Donna Summer: Chronicles...anyone got it?

Hi all--

Apparently, Universal Music released a Donna Summer 3-cd box set on Tuesday as part of their "Chronicles" series. The set contains her first 3 albums (Love To Love You Baby, A Love Trilogy and Four Seasons Of Love). A few reports at Amazon and at donna-tribute.com indicate that the discs are remastered, but I'd like to find out for sure before I even think about purchasing this (I already have the original issues). Anyone here have any info about whether or not these discs are remastered? And, more importantly, how they sound?

Donna Summer: Chronicles at Amazon

 

Bump.

Im curious to know if this has been remastered too. Sound quality etc. Is it worth buying?

 

I personally don't think that the more recently remastered Donna Summer material (Bad Girls Deluxe Edition and Gold) sound as good as the same material on the original cd issues, so even if these albums have been remastered for this set it isn't much of a selling point for me. Not that the recent remasters sound bad, but they are a tad compressed and sound more futzed with -- ie, on Gold the tracks from various producers have more of a sameness to them than they do on previous compilations, causing me to suspect that the various sources were EQ'd to provide a more consistent listening experience. The problem is that previously it was quite easy to tell a Giorgio Moroder production from Quincy Jones production (not to mention the Stock Atiken & Waterman productions with the highly processed vocals). Listening to the 2-cd Anthology or single disc Endless Summer conveyed to me three things: (1) Donna recorded her best material with Giorgio but (2) the production quality really rose when Donna hooked up with Quincy, perhaps due in large part to the mixing skills of Bruce Swedien. (3) As catchy as "This Time I Know It's For Real" is (as a song, I much prefer it to anything Donna recorded with Quincy), Donna's voice sounds thin on this record (bad choice of vocal mic? deliberate but bad EQ choice? I don't know).

 

I just checked the AllMusic site for the credits on this set, and they list Joe Palmaccio for the mastering. That doesn't sound right as he's been with Sony for quite a while now, not to mention that he did the mastering for the original CD's of these albums (if this mastering credit is correct, maybe they just repackaged these, but didn't do new mastering?). Does someone have access to a box to verify this? I know that occasionally Universal still farms out some of their mastering, but most of the time they don't (to the best of my knowledge). If Joe got the job for the remasters and was allowed to do them without compression/limiting, I'd give this set a shot.

 

Given what you just wrote, then, I'm guessing this collection is just a repackaging of the earlier cd's. Perhaps someone here will be game enough to buy the new set to do a comparison and give us the true scoop.

 

Bump. Did anyone buy the Chronicles set and if so how does it sound?

Also - I read somewhere that "Love To Love You Baby" is being reissued in February. Does anyone know anything about this as far as any bonus material? I'm wondering if I should wait until then or just buy Chronicles now. Or both...

 

I read the same. I'd wait and see. I doubt there would be much bonus material to choose from though. Maybe the 5 minute single edit of the title song? That would be a worthy bonus track.

 

According to CD Universe, there's not a single bonus track included:
http://www.cduniverse.com/productinfo.asp?pid=1056453&style=music&cart=305889360&BAB=M

 

I agree except with the 1993 Chronicles 2-CD Anthology. That set has the best sound I have ever heard on a DS CD!

Other than that, I think the stuff she did with Giorgio Moroder sounded best. The Quincy stuff sounds just like anything else he produced...

 

So back to the purpose of this thread - does anyone have Chronicles, and if so, how does it sound?

 

Looks like just a straight budget reissue of the album, given the $6.99 list price.