Heart

Magazine

Not the same "Magazine" as the LP

Review Score:

(6/10)
I won't get into the rather checkered history of this album and all the attendant contract disputes involving it. Everyone here has hashed that out enough.

I always thought this was kind of a hidden jem among the Heart catalog entries, and I think in retrospect it holds up pretty well, especially compared to some of the more overblown later albums. But be aware that this EMI/Capitol "Special Markets" CD "reissue" is NOT the same bunch of recordings as the old Mushroom LP. In some instances the songs have been re-recorded, and in others they sound as though they may have just been remixed. In a couple of cases the songs are 15 to 30 seconds shorter than the originals. This is especially evident in "Magazine" which originally had an extended fadeout in which you could hear a little bit of "Magic Man" from "Dreamboat Annie." It's gone now. One other curiosity is the live blues medley which, while sounding like the same recording, manages to run a full minute and 25 seconds shorter than it did on the LP. Someone did some editing here, obviously. And probably most noticably, the sequencing of the tracks is completely different on this CD. Whether all of this was done because the Wilsons wanted to do it for artisitc reasons, or because it was legally necessary due to all the contract hassles surrounding the original release, I don't claim to know. Perhaps someone else could shed some light on it.

So buy it if your old LP is worn out, or if you sold it when you were in college so you could buy pizza, but don't expect this to be an exact replacement. I'm just happy my original LP was still in good enough condition that I was able to copy it to CD with only one or two pops and clicks. It's the one I listen to, not this.

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