the benefit contained in full-length hits? My personal conclusion: This publication is perhaps something for fragment-fetishists. Lovers of music of Howard Carpendale should leave it alone.
