Blondie
Japanese Singles
Chrysalis Japan - Various Catalog Numbers
2011 Galemark Compilation
This colection consists of ten Japanese singles given to me by ringosshed and one US single. When I started this project, I didn't realize that "One Way or Another" was a North American single only. The rest of the world got "Sunday Girl" in it's place. I couldn't imagine a singles collection without this track, so I included the US single (following te "Sunday Girl" single in chronological order, though I'm not certain which one came out first). For all intents and purposes the releases were simultaneous. "One Way" reached #26 on Billboard and was the band's fifth most successful US single. Another quirk in the Japanese catalog is that "Kidnapped" seemingly was released as a single in Japan and nowhere else in the world. Perhaps not coincidentally it is also the only one of the singles that uses the Chrysalis green label (all of the others using the white to blue fade featured in the included artwork). Also of interest is the Japanese first single. In the US the first three Blondie singles (chronologically) were "X Offender","In The Flesh" and "Rip Her To Shreds" (with their corresponding B-sides). The first Japanese single utilized "Rip" as the A-side and "Flesh" and "X" as a two track B-side. The version of "X" used on the Japanese single is the standard album version. When Private Stock (Blondie's first US label) issued "X", it had a slightly different sound, but it's no big whoop either way. To my ears the album version is the exact same two track master as the earlier single, just with some reverb added. The reverb helps the vocal and really helps the snare, but it serves to wash out the tambourine and maracas, giving a Phil Spector Wall of Mud sound to the track. What would be great is if they went back to the multis and added the reverb where it helps but keeping the high stuff clean. FYI, I also included a "Bonus" folder with a couple of MP3s that were on the old official Blondie site but aren't on the new one. I didn't get them from there myself, but as far as I know they are unchanged from the original sanctioned free downloads. The bonus folder also conains (labeled as "16b" the flip of "Call Me" which is an instrumental credited to Georgio Moroder, though it does use Blondie's vocal track.
Burning instructions...
You will notice that there are two sets of art, one labeled "purist". For those who agree with me that a Blondie singles collection can not exclude "One Way or Another", just burn the tracks as they are presented (in US chronological order) and use the corresponding art. For the "purists" who want a true Japan only collection, remove tracks 12 and 13, add 16b from the bonus folder and renumber the tacks to match the "purist" art. My hope is that sharing it this way will satisfy everyone.
Tracks...
1 - X Offender
2 - In The Flesh
3 - Rip Her To Shreds
4 - Denis
5 - No Imagination
6 - Kidnapper
7 - Cautious Lip
8 - Heart Of Glass
9 - Rifle Range
10 - Sunday Girl
11 - I Know But I Don't Know
12 - One Way Or Another*
13 - Just Go Away*
14 - Dreaming
15 - Living In The Real World
16 - Call Me
17 - Atomic
18 - Die Young Stay Pretty
19 - The Tide Is High
20 - Suzy and Jeffrey
21 - Rapture
22 - Walk Like Me
*US single
Plus...
16b - Call Me (Instrumental)
Blondie - We Three Kings.mp3
Blondie - More Than This.mp3
Lineage...
Turntable - A vintage VIP Boyscout circa 1966 recently upgraded with a custom plinth hand made of Nubian Dragon wood illegally harvested from Djibouti at great personal risk but used for it's exceptionally nubian tonal response.
Tonearm - SMEK series 1984 modded with X-1R Crawler Track Lubricant from the Space Shuttle to give an out of this world character.
Cartridge - Koetsuzuki Ivory Platinum, a very limited production run of fifty three units, each one hand carved from a white key removed from the Blüthner Grand Piano that was used by The Beatles during the "Let it Be" sessions. The resulting musicality and magical aura is thought to be obvious to all.
Phono stage - Womanley Labs Marlin all tube stage with Russian Svetlanovski tubes that have had a few hundred months burn in time as used in the system of Sergei Rachmaninov as he listened to RCA Victor Program Transcription pressings of Beethoven symphonies for inspiration.
A/D converter - Apologee Schmenke 192 converter with firewire and vintage ESDI interfaces.
Cables - Galemark exclusively uses and endorses Lardas cables. They give him his signature fat sound. (Actually, Galemark would like you to know that he never uses any product as pedestrian as Lardas, but since they are paying him big bucks for the endorsement deal, that is what he is telling people.)
Software - Audacious for Vistakon OS with proprietary dither program written for me by Peter Gotcher because we're boys.
Cleaning - VIP Monsoon machine with a top secret fluid. This special enzymatic fluid is made with several proprietary agents, including pure bile removed from Steve Hoffman's gall bladder during his recent back surgery. The Hoffman magic shines through on every one of my drops.
Ugh...okay...I made all of that up...here is the actual "mid-fi" system that was used...
JVC QL-A7 direct drive turntable (with mods).
Audio-Technica AT440MLa Cartridge.
Marantz Model 2230 Receiver (Phono Pre).
Vinyl meticulously hand cleaned.
E-Mu 1212m soundcard capturing at 32 bit float, 192 khz.
Lightly polished with ClickRepair (unless completely manually declicked - see description)
Stray pops missed by CR manually removed with Audition single click tool (never batch processed).
Resampled and dithered with iZotope RX.
No other signal processing is used (unless noted in the description).
Another quality GALEMARK needledrop
"When you care enough to send the very best"
Always traded, never sold
Always trade lossless