GlamSunday: T. Rex- Electric Warrior Extravaganza: Electric Warrior (1971)- Vinyl Rip (24 bit APE) and SACD Rip (DTS 5.1)

An Extravaganza on GlamSunday???
WTF?!?

"...But leclisse, if you keep this up, people are going to expect every Sunday to be over-the-top! Even Albania will start showing up, and then everyone will expect Sunday Extravaganzas! This is a really bad idea leclisse. Really bad."

"Whatever...
let them eat T. Rex. In two flavors."

Enjoy!




From Chris Jones at BBC:

Hot on the heels of its 30th anniversary re-release,[...] T.Rex's most consistent album still deserves to have its praises sung. Think of glam and you probably focus on the 1972-4 heyday with acts veering from the sublime (Bowie, Roxy etc) to the ridiculous (Mud, Gary Glitter...Jobriath anyone?). Yet this slice of pop heaven was on the shelves by autumn 1971, making it officially the first glam album in the world. What's even more amazing is how fresh it still sounds.

Bolan himself was never one to avoid a trend. In his own mind he was always a star: Stories abound of his early days as a persistent chancer in mod/psychedelic London. Yet, if John's Children and Tyrannosaurus Rex didn't hold the keys to his inevitable stardom they certainly allowed him to learn the tricks that would flower on his first hit ''Ride A White Swan''. This was the point at which he and long-term producer Tony Visconti took the hippy-dippy lyrics and Larry the lamb vocal stylings and bolted them on to good old stripped-down, four-to-the-floor rock 'n' roll. For four glorious years they never looked back...




[...]It must never be forgotten that this is as much [Visconti's] album as Bolan's (not forgetting Mickey Finn's radical bongos, ho ho). Visconti was behind so much of the glam-defining process that his name becomes synonymous with the genre. On this and Bowie's early work (Space Oddity, Man Who Sold The World) he creates a warm, spacey reverb-drenched world full of hip-thrusting libido and pouty tongue-twisting. Bolan's lyrics often approach 'back of a bus ticket' status in their throw-away couplets (''Girl'', ''Motivator'' etc.), but what shines through is the irrepressible fun the whole team seem to be having. The two monster hits (''Get It On'' and ''Jeepster'') still stand as monuments to pop concision. Nonsensical rhyme riding on swaggering guitar and drums.

Add to this at least two other utter classics (the frenzied funk of ''Rip Off'' and the touching ballad ''Life's A Gas'') and not one real filler and you've got an album that's always going to sound box fresh [...]. Life's still a gas...




Personnel:

Marc Bolan: vocals, guitars
Micky Finn: percussion, vocals
Steve Currie: bass
Will Legend: drums
Ian McDonald: saxophones
Burt Collins: Flugel Horn
Howard Kaylan: backing vocals
Mark Volman: backing vocals


Tracklisting:

01. Mambo Sun (3:42)
02. Cosmic Dancer (4:30)
03. Jeepster (4:13)
04. Monolith (3:50)
05. Lean Woman Blues (3:04)
06. Bang a Gong (Get It On) (4:28)
07. Planet Queen (3:15)
08. Girl (2:32)
09. The Motivator (4:01)
10. Life's A Gas (2:25)
11. Rip Off (3:42)




Vinyl Rip Technical Information:

Artist: T. Rex
Album: Electric Warrior
Year: 1971

Audio Codec(s): APE
Encoding: Lossless
Rip: Vinyl rip, split tracks
Avg. bitrate: 2885 kb/s
Sample rate: 96000 Hz
Bits per sample: 24
Channels: 2
File size: 823 MB
Length: 0:39:41


Vinyl Rip Megaupload Link




From the original SACD uploader:

When Tony Visconti was offered the opportunity to remix Electric Warrior for 5.1 sound, he set himself one crucial brief - "I wanted this version to sound like it was recorded in 1972 and mixed in 1972, if Surround Sound was already available." In other words, no posthumous remixes, no clever overdubs, nothing that wasn't there to begin with, when he and Marc Bolan closed the final tape box (in 1971, actually) and switched out the lights on the original sessions. He succeeded. Across the board, the sound is superlative, a 180-degree sweep that fills the room with the ghosts of T. Rex and jam packs your mind with some of the most astonishing melodies ever to ride out in the name of pure pop. Divided neatly between the spacy ballads that were Bolan's forte ("Planet Queen," "Girl," "Life's a Gas"), and the seductive rockers that were his genius ("Mambo Sun," "Motivator," "Monolith"), Electric Warrior was recorded just as T. Rex hit superstar status and, with two of their four singles-so-far on board ("Get It On" and "Jeepster"), it remains the consummate Bolan album. But it's more than that, as well - overwhelmingly exuberant, its flawless blending of Chuck Berry pop, Middle Earth imagery and guiltless sexuality combine to forge a timeless musicality, for even as "Lean Woman Blues" hurtles straight out of the '50s, the closing freak-out "Rip Off" races equally resolutely backwards from punk. Electric Warrior was released at the dawn of the '70s. It was still resonating a decade later - and, thanks to this marvelous remaster, it still makes a difference today.




SACD Rip Technical Information:

Artist: T. Rex
Album: Electric Warrior
Year: 1971/2003

Audio Codec(s): DTS 5.1
Encoding: Lossless
Rip: SACD Rip, img + .cue
Bitrate: 1411
Sample rate: N/A
Bits per sample: N/A
Channels: 6
File size: 407 MB
Length: 0:39:32

Note: This CD requires DTS compatible equipment or software for playback. Don't play this on equipment that isn't compatible because you'll only hear static and the disembodied pleading wails of poor souls stuck in Limbo. It's horrifying.


SACD Rip Megaupload Link

Bob Marley and the Wailers- Natty Dread (1974)- 24/96 DVD-A & 24/48 DTS

Natty Dread is my favorite Bob Marley album post break with the Wailers, and here's the best digital representation of the album. This region free DVD is 24/96 MLP DVD-A, and it also contains the tracks down-sampled to 24/48 5.0 surround so you can play it on a regular DVD player. But screw all the technical mumbo-jumbo, because all that really matters is that this DVD has No Woman, No Cry on it. It's hard to imagine a more beautiful song than No Woman, No Cry.





From Arion Berger at rollingstone.com:

Reggae in this country tends to attract rabid, cultish, blanket admiration. The sanctification of the form doesn't always allow that much of the stuff can be, well, boring. But the wild range in reggae's quality is actually one of the strongest arguments in favor of the legendary Bob Marley — he wasn't passionate, moving and disciplined because he was a reggae artist but because he was Bob Marley. And 1974's Natty Dread proved for all time the possi-bilities of the genre. Peter Tosh and Bunny Livingstone (later Wailer) had just departed from Marley's band; Marley brought in a passel of new backing musicians and installed the I-Threes, a female vocal trio that included his wife, Rita, to play shimmering Greek chorus to his omniscient narrator. The record unspools like a pristine jam session, a huge range of instruments weaving in and out according to the emotional tenor of the moment — drum fills, cowbells and a thoughtful, sometimes ominous bass piling up the sonic richness.

Beyond the lilting charm of the ballad "No Woman, No Cry," which has become a reggae classic and cover staple, what Natty Dread evinces is Marley's remarkable musical control. "Lively Yourself Up" is cool and stripped down — every guitar note and percussive shake seems necessary. "Rebel Music (3 O'Clock Road Block)" folds in sidelines of harmonica and stalls for brief drum turns between the regulation loping, circular beat and the muselike affirmations of the I-Threes. "So Jah Seh," a taut profession of Rastafarian faith, does not resist the earthly pleasures of a big horn sound and thoughtful piano playing.

All of reggae's signature forces are in vibrant play. Its charismatic political rebelliousness is trickily conveyed on "Them Belly Full (But We Hungry)," in which Marley plays double agent, posing as the good-time partymaster while rallying the desperate troops with a vocal line that bends at the tips like the branches of a weeping willow. Like qawwali music and American blues, reggae folds in sensual with spiri-tual ecstasies. The blueslike "Bend Down Low" is grounded by a grouchy pop-up rhythm while Marley and the I-Threes sing ethereally, even merrily, with their eyes on the heavens. Natty Dread wrangled the seemingly unreconcilable impulses of reggae — its economy of line and expansiveness of spirit — into an intense evocation of a people's boundless capacities for faith, anger and love.




Technical Information:

Artist: Bob Marley and the Wailers
Album: Natty Dread
Year: 1974

Audio Codec(s): MLP, DTS, DD
Encoding: Lossless
Rip: 24/96 MLP split tracks and 24/48 DTS/DD split tracks
Avg. bitrate: 13824 kb/s
Sample rate: 96000 Hz
Bits per sample: 24
Channels: 6 + 2 Channel Stereo Downsample
File size: 3.31 GB
Length: 01:24:25


Tracklisting:

01. Lively Up Yourself (5:10)
02. No Woman, No Cry (3:45)
03. Them Belly Full (But We Hungry) (3:13)
04. Rebel Music (3 O' Clock Road Block) (6:46)
05. So Jah Seh (4:29)
06. Natty Dread (3:36)
07. Bend Down Low (3:22)
08. Talkin' Blues (4:07)
09. Revolution (4:23)
10. Am-A-Do (Bonus Track) (3:22)


Personnel:

Bob Marley- Lead Vocals, Rhythm Guitar
Aston "Family Man" Barrett- Bass Guitar
Carlton Barrett- Drums, Percussion
Bernard "Touter" Harvey- Piano, Organ
Al Anderson- Lead Guitar

The I-Three's:
Rita Marley- Background Vocals
Judy Mowatt- Background Vocals
Marcia Griffiths- Background Vocals





Natty Dread Megaupload Link