Fred_Zappelin wrote:
The worst part about it is that FZ lied to his audience and said the original tapes were too deteriorated to use.
Actually, he didn't lie. No affront to your post intended, but this is a common assumption that I admit has always bugged me a bit. He said that the two-track masters (the left/right-channel-only tapes from which the actual albums were cut, as opposed to the six-track tapes, etc. that the band actually recorded onto during the sessions) were deteriorated, which is not hard to believe, since that happens to all badly stored tape.
Personally, I've always preferred the '80s version of the album. The '60s version is all tinny and squashed up, and the drums are in mono. It sounds like someone's beating Tinker Toys together. I hardly ever listened to Ruben before I got the newer version. He really opened up the mixes and allowed them to breathe. But what I've never understood is why he didn't take the time to remix them from the original tapes and include both versions. They would both have fit onto one disc, I believe (especially considering that "Stuff Up the Cracks" would've only had to have been included once, since that song didn't have any '80s overdubs). I don't think he had any right to be surprised that most of his fans hated the new version. I'm one of the few who love the newer one.
Anyway, as far as the '80s overdubs went, and why Frank didn't lie:
GOLDMINE (1989): There's been some controversy about what you did with We're Only in It for the Money for the Old Masters set and the Rykodisc CD -- the bass and drum tracks that were added to it. Was that the only solution to this tape problem?
ZAPPA: No, bass and drums added was not a solution to the tape problem. The tape problem had to be dealt with with a remix, no matter what. The idea of putting digitally recorded bass and drums onto those tracks was a creative decision that I made because I've always felt that this material in We're Only in It for the Money was good material, but I hated the technical quality of the recording; we were just trapped into that level of of technical quality because that's the way the world was then. I mean, we were virtually using a prototype eight-track machine when that album was done.
...But I've always had a kind of fondness for the tunes that were in there, and I wanted to enhance that album above and beyond the level of 1967 technical development. So that's why it was a creative decision; I decided to put it on.
The problem with people who are collectors and purists and stuff like that is, their regard is not for the music, it is for some imaginary intrinsic value of vinyl and cardboard. People who demand to have the original release of this, that, and the other thing in the original wrapper and all that stuff, that's fetishism. And I think that's fine, if you want to be a fetishist, and have that kind of a hobby. But it is a type of attitude that I don't share when it comes to re-releasing the material.
I think that the material should have a chance to sound as good as you can make it sound, given the technical tools that are at your disposal. So when digital audio came along and you had the possibility of a 95-dB dynamic range, and, in 1967, it might have been maybe 40 dB or something like that, the chance to make those tunes punchier -- and the same thing on Ruben & the Jets -- the chance to have some aspect of 1980s transience and top-end on those tapes was something that I felt was worth the time and the money that I spent redoing it.
I don't have any more plans for taking older material and adding stuff to it -- those are the only two albums that it was done -- and I would describe any criticism of the addition of drums and bass as something less than a tempest in a teapot. If you've got time to worry about that, you really must have too much time on your hands. There's too many other important musical, social and intellectual problems floating around the country today to give a rat's ass as to whether or not I swapped the bass and drums on We're Only in It for the Money.
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