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September 27, 2020 11:18 am  #1


Them "New Stereo Recordings"

As befits someone who has a few thousand CD's organized neatly all over his dwelling, I've managed to acquire a number of "re-records".  Most are from Canada but they do cover a pretty wide variety of what we would call "top 40" music.  Now that most of my vinyl has gone on to a nearby record shop, CD's have become my primary musical entertainment.  As I was reorganizing my collection (by category) a few questions showed up.  What is the usual method of paying the artists?  Is it a flat fee or is it based on sales?  I've pretty much dismissed them for my own listening pleasure, though I have heard a few where they rearranged the total approach and I did like them (The Del Vikings "Come Go With Me" back in the 70's is one). 

 

October 4, 2020 7:51 am  #2


Re: Them "New Stereo Recordings"

I did a bit of searching to see if I might be able to find an answer to your question. I didn't really find anything that directly addressed it, but I did come across the following article that I thought might be of interest. 
https://slate.com/culture/2013/05/re-recordings-runaway-and-other-classic-songs-redone-in-the-studio-can-we-stop-this-trend.html

 

October 4, 2020 9:32 am  #3


Re: Them "New Stereo Recordings"

Thanks Lorne. I must say I have a few compilation CDs that got my attention on the first play for this exact reason. Something was off. Some were thin sounding with no punch while others had bigger bolder sounds unlike the originals. I always assumed they were outtakes that some got cheap and put them out.

 

October 4, 2020 3:39 pm  #4


Re: Them "New Stereo Recordings"

Many years ago this issue came up on the former board, including the fact that a lot of these rerecordings came from Canada. I think that was mainly (and perhaps totally) because of a company that was then called Madacy Entertainment, that really seemed to specialize in this kind of thing. But even though I'm Canadian, I don't know anything about them beyond what you can read at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madacy_Lifestyle_Marketing ... I just came to realize that it was best to avoid Madacy CDs. I am very sympathetic to oldies artists who didn't make much money from their original recordings and often aren't making any money at all from them being reissued, but it's a shame that this has led to so many of them getting involved with inferior rerecordings. 

 

October 5, 2020 2:54 am  #5


Re: Them "New Stereo Recordings"

Lorne wrote:

Many years ago this issue came up on the former board, including the fact that a lot of these rerecordings came from Canada. I think that was mainly (and perhaps totally) because of a company that was then called Madacy Entertainment, that really seemed to specialize in this kind of thing. But even though I'm Canadian, I don't know anything about them beyond what you can read at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madacy_Lifestyle_Marketing ... I just came to realize that it was best to avoid Madacy CDs. I am very sympathetic to oldies artists who didn't make much money from their original recordings and often aren't making any money at all from them being reissued, but it's a shame that this has led to so many of them getting involved with inferior rerecordings. 

a tricky wicket, indeed. at least you can be sure the artists got paid something, if nominally, to do re-recordings. in a few cases for the better, too. several percy sledge re-recordings improved on the originals, i think, in regard to his vocal abilities having wisened and matured regardless of other aspects such as quality or continuity of instrumentation and/or production values.

generally though, that tends not to be the case of course, and it's often easy to get an artist who's been out of the spotlight for a while back into the studio cheaply, not in hopes of reviving a career, but in order to make a fast buck if possible for yourself...

in regard to royalties, laws have varied wildly worldwide, though i believe in the recent past there has been some attempts made toward international consolidation. records issued in some countries, regardless of origin of the masters they are produced from, are exempt from royalty payments as long as they are issued domestically and are not exported.

when these re-recorded discs are exported to other lands though, let the games begin. it would take an international entertainment law attorney's expertise to sort it all out, if possible. books may have been written on the subject. i'd imagine "billboard" has covered the subject, and their archives would be a good place to start if looking for info in that regard.

international re-issues of original recordings should be subject to license agreements, and artists may or may not be paid further royalties as stipulated in the artists' contract with a label or entity who currently owns the masters (as i understand it, not to say that i in fact do).

in any case, good luck enforcing whatever. artists, labels, and their respective lawyers, as far as i do understand the situation, are pretty much at the mercy of one country's willingness to cooperate with another when it comes to the collection and distribution of royalties, if any.

sadly, until the last two, maybe three, decades of the 20th century or so, few labels put a lot of thought or emphasis on international royalty or license agreements into their contracts. you may recall that, during the 80's and 90's, this resulted in a fairly massive influx of essentially bootleg mainly southeast asian and to a lesser extent eastern europen copies of albums, both new and re-issue , into a number of western countries. i remember "goldmine" magazine covering this phenomenon as well, so their archives, if they can be found, might also be a source of info if jim, or anyone else, is furtherly interested in the subject.

aside from the issue of royalties which concerns me greatly, as it should anyone of conscience, i'm a bit ok with it all. i mean, if somebody hears a crappy re-recording or poor quality disc (you ever heard a song pressed on x-ray film 'cause that's the only way you could get it?) and is perhaps inspired to seek out more and hopefully better performances, isn't that rekkid doin' its job?

Last edited by gopher (October 5, 2020 5:03 am)

 

October 5, 2020 8:30 am  #6


Re: Them "New Stereo Recordings"

Thanks for your response, goph. I figured that the whole situation was very complex and I certainly don't know that much about it, so I appreciate you providing more details and insight into this. 

Going back to when I was around 10 years old, I started caring about artists I enjoyed from the 50s and 60s that weren't having hits any more. If they had simply moved on to having some other type of career, that was fine, but I cared about the ones who were still trying to make a living as musicians but might be struggling to get by. And as I became more aware of how poorly many of them had been treated, that made me care even more about such issues. 

So I can really sympathize with why some of them may just do these rerecordings because they need the money. I wish more of them were able to do what you mentioned with respect to Percy Sledge. I figured that there would be examples like that out there, but as you say that isn't usually the case.

Sometimes with these rerecordings, I've felt that the backing instrumentation in particular could have been done much better. But I've felt that this is the fault of the people producing the recording doing things on the cheap, or just not making the effort to make the rerecording sound more like the original. And as a Canadian, I find it particularly unfortunate that Madacy has put out so much material like that. It would be bad enough if there CDs were just being sold here, but I think that the fact that their CDs have been sold so widely in the US has given Canada a bad reputation in this regard.

 

October 6, 2020 7:41 am  #7


Re: Them "New Stereo Recordings"

can't say if i've ever had or heard a madacy disc or not, though it's probable i have. if they're all as bad as that, then at least they probably don't have many repeat customers. the label may have a bad rep, but i wouldn't worry so much about canada.

for a start, i doubt if any but a small percentage of folks who buy best of, greatest hits, and the like, comps in particular are interested in where they're made, or would know where, or be interested, to look on a label to find out. and it would be a fickle consumer indeed who would question any but that label's product, simply because of where it was produced, at least certainly anywhere in the west.

and almost surely, pretty much any serious record collector, anywhere in the world, would know better than to make such a foolish judgement based on one label's output.

so, fear not. it's quite unlikely that stony plain will ever be confused with madacy, or be blown off because of its (allegedly) inferior product. that said, being vigilant in regard to your country's reputation is no vice, and your concern whether or not warranted is commendable and appreciated here.



 

Last edited by gopher (October 6, 2020 1:33 pm)

 

October 6, 2020 12:06 pm  #8


Re: Them "New Stereo Recordings"

As someone who worked in market research, I definitely see where you're coming from about this ... I was basing my comments on a small sample size of people from the former board who of course would be more serious oldies fans. Sometimes Madacy would be specifically mentioned, whereas other times the comments would just reference oldies CDs from Canada (I'm not sure if any other companies were ever involved). I agree that this wouldn't have made people think that a label like Stony Plain wasn't to be trusted, but I certainly did feel that Madacy was giving Canada a bad rep for inferior rerecordings that were being widely distributed in the US.

I don't know that there would be any particular reason why so many of them came from here, but I wonder if there could be any difference in laws relating to the labelling of such material. One trick I recall is that oldies CDs by various artists would be labelled as being by "Original Artists", to obscure the fact that they were not the original recordings. Bottom line is that I didn't like the fact that a lot of Americans ended up buying very inferior CDs that came from here. But I'm sure you're right about Madacy not having too many repeat customers once people caught on to what they were doing, and they may no longer be in business because they don't seem to have a website any more. 

 

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