Time Life CDs
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Category: Top 40 Music On Compact Disc
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URL: https://top40musiconcd.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=2609
Printed Date: 01 May 2025 at 7:35pm
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Topic: Time Life CDs
Posted By: Fetta
Subject: Time Life CDs
Date Posted: 25 October 2007 at 7:13am
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Does anyone know where I can get a comprehensive list of Time Life CDs. I am most interested in "Rock and Roll Era", "Classic Rock", "Sounds of 70's", "Sound of 80s" and "Your Hit Parade"
Would like to cross reference with my collections to make sure I am not missing anything. Thanks all |
Replies:
Posted By: crapfromthepast
Date Posted: 25 October 2007 at 7:55am
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Boy is today your lucky day.
I just happened to have such a page: http://www.crapfromthepast.com/favorites/compilations/timeli fe/index.htm I don't have "Your Hit Parade", though, so I defer to the excellent discography at the Both Sides Now site: http://www.bsnpubs.com/warner/time-life/time-lifestory.html ------------- There's a lot of crap on the radio, but there's only one http://www.crapfromthepast.com" rel="nofollow - Crap From The Past . |
Posted By: eriejwg
Date Posted: 25 October 2007 at 8:21am
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From what I understand, many of T-L's compilation series have been reworked. For example, Sounds of the Seventies is now called Ultimate Seventies, which is basically Sound of the Seventies I and II in one package. Shame really, as there were some other discs in that original package that had some high/low/no chart material.
I think Sounds of the Eighties may also be out of print. Best bet is to check eBay. Ron's listing on the site he gave you will at least give you a strong start on what to look for. |
Posted By: Fetta
Date Posted: 25 October 2007 at 8:42am
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Thanks for the info all.
I probably have complete series (maybe 1 or 2 missing) but wanted to confirm. I've seen the Ultimate Seventies and they seem to be not as good as the Sounds Of The 70s. Time Life, to me anyway, doesnt seem to be putting out series the way they used to. Could have lots to do with the state of the CD format these days. May not be worth their while any longer. What a shame!!! |
Posted By: crapfromthepast
Date Posted: 25 October 2007 at 9:03am
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If you have the compulsive urge to collect (as I would assume many of us on this forum do), you might want to hunt down Time-Life's Solid Gold Soul series. Some volumes are repackaged from the discontinued Rhythm & Blues series, and there are quite a few new entries. There are single-CD volumes for each year from 1956 (1954 and 1955 were available only as as Rhythm & Blues) through 1979, with an early '80s entry, a mid-'80s entry, and a few others. The '70s-era single-year CDs are really outstanding, with superb track selection, and great sound quality (mastering by Dennis Drake). Well worth the hunt, although a lot of these are getting pricey.
The AM Gold series seems to carry a lot of weight with collectors also. Many of the earlier years are repackaged Superhits collections. These, too, extend out to 1979, and I recommend the later ones. Some seem to like the 2-CD sets for Singers And Songwriters. I don't have many of them, so I can't comment. In general, if you can find collections released on Rhino, Razor & Tie, or Time-Life released between 1992 and 1996, you'll be satisfied. Anything released after 1996 is generally mastered too loud, with compression/maximization ruining the sound quality (do a search on "the loudness wars" on the stevehoffman.tv, for more info.) There are a handful of Time-Life collections released between 1996 till around 2002 that aren't mastered too loud, but those are the exceptions rather than the rule. |
Posted By: Brian W.
Date Posted: 25 October 2007 at 6:00pm
That's because the sound quality on AM Gold is generally considered superior to that on Sounds of the Seventies. Very good sound on the AM Gold series. |
crapfromthepast wrote:Posted By: eriejwg
Date Posted: 25 October 2007 at 6:04pm
| Reason being - Sounds Of The Seventies uses analog sources - AM Gold uses digital. |
Posted By: aaronk
Date Posted: 25 October 2007 at 10:09pm
I'm not sure what you mean. Any music recorded prior to 1988 or so is all from analog sources. They didn't start using digital recording until the late '80s. |
Posted By: eriejwg
Date Posted: 25 October 2007 at 10:43pm
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Hey Aaron,
I think the AM Gold series was released starting in 1993 or 1994. Sounds Of The Seventies has dates of 1988 or 1989-1991 as I recall. On the back of my SOS discs, it says The high resolution of this compact disc may reveal limitations inherent in the original analog recordings. |
Posted By: aaronk
Date Posted: 25 October 2007 at 11:07pm
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Ah, I see what you're getting at. Perhaps they did have better technology and mastering techniques by the early to mid '90s, which is why the AM Gold discs could possibly sound better. It's the same analog sources though, since they would've come from the master tapes that the songs were originally recorded on.
I always thought the "disclaimer" on those '80s-era CDs was unnecessary. After all, they never bothered to put one on LPs that read "Because of record groove noise and the limitatiosn of your turntable, you will not be getting the true sound of the master recording." |
Posted By: crapfromthepast
Date Posted: 06 September 2016 at 7:12pm
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...nine years later...
So I need a little favor to help me sort out some questions about the Time-Life Sounds Of The Seventies series. Some of you may have noticed that for some discs, the matrix number (i.e., that number printed on the disc circumferentially around the center hole) has a notation of "RE-1". That signifies that it's a remaster of the disc. The original pressing had no "RE" at all. Some discs have an "RE-2" (a second remaster), or even an "RE-3" (a third remaster - I saw this on Rock 'N' Roll Era Vol. 11 1960). I realized that for a handful of the Seventies discs, I have the original but not the remaster, or the remaster but not the original. I'd like to post the differences between original and RE-1 remaster, and that's where I need your help. Does anyone have the original releases (no RE-1) of the following discs? I have the RE-1 remasters of these:
Will gladly post info once I figure out what's a good format for it. (Maybe a separate thread for each title?) ------------- There's a lot of crap on the radio, but there's only one http://www.crapfromthepast.com" rel="nofollow - Crap From The Past . |
Posted By: The Hits Man
Date Posted: 06 September 2016 at 8:37pm
Aaron, I have a lot of music that was recorded digitally from as far back as 1979 from Ry Cooder, Fleetwood Mac, Stevie Wonder, Dave Grusin, and many others. ------------- |
Posted By: padj79
Date Posted: 06 September 2016 at 9:09pm
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Please keep in mind that an RE-1, RE-2, etc. designation does not necessarily mean that a disc is "remastered" in an audio sense. I worked in R&D engineering at Specialty Records/WEA Manufacturing from 1988-1997 and was fully immersed in this nomenclature. The Time-Life series was for the most part manufactured at Specialty/WEA during this time.
The RE designation means that a glass master has been redone because something went wrong during its initial creation or a new (but not necessarily different) digital audio source has been supplied to create a new glass master. The addition of the RE in the matrix allows the catalog (matrix) number of the glass master to be maintained with only the addition of the RE. Resupplying the digital audio source was a common occurrence in those days, since the source was a Sony U-Matic 1630 PCM tape - essentially videotape. The tapes wore out always and often. When a new tape was supplied, the RE number was incremented by 1 for all glass masters made from that new tape. Once that tape wore out, it was replaced and the RE number was again incremented by 1 for all glass masters made from that next tape. And the process continued. So that is why you can find The Eagles - Their Greatest Hits 1971-75 with an RE-58. It wasn't remastered in an audio sense 58 times. The U-Matic 1630 kept wearing out or failing from overuse! Delivery to manufacturing by CD-R was not really widespread until 1996, ending the tape wear-and-tear issues. So, the chance of these Time Life CDs sounding different due to RE designation is very low. It would be really cool though if you do find out that they do sound different. |
Posted By: Brian W.
Date Posted: 06 September 2016 at 11:24pm
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Actually, Aaron, Grant is ri-- (cough cough)... Grant
is ri-- ri-- agh, gah huh-guh-huh... Grant is right. Digital recording dates back to the late 1970s. Billy Joel's "Nylon Curtain" album is a digital recording. "Like a Virgin" was recorded digitally. According to Wikipedia, Archie Shepp's "On Green Dolphin Street" was the first released digitally recorded album, in 1977 (though it was not released on CD until years later, of course). |
Posted By: crapfromthepast
Date Posted: 07 September 2016 at 7:09am
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This is what I had in mind (thanks to Jeff K, so far, and still looking for more info):
Sounds Of The Seventies Vol. 5 1977 (1990)
------------- There's a lot of crap on the radio, but there's only one http://www.crapfromthepast.com" rel="nofollow - Crap From The Past . |
Posted By: aaronk
Date Posted: 07 September 2016 at 12:25pm
Yes, I stand corrected on this. I didn't realize they were making full digital audio recordings as early as 1979. I assume the AM Gold series referred to up-thread would have contained songs all recorded prior to this, though, so the original master tapes for those songs would've been analog. ------------- Aaron Kannowski http://www.uptownsound.com" rel="nofollow - Uptown Sound http://www.919thepeak.com" rel="nofollow - 91.9 The Peak - Classic Hip Hop |
Posted By: crapfromthepast
Date Posted: 07 September 2016 at 12:45pm
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To be clear, the AM Gold discs use the same sources as Sounds Of The Seventies, Body Talk, Solid Gold Soul, or any of the other Time-Life collections.
Concrete example: For AM Gold Vol. 21 1974 through AM Gold Vol. 26 1979, all released in 1996-97, I determined that just about every track is a digital clone of a mastering from an earlier CD, usually with a volume change. Out of the 118 songs on these discs, I identified the earlier masterings on all but 12 tracks, just because I don't have every CD ever released. For the Time-Life series that I mentioned above, virtually all the tracks use the same analog transfer as some earlier CDs. For the Sounds Of The Seventies tracks on which a song makes its first appearance on CD, the source is usually a dub from a source tape supplied by the record company. Hope that helps. ------------- There's a lot of crap on the radio, but there's only one http://www.crapfromthepast.com" rel="nofollow - Crap From The Past . |
Posted By: KentT
Date Posted: 08 September 2016 at 9:34am
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Some of the Sounds Of The Seventies and AM Gold volumes got redone due to licensing changes and a track or two which was not available. ------------- I turn up the good and turn down the bad! |
Posted By: JMD1961
Date Posted: 08 September 2016 at 5:45pm
| I have vols. 4, 13 & 27. What can I help you with? |
Posted By: whyaduck
Date Posted: 21 September 2016 at 7:27pm
Same with many of the Rhino series' which started in the late 80's. I've nearly completed a "Billboard Top Rock and Roll" [Billboard Top Hits after 1975 onward] master sets. Ron/CrapFromThePast, do you have any info on that series as to the many changes? |
Posted By: crapfromthepast
Date Posted: 21 September 2016 at 7:51pm
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JMD1961 - Can you send me a track listing of each, or take a picture of the back cover with the tracks? I'll be happy to integrate that with my stuff. (I assume that you've checked to ensure that they're not the RE-1 rereleases.)
whyaduck - The Billboard Top R&R Hits series had some releases. The years 1960 through 1969 were released in 1988, then all were rereleased in 1993 with slightly different track listings. The tracks that weren't replaced had the same mastering, for the tracks that I've checked (I haven't checked them all.) I don't have list of the replaced tracks handy, though. You can tell the 1988 mastering from the black, five-letter Rhino logo on the spine. The 1993 rerelease has the red oval Rhino logo. I don't know of any other rereleases in those Rhino sets. Hope that helps! ------------- There's a lot of crap on the radio, but there's only one http://www.crapfromthepast.com" rel="nofollow - Crap From The Past . |
Posted By: JMD1961
Date Posted: 25 September 2016 at 8:57am
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Sorry for the delay. Been dealing with some laptop issues.
And I'm afraid I don't have good news. All three of the ones I've got are the RE-1 editions. |
Posted By: crapfromthepast
Date Posted: 25 September 2016 at 10:00am
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No problem - thanks for checking! ------------- There's a lot of crap on the radio, but there's only one http://www.crapfromthepast.com" rel="nofollow - Crap From The Past . |
Posted By: Gary
Date Posted: 25 September 2016 at 5:04pm
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Sorry - thought I could help since I have the whole Sounds of the Seventies series on CD. But I must have got mine at the same time you have as I have all the RE-1 and RE-2's you have. I wil ltry one of the local DJ's that bought these as well as I did and see if he still has his copies.
Good luck. |
Posted By: AdvprosD
Date Posted: 15 August 2020 at 1:24pm
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Did any of this get resolved either publicly or in PM's?
I would have to go to a certain set of crates to see what version of "Sounds of the 70s" I had. I'm pretty sure I bought nearly all of it directly from Time-Life and not Ebay or Discogs. You know, back when they would only sell you them one at a time? I have to go look for myself as I've made a minor discovery after buying a set of Time-Life "Ultimate 70s" on ebay. I already knew that they had taken the "Superhits" product and repackaged it as "AM Gold." What I didn't know was that they took the basic set of "Sounds of the 70s" 1970-1979 and rebranded a new series called "Ultimate 70's" which also has, as far as I know, only the 1970-1979 produced so far. No "Take Two" or any of that yet. I had a chance to grab a sealed set of "Ultimate 70s" but, passed for a set of VG discs which was about half the price. I'm happy now that I didn't buy that sealed set as they would only be duplicates of the discs I already have in the "SOS" series. If anyone is interested in the minor track changes between the sets, I can post what I find when I dig those original "SOS" discs out. I'm kind of curious myself if Time Life did any extra production work on this set like adding NR or taking it out etc. I'm pretty certain though that they would rather add more than remove it. ------------- <Dave> Someone please tell I-Heart Radio that St. Louis is not known as The Loo! |