Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Another Surprise From Bowie!, 3 Aug 2007
"Young Americans" still surprises me to this day with it's amazing R&B. The sound was more clearly mixed than "Diamond Dogs" and it was a real departure for Bowie. The regular remastered CD with, "John, I'm Only Dancing", "Who Can I Be Now?" and "It's Gonna Be Me" sounds even better than the original CD. The extra three tracks are on par with the other songs and its bewildering that in an era when 12 songs per album were standard, Bowie released an eight song album. "John, I'm Only Dancing" is a much more improved R&B version than the rock version.
The 5.1 mix surprised me. It is not perfect and I like it that way. Luther Vandross's back-up vocals come mostly from the rear speakers and you can hear him much more clearly. The congas on "Young Americans" are a little loud for the mix, but it makes the whole experience seem more like a live studio recording instead of a carefully remastered remix. In fact, Bowie mentioned in the liner notes that he liked recording this album with all the instruments playing at once while he sang. There are other surprises. On this DVD you can hear John Lennon speak briefly after one song and the finale of "Fame" has each word of 'fame' descending going around the room from speaker to speaker, but the loud shout of 'fame!' before, 'what's your name, what's your name, what's your name...' is missing. It catches you!
The Dick Cavett interview is a treat, with Bowie sniffing and wiping his nose while fidgeting with his cane. So he did a lot of coke during this period. Who cares? The album is a perfect choice for surround sound. And that sound will vary from system to system.
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Disappointing, 22 Mar 2007
Young Americans is one of many great David Bowie albums and the star rating here is not on Bowie's performance but on this particular re-release (the 5th CD version so far). It is not SACD (as stated by Amazon) or DVD-Audio (which it was originally mixed for by Tony Visconti) but DVD Video which produces an annoying hissing sound throughout due to the poor compression rate (Shame on you EMI when you are doing such a good job with the Depeche Mode SACD's). Having said that it is fun to hear in surround sound mixes, although I am not sure about the stings added to It's Gonna Be Me! Overall it is worth it if like me you are a Bowie fan but I would highly recommend to anyone to buy the original RCA release of this album if it is sound quality you are after.
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11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Missed Opportunity, but still great VFM, 25 Mar 2007
This loses a star because it is a DVD-Video disc, and as such the much anticipated 5.1 mixes from Tony Visconti (That were mixed with DVD-Audio in mind) are compressed versions.
Okay, DTS 96/24 is as good as it can ever get on a DVD-Video disc, but it would have been infinitely superior in lossless. Given the EMI Signature series releases have been superb, in DVD-A/V format, it seems strange to me that we are robbed of High Resolution mixes for this title.
Kudos for the Dick Cavett show - but again, strike a point for missing off "Footstompin'" and strike another point for claiming it is "lost". It isn't.
It's still doing the rounds on various bootleg sites in high quality with even the Audio at least as good as on display here. Still, it's worthwhile IMHO.
Final grump from me is the SERIOUSLY ANNOYING LOUD SNATCH OF THE TITLE TRACK IN THE MAIN MENU (see how irritating it is being shouted at? That's what menu music as loud as this is - digital shouting. Bad form.)
Moving on to the good points....the mix in 5.1 is truly outstanding. The title track kicks in with what is - at first - a disconcerting reverb on the drums, but TV has done a superb job & has recaptured the feel of '74 era bowie in a truly outstanding manner. The BV's are predominantly to the rear channels (listen carefully, as this album was the now legendary Luther Vandross' first serious session outing) and the main vocals are not isolated in the centre, but in L/R with the centre seemingly used for a vocal slapback effect. It works, and it works well.
Still not checked the Stereo mixes, as usual these have been "remastered" by Peter Mew (Who is not the best at handling Bowie's material, in the online communities his efforts are known as "Mew"Tilations due to some very sloppy work. For those of us who know anything about DTS and DD encoding, he has got it wrong again here. If you are decoding in an external amplifier, odds are very high you will lose most of the drum intro to the title track as it comes in right away, completely ignoring the recommendations from both Dolby Laboratories and DTS to leave 2 seconds of AudioBlack at the head of the mix so that external decoders have sufficient time to lock down onto the stream. It is VERY annoying to have the top cut off in this manner due to carelessness IMHO)
But this really is a splendid mix from TV.
Old favourites given a completely new lease of life.
Finally, I have to confess I am far from happy with the mastering on this disc. There is a definite hissing throughout, as if someone, somewhere has cranked up a compressor too far. Can be a little harsh in the upper mids as well, and I know this is not down to the DTS encoding. Therefore it must be the mastering.
8/10.
Could do better, and you can hear that the mix is great, but the whole thing is let down by the Mastering & the DVD-Video only format.
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