Morrissey Remastered reissues are they worth double dipping?

Ugly Devil

Well-Known Member
Viva Hate, Kill Uncle, Your Arsenal, Vauxhall and I, Southpaw Grammar and Malajusted have all got the remastered treatment over the last 10 years. Some of them with extra songs previously unavailable, some with songs extricated, some with a track listing reshuffle....

But has anyone noticed a difference in sound compared to their original pressing? Does it sound better, worse, no different?

I hate that Southpaw and Malajusted suffered from the track listing reshuffle (as did Kill Uncle). Southpaw worked so much better with the two long epics bookending the shorter songs inbetween. And Malajusted removing Papa Jack and Roys Keen is very jarring.
 
The sound quality is better, it's not too noticeable though. I think the original releases for Viva Hate and Bona Drag are better though. Bona Drag adds some really good bonus tracks but removes the bridge of Ouija Board, Interesting Drug bleeds into November, adds a verse to Piccadilly, and I personally don't like the black and white cover or the font. Viva Hate is a trainwreck of a remaster removing Ordinary Boys, cutting a minute and a half out of Late Night, Maudlin Street, and cutting Hairdresser (which to be fair was only on the US release), and I'm not really fond of the new font for the cover either.
 
The sound quality is better, it's not too noticeable though. I think the original releases for Viva Hate and Bona Drag are better though. Bona Drag adds some really good bonus tracks but removes the bridge of Ouija Board, Interesting Drug bleeds into November, adds a verse to Piccadilly, and I personally don't like the black and white cover or the font. Viva Hate is a trainwreck of a remaster removing Ordinary Boys, cutting a minute and a half out of Late Night, Maudlin Street, and cutting Hairdresser (which to be fair was only on the US release), and I'm not really fond of the new font for the cover either.
Hmm that's interesting, I never got the Viva Hate reissue as I had the extra tracks on the singles box sets. But that's very odd, especially adding an extra verse, removing a bridge and cutting track length. Pretty random, since those changes don't enhance the songs.
 
I hadn't noticed any huge jump in quality, but then I felt the original albums sounded fine. I think that - as with most modern releases - they were remastered with an eye on those people who don't actually have decent audio equipment. So, the sound levels and bass have boosted to bring them up to modern standards - but if you've got a hi-fi with volume and tone controls this was never an issue with the original records anyway.

Some of the bonus tracks were nice, but the revisionism and editing of tracks was annoying as hell. Ultimately, I feel abominations like the re-jigged 'Kill Uncle' will be forgotten, and the original albums will be remembered as the definitive versions.
 
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