Hollies studio albums on cd

Well apart from some bad rain Tuesday night, it hasn't been a bad ol' week at all as far as the weather goes having been out a bit. Indeed the sun is shining very brightly as I type this out. 

The Hollies: Bus Stop c/w Stop! Stop! Stop! The Sound: 

The most striking thing is the lack of grey harshness compared to my experience of the 6 CD box Clarke, Hicks and Nash set that is remarkable value for money in some ways (and no doubt the same on the individual stereo/mono cds) and a sense of more resolution that is most marked on Bus Stop. Stop Stop Stop is the re-titled US issue that is the same as the UK For Certain Because album which is a gem of the Hollies 60's output. 

For once I did feel like turn the volume right up and noticed the 'scale' increased sounding like you're surrounded by a beat group with real dynamics sound lacking the oppressive buzz of limited mastering. 

There's some good low end on this cd. 

To summarize, If you're looking for the best currently available For Certain Because on cd then this is it outperforming the UK EMI editions and Bus Stop as much as it is a hodge podge of tracks over two years does gel reasonably well giving you good versions of the songs from their respective UK tape sources.

BGO also issued the first two US Hollies albums, Here I Go Again which comprises of a selection from their UK lp Stay with the Hollies with singles and b sides while Hear! Here! is essentially the same as the UK Hollies album of 1965 bar two tracks changed for I'm Alive and Look Through Any Window. 

This disc is all mono which is as well as those early stereo mixes weren't to great as either stereo or punchy sounding. 

Having completed my collection of the 2011 BGO discs my attention moved toward the last full year of the Nash era Hollies, a period of rapid change across the entire pop music scene and within the group itself.

In essence Graham Nash wished for the group to expand musically and lyrically in the way such luminaries as the Byrds, Beatles and Beach Boys had upping the 'Oh Wow' feel rather than producing perfect two and half minute pop songs, feeling that with December 1966's For Certain Because album they'd shaken of the mantle of recording other peoples work.

What he could not of foreseen is the way the singles and albums buying public would divided into two camps and the attempt to main pop success by the old standard of hit singles would eventually lead to a situation that he'd leave the band as he felt increasingly he was writing songs that couldn't supply them with the hits they required.

Telling the first album Evolution, as issued in the UK had no lead single and announced to the World the Hollies had embraced psychedelia where as the issue by Epic Records who'd acquired North American rights from Imperial rejigged it to 10 tracks from 12 and made Carrie Anne a hit single the opening cut. 

This album and it's follow up Butterfly were remastered in 1999 by Peter Mew for EMI and suffered as did the whole series from the misuse of noise reduction leaving it sounding dead and tonally grey.

In the UK in 1989 BGO did issue on cd both albums in their UK form and in 1999 Sundazed did but based around their US configurations.

In the case of Evolution the tracks orphaned from the UK release are placed at end of the cd re-issue adding Open Up Your Eyes, Jennifer Eccles and Signs That Will Never Change at the end.

The Sundazed cd in STEREO SC 6122 does sound very good being mastered by Bob Irwin at Sony Music from the UK tapes.

In November 1967 the follow up album Butterfly was issued which in my opinion is a more cohesive set of tracks seeing the band sing about Astral Plains and seeing all the colours of the rainbow in Try It, invoking child like wonder on Pegasus and chord changes on Dear Eloise.

For all of that it's still a beat album by the Hollies although with the benefit of hindsight Elevation Observations amongst others sounds like a Crosby Stills and Nash song before they all hooked up.

The North American version was re-titled as Dear Eloise/King Midas In Reverse featuring these two US Singles cut to 11 tracks adding Leave Me from the UK Evolution album.

Thankfully when Sundazed re-issued it on cd as SC 6123 they reinstated the UK sequence adding the US only tracks immediately afterward and well as Do The Best You Can in stereo.

BGO issued it briefly on cd as CD BGO 79 and it's a close call between the two for sound (I just about prefer the Sundazed).

King Midas is the US mired in reverb squashed stereo where is the orchestration? version: The best sounding stereo one is on the 1991 Epic Anthology.

It's been commonly held that Graham Nash's exiting the Hollies was the step back from sophisticated pop but I'm less than convinced of it even if some of that studio trickery and backwards tapes era stopped. 

For one thing the unique vocal sound, a sound Terry Sylvester more than filled the missing Nash's shoes as part of, soared for much of the late sixties into the mid 70's on such classic records as The Air That I Breathe. 

For another sophistication lyrically wasn't a million miles removed from what Graham himself did as part of C,S,N & Young and for me nowhere is more evident than on the 1970 album Confessions of the Mind. 

 Altered in that irritating America knows best level from this UK 13 track album to the 11 track Moving Finger it show their concern about relationships in such numbers as Little Girl dealing as it does with the impact of relationship breakdowns on children and the notion of having given something your all, in returning home, head held high for trying in Gasoline Alley Bred.

Thankfully when making an excellent job of reissuing it in 1997 Sundaze reinstated the missing 2 tracks from the UK original and as with the other two discs Bob Irwin mastered it well from the UK tapes. Catalogue number SC 6125

Going back a little to that mid sixties period, unfortunately there's not a really good cd of Would You Believe out there as it wasn't issued in the states as that and BGO in the UK have yet to issue the album with 8 of its songs "Beat Group" that was issued instead probably as there's not a studio album to match it up with in a 'twofer' package even though Sundaze have re-issued it in mono on lp. 

That lp sounds wonderful. 

In the end I've decided to get the now deleted UK EMI 'ORIG' stereo&mono cd as this had less extra limiting applied to it than the later two on one by EMI in mono. 

This has the folk flavoured Fifi The Flea, a cover of Buddy Holly's Take Your Time, I'll Take What I Want and Hard Hard Year a song whose maturity was to show just where they were headed in a matter of months. 

My modest hope is BGO will issue Beat Group on cd in mono with Imperial's 1967 release Greatest Hits and add Stewball together with I've Got A Way Of My Own as bonus tracks.