REVIEW:  Klaatu - “Klaatu/Hope”, or... yet another Klaatu CD reissue falls short of the mark....

BGO Records (BGOCD518) - 2000

By Dave Bradley – http://www.klaatu.org/

The Klaatu catalog has been butchered by Capitol Records with their various CD reissues for more than a decade.

When I was contacted by John Tobler in late 1999 (or was it early 2000?) about some information for some liner notes for an upcoming reissue of the first two Klaatu albums being prepared by BGO (Beat Goes On) Records in the UK, I was very skeptical. They were licensing the tapes from Capitol, and like the Capitol single disc release of "Klaatu", the Capitol 2-for-1 release of "Klaatu/Hope", and the Collector's Choice Music release of "Klaatu/Hope", I expected the sound to be horrid.

In the early 90s, Capitol had created an "edited" master of the two albums together for a 2-for-1 release and had generally weak sound on top of the editing. In 1999, Collector's Choice Music licensed the same 2-for-1 disc, and they did some digital manipulation of the bad master to create an even muddier presentation of the same edited digital master tape. You can read my review of this travesty at http://www.klaatu.org/cdreview.html   I let John Tobler know that if BGO was going to get the tapes from Capitol, that they would probably be sent the edited master, and even if they weren't, Capitol doesn't own the original masters, so they wouldn't be sent the best source material available.

Well, I just finally got a copy of the new BGO release from 2000 (I received it on October 1, 2001). I have to say that I'm pleasantly surprised. It isn't the edited master after all! Although, there's a ton of hiss on Hope on this release, and the tracks from the first album are muddy.

First off, this isn't the edited master used by Capitol and Collector's Choice Music for their 2-for-1 releases. The mouse squeak at the end of "Klaatu" is there. It's followed a few seconds later by the mouse squeak at the start of the "Hope" album. The edits on side two of Hope are gone. This truly sounds like a complete version of the albums.

I do, however, have some issues with this release.

1: The sound of Subrosa Subway still sounds washed out. The bass is too muddy and buried.

2: The track IDs are screwed up on Hope.
They list the following:
13 The Loneliest Of Creatures
14 Prelude
15 So Said The Lighthouse Keeper
16 Hope

but what they've REALLY got is this:
13 The Loneliest Of Creatures / Prelude
14 So Said The Lighthouse Keeper
15 Hope
16 Reprise of We're Off You Know

That, to me, is a MAJOR screw up and shows that the person mastering the CD had never heard the albums/music before.

The packaging isn't very good either, which leads us to #3.

3: The jewel case has a sticker on it (why can't they put it on the shrink wrap?) that hides the artwork of their cover.

4: The sticker makes 3 claims, 2 of which are false.

• The sticker claims "REMASTERED FROM ORIGINAL MASTER TAPES" and that just isn't true. The master tapes were obtained from Capitol Records and Capitol Records doesn't own the "ORIGINAL" master tapes. They instead own safety copies of the "ORIGINAL" master tapes (which is why they are so hissy!). So, the BGO release is NOT from the "ORIGINAL" master tapes, but it IS from an unedited set of masters, which puts it head and shoulders above all other Capitol Records CD reissues and the Collector's Choice Music reissue.

• The sticker claims "ADDITIONAL SLEEVE NOTES". This part is true, although those notes focus almost exclusively on the Beatles rumor, something the band has consistently tried to distance themselves from for 25 years! The liners also inaccurately state that "Klaatu was not a name invented by the group members, but was also part of the 'let's pretend we're the Beatles' plot." This couldn't be further from the truth. While the name itself wasn't "invented" by the band (it's the name of an alien in the 1951 movie "The Day The Earth Stood Still"), the Beatles rumor was started in 1977 by Steve Smith, a journalist in Rhode Island, accidentally I might add, and was picked up by Capitol Records ONLY AT THAT POINT and perpetuated entirely by Capitol Records. The band had been using the name, though, since their first single in 1973, which is a year before Ringo used the alien "Klaatu" (with his own face in place of Klaatu's) on his "Goodnight Vienna" cover. In light of this, there's no way that the band name "Klaatu" could have been chosen because of the Beatles connection since in 1973 there was no connection between that name and the Beatles.

• The sticker claims "FAITHFULLY RESTORED ARTWORK" which is also, unfortunately, just not true.
• The tray card contains a shrunken image of the back cover of the Hope album, with the song titles for both albums below it, and to the right of it is all the copyright and contact info for BGO records.

• The inside of the tray card is a blowup of the face of the sun which is revealed when you remove the CD.

• The front of the booklet is that same blowup of the face of the sun, with tiny copies of the front cover artwork of both albums placed over the face, (of course the Hope album cover is half-hidden behind the sticker that they stuck on the front of the jewel case!).

• The back cover of the booklet is the back cover of the first album.

• So where's the "restored" artwork? We've got a booklet size copy of the back cover of the first album. A slightly smaller size copy of the back cover of the second album, and teenie tiny images of the front covers of both albums. Hardly what I'd call restored. The booklet itself contains 5 pages of "sleeve notes" which are John Tobler's discussion of the Beatles rumor and a reference to the official Klaatu web site, and 9 pages of lyrics. There's no restoration of the original Klaatu album inner sleeves. The lyrics are placed inside what was the original LP inner sleeve design to make it look like the artwork for the inner sleeve has been restored, but even then they've very badly cropped the top two corners and the lower left corner of that artwork on every page, so it's hardly what I'd call "FAITHFULLY RESTORED ARTWORK".


     

    




• And where's the artwork of the Hope album's inner sleeve? And where's the great label artwork from both LPs? It's missing.

For "3:47 EST" aka "Klaatu":
Capitol - 1990 - 8 out of 10.
Justin - 1990 - 8 out of 10.
Capitol - 1992 (2-for-1) - 6 out of 10.
Attic - 1993 - 9 out of 10 (the only thing preventing a 10 out of 10 is the missing mouse squeak).
Collectors’ Choice Music - 1999 (2-for-1) - 5 out of 10.
BGO Records - 2000 - 5 out of 10.
Bullseye Records - 2001 - 10 out of 10 (if the quality of the test pressing stays as is)

For "Hope":
Justin - 1991 - 4 out of 10. Low marks for quality.
Capitol - 1992 (2-for-1) - 4 out of 10. Low marks for editing the world’s most perfect album and partially for quality.
Attic - 1993 - 9 out of 10.
Collectors’ Choice Music - 1999 (2-for-1) - 3 out of 10.
BGO Records - 2000 - 4 out of 10 (with bad track ID placement).
Bullseye Records - 2002 - 10 out of 10 (the best has finally arrived!)
 
 

- Dave Bradley – October 2, 2001, revised April 2003.