Funny Girl 50th Anniversary CD/LP

[Anshel2]

Posted: 5/2/14 at 2:27pm

This item is for sale on Amazon for over $100! Includes CD, LP and booklet. A great set but I can't image this being a great seller. I've been wanting a better sounding FG for years but refuse to pay the price being asked.

As an FYI, the remastered version is up on iTunes for $5.99 with digital booklet, so for those who are just happy having the music and not the swag, definitely go to iTunes!

The music sounds fantastic. They did a great job with the remastering, just disappointed that they include no extra takes, songs or, at the very least, the alternate mono version of Cornet Man where Streisand can be heard telling the musicians that they were "going home."

I also never understood how Streisand let them release the recording with her cracking on the final note of Don't Rain On My Parade. Been bothering me for years!

[Mr. Nowack]

Posted: 5/2/14 at 4:08pm

I guess she wan't as much of a perfectionist then.

[Demitri2]

Posted: 5/2/14 at 5:55pm

Which makes me ask, "Is the sound quality of a digital download as good as a studio mastered CD?". I once downloaded NEWSIES and then bought the CD later. The CD sounded far better. Never experimented with doing another comparison though. If the sound on a download is in fact compressed, it makes me hesitant in purchasing this re-mastered version.

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 5/2/14 at 6:00pm

It ain't worth the asking price without extras.

[BobbyBubbi]

Posted: 5/2/14 at 6:35pm

"I also never understood how Streisand let them release the recording with her cracking on the final note of Don't Rain On My Parade. Been bothering me for years!"

I never understood this either. At first I thought it might of been a plot element, some sort of visual "gag" or something written into the script that wasn't "reading" on the cast album. But apparently this "trill" or "riff" is something she did every night as a vocal styling. Simple as that. Apparently people found it impressive. I've done research and that's the best explanation I could come up with. I also still find it puzzling as I find it hard to believe LaStreisand the control freak would ever let her voice do something so out of character. But hey, it's interesting to hear, right? :-P

[Mr. Nowack]

Posted: 5/2/14 at 7:25pm

I used to do a lot of digital downloads, but I've stopped recently, holding out for the CDs instead because of the inferior quality.

iTunes and other digital outlets only make the recordings available in 256kbs (VBR), whereas CDs offer much higher lossless quality. I don't know why they don't make higher qualities available. If I'm buying the recording, why should I settle for inferior quality?

And you definitely can hear the difference. With headphones it's very noticeable.

[Demitri2]

Posted: 5/2/14 at 8:03pm

Thanks Mr. Nowack. Appreciate your reply.

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 5/2/14 at 9:56pm

Thank you bobby and Anshel. I've been wondering about the voice crack in "Parade" for, well, almost 50 years! For reasons I can't begin to fathom, it does sound more intentional on the remastered download than it did on the old LP.

[Anshel2]

Posted: 5/2/14 at 10:03pm

I just can't imagine that sound was an intentional choice and not the time constraints the producers were up against to street the recording in a week. She doesn't crack the note on the reprise. Reminds me of the poor final notes offered by Bernadette peters during Unexpected Song on the Song and Dance recording.

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 5/2/14 at 10:07pm

:sigh: So I guess I go back to wondering then, eh? Perhaps we could arrange some sort of death match between you and bobby to settle the matter. (LOL)

I also wonder why didn't they tell Elaine Switch to shut the hell up during the "long note" in the opening song on the COMPANY OBC recording?



Updated On: 5/2/14 at 10:07 PM

[BobbyBubbi]

Posted: 5/3/14 at 5:04am

"I just can't imagine that sound was an intentional choice and not the time constraints the producers were up against to street the recording in a week. She doesn't crack the note on the reprise. Reminds me of the poor final notes offered by Bernadette peters during Unexpected Song on the Song and Dance recording."

There is that yes, and she was under a lot of strain. It's also true that Streisand's label Columbia Records, passed on making the cast album, and it was recorded with Capitol Records. So Babs didn't have the kind of clout or control in the recording studio she normally would have at Columbia. Under pressure or not, I'm still unsure as to why they would not want to put their best foot forward, or why they would let a recording of /anyone/ cracking like that, be released.

Quite frankly I hate it, and I think it messes up an otherwise perfect performance of the song. But I'm sure if you asked Streisand herself.... she wouldn't miss a beat in telling you that it was every bit intentional. :-P

[luvcaroline]

Posted: 5/3/14 at 8:20am

Demetri and Nowack,
I agree with you both about the lack of quality of musical digital downloads these days. It saddens me that in a time of technical advancements in all other areas that we as consumers settle for such inferior audio quality. MP3's and iTunes SHOULD be obsolete by now, yet this is still the current preferred choice of audio playback for the majority of people. As a result, the studios release inferior, highly compressed audio because they know that most listeners just don't care. I will never give another penny to iTunes or any other purveyor of crappy audio product.

A few months ago I discovered HDTracks.com. It was one of the first providers of high-quality lossless digital downloads in the United States. I mention them because I think they provide a much needed service, and not enough people know about them. This is the only place that I buy digital downloads, and for the most part I've been very pleased with their product (otherwise, I purchase CD's and upload them to my computer). I stream the albums that I've purchased to a Logitech Squeezebox, that then plays through my receiver/stereo system in my living room, but there are many other ways that this high-res music can be played through music system-I think that some of the streamers like Roku will do this also. I know that many people just play music from their computers directly to speakers attached to their computer, which can work fine too. The quality of the music I've purchased through HDTracks is uniformly outstanding: listening to Cat Stevens' "Tea for the Tillerman" or Stevie Wonder's "Songs in the Key of Life" is like hearing these albums for the first time.

HDTracks should also be lauded because they provide many Broadway cast albums, as well as albums by Broadway performers (Billy Porter's new one, for example). I just got an email from them that the Funny Girl reissue is available, so I'm definitely going to try that out, particularly since it's available at 10% off with a code (HDMAY3). I'll give it a listen and report back on how it sounds.

Incidentally, HDTracks offers a free sampler for download to new customers. It's actually a pretty nice sampling of the music that they provide, and will give you an idea of the kind of audio quality that's available.

I realized after writing this lengthy post that I sound like a shill for this company. I promise that I'm not - I'm just a consumer who has lamented the demise of audio integrity since the invention of MP3. I want sites like HDTracks to succeed so that the big boys like iTunes and Amazon will be forced to start to give a damn about the terrible product that they're selling.

[darquegk]

Posted: 5/3/14 at 11:11am

I second all of this. Far be it from me to condone bootlegging and file-sharing, but the realities are that we know people do it, and we know that there are a few fair-to-serviceable arguments for why it happens. One of them is that the music industry pushes digital files over physical copies but refuses to make digital files in FLAC or the nearly-as-good 320 readily available. So people pass around the copied music in a higher file quality than that which is readily available.

The industry then says, "well, you could just stop, and NOT have those things," when it could nip this in the bud by making high quality sound something one needn't indulge in shady behavior to readily find.