A New Career in a New Town (1977-1982) [CD]

This might be my favorite Bowie period. The paper sleeve replicas are good but not nearly as the a Japanese made mini lp cd. The book is very high quality with beautiful photos, the 2 editions of "Stage" and "Heroes" are little bit unnecessary. The sound quality is very good overall but not a huge step up from the RYKO or Virgin remasters.

The news here isn’t that the albums are great, it’s the revelation of just how great Low and especially Lodger sound after being given proper remixes by original producer Tony Visconti. It’s a little pricey, but this is a beautiful set which does justice to Bowie’s artistic mastery at the end of the seventies.

David Bowie deserved better. This botched boxed set has a number of major flaws. The albums are mastered inconsistently as if they had five different people working the albums (Ray Staff did most of the mastering sometimes in collaboration with Tony Visconti--who needs to get his ears checked) as the "Heroes" EP has considerable dynamics, "Low" is brickwalled and sounds horrible in this revisionist take on the album. "Heroes" has a MAJOR dropout during the title song where it was supposedly fixed (incorrectly I might add if that's the case) while there are other albums--some of which sound fine--others that needed to be restored--at each ends of the spectrum. The packaging is stellar. There's a great book included (small format) along with nice replicas of the original vinyl packaging. I would wait until Parlophone (who denied there was a problem at first claiming that was a fix on the master using a silly term "loss of energy" and how they "fixed" it. A drop out is a drop out and damage to the master tape IS damage to the master tape. You fix it before you release it you don't release it warts and all. That's bad quality control and to then defend it when customers complain trying to make it seem like it was 1) intended and is a fix and 2) those complaining are complaining about nothing, is insulting to fans who spend their hard earned money on Bowie's catalog. Parlophone--get a grip and when you release the NEXT box, make sure it's right the first time.