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I got into Zappa last year and one of the many albums I picked up was We're Only In It for the Money. This was the 2012 reissue, which I understand is closer to the original than the remix from the 80s that used contemporary drums and bass. My question for the more experienced fans here is how does this release compare to the original vinyl release in terms of sound quality? I notice that the drums sound pretty muffled on some tracks, especially when you compare it to the drum work on Uncle Meat a year later.

BOING (bump)

I’ve listened to all of them over the years but I’ve never really done any side by side comparisons. I, like most fans I think, much prefer the authenticity of having the original drums and bass on the 2012 cd over the ‘80’s cd with the overdubbed “new” bass and drums. Recording techniques and technology were progressing pretty rapidly back in the late ‘60’s so that might explain the difference in the sonic quality you might hear in a comparison between WOIIFTM and Uncle Meat.

It is possible to see the two main versions as separate projects. You don't have to choose one over the other. You can have both, listen to both and even like both if you want.

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The way I see it Barry, this should be a very dynamite show.

I vote both

I prefer the original. On the remix the drums and bass seemed to overwhelm all the other instruments, to me at least.

I've not looked into the details of the remix. The original was fine, it just was the beginning of the throw in everything style of Zappa. The vocals are often speeded up Zappa. And it's very much a vocal album. It parodies styles and lyrics of the hippie era. Drums and bass were not essential. In fact most kids did not have equipment to hear much bass. Me personally, I had an actual stereo by Hot Rats. I had a portable device to play the parodied Sgt Pepper in stereo but it was very tinny sounding.

As a comparison to Flower Punk, compare it to this, which has the Byrds jangly guitar sound Zappa sort of hated. The riff is used in Flower Punk.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=S0oP8e02dpk

I haven’t had Zappa vinyls..but one..for years, but the CD has much of the sound of the 60s records. It was sort of a parody of a pop record. Teenage America was not listening to instruments individually from 62-65 because they only made crappy 45s in mono to market to us.

It only took us 5 years to answer that.

That is what I've been listening to mostly since Lumpy Money came out. Recently I was working on a project that involved studying this album in depth, in particular, the methods of production he was using at the time, so, only the original would do for that.


The old spill a little something on the kitchen floor, clean it up producing a patch that highlights the fact that the rest of the floor was not as clean as you thought it was in the first place. I think what he did works more on some tracks than others. The bass guitar behind the piano intro on the track Absolutely Free just ruins it for me. That's a haunting piece of piano and sounds best solo to my ears. On the other hand, the original, stereo Who Needs The Peace Corps?, is quite muffled and sounds much better to me all around in FZ's rework.

So, for me, the answer isn't even which album version, it comes down to the individual tracks.

I presume also that a third option, remixing the album the way FZ did, but without new drum and bass tracks, has been confirmed to not be possible, as FZ himself claimed, because I imagine that if it was possible, someone would have done it by now. The best they could do in the 2012 "new line" was revive a 1993 digital master.

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The way I see it Barry, this should be a very dynamite show.

I'd like to buy the CD version with new overdubs of bass & drums and the uncensored "Mother people" line...can someone tell me the EAN or a ebay link to this version?

You can find it most anywhere on the internet but it's also still available right here:

https://store.zappa.com/frank-zappa-lumpy-money-cd.html

No, this is "Lumpy Money"; I mean that I want to buy a "WOIIFTM" cd version with the overdubs and the uncensored parts.

That's included on disc 2 of Lumpy Money.

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Buy some! Now!
https://store.cdbaby.com/Artist/MichaelPDawson

I try for the last time: I WANT THE SINGLE CD VERSION OF "WOIIFTM" without Lumpy Gravy.

I try for the last time:

The single CD version of WOIIFTM (with the overdubs and the uncensored parts) also has Lumpy Gravy on the same disc. There is no such thing as a stand-alone copy of the remixed WOIIFTM.

You can buy the 3-CD Lumpy Money for a lot less cash than trying to find the long-out-of-print 1986 Rykodisc version. You don't have to listen to the parts you don't want to and if you enjoy ANY version of WOIIFTM then I'm sure you would find something else you'd like on this release as well.

Lumpy Money = a fantastic release and not only but also, great value for money.....

To my knowledge, the only albums remixed after FZ death were You Are What You Is and Tinsel Town Rebellion, even if remastering these ones from original masters was enough to make them sound great, and there are albums, that would benefit more from the remix (such as Absolutely Free, where 80s remix is too much reverb-heavy, and UMe remaster taken from the original masters has some tape problems, or 200 Motels, where even the original masters didn't sound too ideal)
We don't know about shape the shape of Money multitrack tapes, but it's likely, the tapes weren't in unusable shape at all, 1984 remix was because Frank wanted to, not because he had to, and looks like Frank himself admitted the fact. He definitely didn't have to re-record drums for CD re-editions of Sleep Dirt or The Man From Utopia, but he did. http://www.lukpac.org/~handmade/patio/misc/why.html

Those were never remixed, only remastered in 1998 then by Spencer Chrislu with IMO questionable crossfades at some points. And of course again for the 2012 reissues, this time right.