Search - Dory Previn :: We're Children of Coincidence & Harpo Marx

A great record ruined by CD engineer!

Mr. Paul E. Houghton | 10/17/2007

(1 out of 5 stars)

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Great album at wrong speed for Dory Previn, 13 Oct 2007

By Mr. Paul E. Houghton -

Children of Coincidence WAS rather than is a great album. This re-release by Collector's Choice Music is recorded at the wrong speed: Previn's voice is a whole octave lower and the music is sickly slow. The title track alone plays 14 seconds longer than it should at this recorded speed. Didn't the engineer have his ear that day?! So a terrible disappointment for fans and newcomers alike. Best advice is to find it on vinyl. It is a great album with its droll humour, great sassy production and of course, as you would expect from the great Dory Previn - has some of the best and most unusual songs you're likely to ever hear. Wit and wordplay that you won't hear anywhere else. Meanwhile, several people have e-mailed the CD company about the recording horror to no avail. But the companion self-titled CD is fine. And meanwhile, all the other Cds released (by BGO) are absolutely superb and a new album is coming! THE ART OF DORY PREVIN arrives in January 2008.

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Great album RUINED! DO NOT BUY

C. E. A. Esq | London | 02/14/2008

(1 out of 5 stars)

"This great album has been spoiled by a dreadfully shoddy reissue. Whilst there have been questionable remastering jobs throughout the history of CD, this one has been bizarrely slowed down. The entire album is a whole tone (not an octave) lower than it should be. What a shame, as it's one of Dory's very best. Collectors' Choice seem to have ignored every person who has written to them about this. Their other Dory reissue (the self-titled album) is better, but still to my ear a hemi-demi-semi tone lower than it should be. Those who enjoy Dory's works are advised to get the vinyl and make their own CDs which will invariably be better, even with hiss or surface noise, than this awful CD."

What went wrong...?

Mark C. Hawk | Des Moines, WA | 11/10/2007

(1 out of 5 stars)

"After waiting YEARS for Dory's final commercial release to become available on CD, I was excited when this (along with her first album, 'Dory Previn') were finally released. But the sound of this is drastically OFF. Dory's voice, although not strong, was always bell-like in it's clarity, and always on pitch and in tune. (In fact, her singing improved with each release.) The songs here have seemingly been remastered at the wrong speed, as Dory now sounds like the child of Bea Arthur and that "Cola Nut" guy. Her writing, as sharp as ever, is served well by the arrangements and overall production (which is a bit more commercial sounding than on her previous releases) but this new version does not do justice to the original. The songs are recorded too slow, and the resulting sound just doesn't SOUND like Dory. I hope someone brings to this someone's attention, because for fans of this truly unique singer-songwriter, this is really a shame."