🥂 50th A&M 50th Anniversary 3-CD Set

[Harry]

I think it's pretty decent too, and I agree that the thematic divisions among the discs was a good idea. I would have liked it to have included "This Guy's In Love With You" and a different Bacharach track. A BMB track would have been nice too. But I guess you can't have everything in a 3-disc set that's supposed to cover the label's history.

I always liked "Red, Red, Wine" but have my biggest problem with "The Lady In Red." That's one I've always hated for some reason.

This is one I'll be happy to add to the collection - it's got some of the later tracks that I've never bothered with, so they'll be welcomed.

Harry

 

[Rudy]

A few surprises in there! In all, a fairly nice compilation. I can pretty much put this one together with a playlist, as I'm short only a very small number of tracks.

 

[Harry]

I just threw together Disc One - and you pretty much have to use the "Rise" single version as mentioned above. The thing times out to over 77 minutes.

 

[Captain Bacardi]

I'm sure the radio edit for "Feels So Good" will also be used. But I agree that this is a pretty good representation of A&M. I'm glad to see that the Checkmates will be on this, as well as Milton Nascimento and Paul Desmond, but surprised Wes Montgomery didn't get a tune.



Capt. Bacardi

 

[Stephen Vakil]

I didn't know UB40 were on A&M. My cd of RIMK isn't, that's for sure. But that at least explains Herb's improv piece. I always wondered about that.

Stephen

 

[Harry]

UB40 were licensed in the US by A&M. I believe they were on Virgin elsewhere. My copy of RAT IN MI KITCHEN is an A&M/Virgin disc, whereas a sampler of their hits is just on Virgin.

Harry

 

[Rudy]

Nice thing is, with a playlist, I can use full length versions.

I don't quite see why "Roxanne" is included (one of my least favorite songs by one of my favorite groups), but it did signal the early phase of new wave and punk.

 

[A&Mguyfromwayback]

A basically impossible task to get everything on 3 CDs, but all in all a great representation....who else is missing besides the BMB and Wes Montgomery? Claudine Longet, The Flying Burrito Brothers - wow, just realized they left out Brenda Russell's (top 10) "Piano In The Dark". There just isn't room for everything. I'd actually love to see a one or two CD jazz sampler that would cover everything from Pete Jolly's edgier stuff and Roger Kellaway through the CTI and Horizon and A&M Jazz stuff - amazing material......

 

[Rudy]

There just isn't room for everything. I'd actually love to see a one or two CD jazz sampler that would cover everything from Pete Jolly's edgier stuff and Roger Kellaway through the CTI and Horizon and A&M Jazz stuff - amazing material......

There was a CTi Records set called The Cool Revolution, but it seems to have none of the A&M recordings on it. Artists like George Benson, Paul Desmond and Jobim all moved with the label.

 

[Harry]

I just realized that the track list was already posted. I missed the second page of posts.

That's what you get for missing our daily meetings!

Harry

 

[Steve Sidoruk]

For discussion purposes and comparison to the 50th set, here is the A&M 20th Anniversary Set: THE HORN OF PLENTY - Twenty Years of Music from A&M

* Herb Alpert - The Lonely Bull
George Mccurn - Just A Country Boy
Baja Marimba Band - Comin' In The Back Door
Lucille Starr - The French Song
* We Five - You Were On My Mind
* Chris Montez -The More I See You
Sandpipers – Guantanamera
Claudine Longet – Meditation
Phil Ochs - Pleasures Of The Harbor
Boyce & Hart - I Wonder What She's Doing Tonight
Herb Alpert - This Guy's In Love With You
Sergio Mendes & Brasil '66-The Fool On The Hill
* Checkmates, Ltd. - Black Pearl
* Paul Desmond – Summertime
Flying Burrito Brothers - Hot Burrito #2
Burt Bacharach - Make It Easy On Yourself
Wes Montgomery - A Day In The Life
Spooky Tooth - Better By You, Better Than Me
Jimmy Cliff - Wonderful World, Beautiful People
Fairport Convention - Who Knows Where The Time Goes
Waylon Jennings - Just To Satisfy You
Liza Minnelli - Come Saturday Morning
George Benson - Here Comes The Sun
* Carpenters - (They Long To Be) Close To You
* Free - All Right Now
* Cat Stevens - Wild World
Lee Michaels - Do You Know What I Mean
Carole King - It's Too Late
Michel Colombier – Earth
Humble Pie - I Don't Need No Doctor
Paul Williams - We've Only Just Begun
* Procol Harum – Conquistador
* Lani Hall – Sundown
Valdy - Play Me A Rock And Roll Song
Michael Murphy - Geronimo's Cadillac
* Billy Preston - Will It Go Round In Circles
Stealers Wheel - Stuck In The Middle With You
Strawbs - Part Of The Union
Shawn Phillips - Hey Miss Lonely
Cheech & Chong - Earache My Eye
Ozark Mountain Daredevils - Jackie Blue
Peter Allen - I Honestly Love You
* Captain & Tennille - Love Will Keep Us Together
Joe Cocker - You Are So Beautiful
Nils Lofgren - Back It Up
* Joan Baez - Diamonds & Rust
Tubes - White Punks On Dope
Chris De Burgh - A Spaceman Came Travelling
* Peter Frampton - Show Me The Way
Barry Devorzon & Perry Botkin Jr. - Nadia's Theme
Gato Barbieri – Fiesta
* Joan Armatrading - Love & Affection
* Rita Coolidge - Higher & Higher
Elkie Brooks - Pearl's A Singer
Brothers Johnson - Strawberry Letter 23
* LTD - (Every Time I Turn Around) Back In Love Again
Paul Winter – Icarus
* Chuck Mangione - Feels So Good
* Quincy Jones - Stuff Like That
Pablo Cruise - Love Will Find A Way
* Gino Vanelli - I Just Wanna Stop
* Police – Roxanne
Joe Jackson - Is She Really Going Out With Him?
Squeeze - Cool For Cats
* Herb Alpert – Rise
* Split Enz - I Got You
Supertramp - Breakfast In America
Styx - The Best Of Times
Atlantic Starr - When Love Calls
38 Special - Hold On Loosely
Go-Go's - We Got The Beat
Chaz Jankel - Glad To Know You
* Human League - Don't You Want Me
Jeffrey Osborne - I Really Don't Need No Light
Howard Johnson - So Fine
Herb Alpert - Route 101

* - On 50th Set

This is a 4 cassette box set for promotional use only. The track listing does include month and year of release.

 

[Rudy]

I like the lineup on that 20th anniversary set!

 

[martin]

A great collection of wonderful musical memories. Some surprises (Skokiaan), but I think it is a very representative collection of A & M both from a historical and musical point of view.

- greetings from the north -
Martin

 

[Harry]

In case you haven't seen the artwork as posted by Universal, here it is:



It's kind of nice that the image is of stacks of records and not CDs.

Harry

 

[Mr Bill]

Looks like the same records in all four stacks, just in a different order. Many are recognizable -- and it's funny they went with the "incorrect" green version of Wave...

 

[Dave]

Ha, ha! Nice to see "what stands out"!!!!

Seems like these albums are what the A&M songs for this set are culled from! And while I might be a little disappointed in what I think is represented of some of the artists' works, (that is in what is really termed of being a "hit" vs. what I personally think of as "worthy of inclusion") I think it's a good, thorough, well-thought & definitive set!

Cheers to the Masters for bringing this out!


-- Dave

 

[Captain Bacardi]

Being this will be a Universal release I wonder if they're going to compress the hell out of these tracks as they often do on their other releases.



Capt. Bacardi

 

[Rudy]

Looks like the same records in all four stacks, just in a different order. Many are recognizable --

A lot of us record geeks take pics of our shelves, and more often than not, someone will be able to recognize quite a few LPs from the spines.

My friend who collects early pressing CDs...you can tell which section of his rack has over a dozen Synchronicity CDs.

 

[Rudy]

Being this will be a Universal release I wonder if they're going to compress the hell out of these tracks as they often do on their other releases.

Agreed. This would not surprise me. Everyone wants their CD product to be louder than their competitors' CDs.

On the other hand, wouldn't this make a great 180 gram LP set? Thing is, someone would have to dig the vaults, and that won't happen...

 

[Mr Bill]

One of my favorite games to play with the kids (and now grand kids) is I turn my back to them, they go to the record collection and call out a record number ("what's SP 4146, Dad?")and (without looking) I tell them the artist and title. I rarely miss an A&M/IRS and I do pretty well on the non-A&M stuff too.

I also tell them to pull out a record and put it in the wrong place and within 5 minutes I can find it and return it to its proper spot. This I do largely by remembering color schemes across the shelf. For example the square that goes from Nina Hagen to Hoodoo Gurus is largely pink or white and the only blue in there is Lani's Albany Park. So when I see a second blue spine I know I've found the switched record.

The other game that they find amusing/amazing is: I have them drop any lego brick on the floor and I tell them the size or shape or type of piece. So I hear clickety-click-clack and I tell whether it's a 1x2 brick, a 2x6 plate, a minifigure head, a 4x3 window, etc. They want me to tell them the color, too, but that's not really possible....

 

[gregory lamb]

It's Great to see a small collection of so many great artist on A&M. I say small because no matter the CD count on the collection, it is small compared to the great and vast amount of artist and the number of "A" side single masters alone that where great hits over a fifty year span in several decades!! Hopefully this will just be the beginning and more will come this way !!!! I think of other labels that got fine recognition like Atlantic,Motown ETC. that some one sought to invest a great amount of money and research into making some volumes of particular label compilations.. I think that A&M is beginning to have It's just due!! I hope that more of the A&M Story is told and comes to life, and some one sees the value in investing similar worth while projects!!! I know I will support and be looking forward to seeing any of these great compilations!!! This is a great line up on this limit to a 3 C.D. collection!!!! 50 years!!!!!! Gosh !!!am I really starting to age??? to bad it is not Like A&M Records so that I would Be timeless!!!!!!

 

[Harry]

I'm guessing that this will be in some kind of digipak or cardboard sleeve, since the dimensions of the image are not a pure square. It's wider than it is tall. It almost seems as if the days of the jewel case are just about over.

Harry

 

[Mike Blakesley]

I like that cover. I hope it's a nice high-res picture so a person can pick out the titles on the album covers.

 

[Rudy]

That must have been a slim collection of A&M to fill only that small amount of space. Unless they used the actual album covers from the tracks on this set--that would be cool!

I like that idea for a cover--it says it all. The cover reminds me of how RCA was packaging its Living Stereo SACDs: the album cover is superimposed over a larger photograph of RCA Living Stereo classical LP spines. (I think, though, someone had mentioned that there was a goof in that photo in that one of them was not an RCA LP. )

 

[Rudy]

Actually, I'm looking at the Fiedler SACD booklet right now, and I think that the artist colored all of the spines a solid color for LPs that were not RCA. And I found one that isn't RCA--if you look above the "D" in Fiedler, you can see a turquoise spine. On the back of the booklet is the same sequence of LP jackets, shifted to the left. The turquoise spine has a small strip of tiny diagonal lines...the same ones that Columbia used on their LPs.