Remasters, revisions, re-releases and the like

You'll find that a lot of the remastered releases tend to simply make the music louder & more in-your-face by compressing the dynamic range which is a bit of a turn-off for a lot of metalheads (myself included), particularly with the modern obsession with retro, vinyl & cassettes. One of the rare ones that's generally thought to have been improved significantly through modern technology is Megadeth's 1985 debut album "Killing Is My Business... And Business Is Good!".

I like being able to get those bonus tracks, so as long as the changes aren't too bad I don't mind too much. Funnily enough, despite the obsession with vinyl, the only reason why that escaped the loudness wars is that you just can't do that to a vinyl record. Early CD presses are usually good about that sort of thing too. Funny how the superior format ends up being worse because companies insist of being shitty.

Isn't that Megadeth album kind of weird? Some versions have a censored version of the Nancy Sinatra cover, others lack it entirely.  The former practically turned it into a gag song.

Isn't that Megadeth album kind of weird? Some versions have a censored version of the Nancy Sinatra cover, others lack it entirely.  The former practically turned it into a gag song.

I've heard about this. The writer of the original song, Lee Hazlewood did not approve of the "These Boots" cover that was basically a "vile and offensive" parody. He threatened to sue the band if the band didn't remove the song from future releases, so that's what they've done. The 2002 remastered edition restores that track, but because of that controversy, the altered lyrics were censored. Another remastered edition was released in 2018 with a new re-recording of "These Boots" that contains the original lyrics. Type O Negative had that similar issue during the recording of the album Bloody Kisses with their song "Summer Girl" that was a parody of "Summer Breeze" by Seals and Crofts who did not approve of the alter lyrics and forced Type O Negative to instead make a cover of the song with the original lyrics. Oh yeah, Bloody Kisses has a 30th anniversary vinyl re-release, and there will be a graphic novel based on the album with contributions from members of Anthrax, Lacuna Coil, Black Veil Brides, Biohazard, Butcher Babies, and Fear Factory. And in other gothic metal-related news, Paradise Lost's re-recording of Icon, Icon 30 was released 10 days ago. I should check it out sometime....

I heard something about that Megadeth controversy, never delved into it too much though. Bonus tracks are always a plus, even if most of the time they're not good. More incentive to but the album again I guess instead of looking through the bargain bins. Also understandable when at least for a time it was a good idea to re-record onto the new media like cassette or CD's but the records are showing that Vinyl is the big thing again. I don't want to keep a working cd player, cassette, 8-track, or phonograph player around to listen to my music. I like having everything on my hard drive or even phone at this point to listen everywhere I go. Let us know if those re-recordings are actually good though, I've always been interested in Paradise Lost and other gothic metal but I haven't really given it a listen. Wonder if that darker style is actually better remastered with the better technology now.