Why no remastered Metallica? (1 Viewer)

[Jeff Adkins]

With all the remastering going on of back-catalog these days, I can't understand why Elektra hasn't gone back and done the early Metallica records. Mainly, I just want the first 3 and maybe even Justice. Is there some politics involved here? Certainly this can't be an oversight. Many less-successful bands have had their catalogs remastered.
Jeff

 

[Andrew 'Ange Hamm' Hamm]

That's a GREAT question! And Justice For All is one of the most famous badly mixed albums of all time; from the moment it streeted the band complained about the lack of bass. That would seem to be a perfect candidate.

NP: Michael W Smith - Worship

 

[Iain Brown]

Elektra may not have remastered any of Metallica's albums but Ride The Lightning and Master Of Puppets have been remastered by DCC on 24 Karet Gold Discs. I own both of these any they sound unbelieveable. According to a recent interview with Steve Hoffman, the guy who remastered RTL and MOP, he plans on releasing Kill 'Em All, Justice and the Black Album hopefully later this year. I can't wait to hear Justice with Jason Newstead's Bass. Hope this helped.

 

[Shawn McBride]

Iain, you beat me to it. My damn coffee fix slowed me down. I have both of those remasters and they sound much better than the originals. The guitars are just really thick and chunky sounding and and the drums totally pound!
I'm really curious to see how much Steve Hoffman could do with ...Justice since all he's doing is working with is the master tapes. He's not changing the original mix at all.

 

[Greg_Y]

I found the 2 DCC Gold Hoffman remasters at Circuit City for $24.99 each less than a year ago. So they're still floating around out there. Well worth the price.

 

[Robert V]

Picked up a RTL remaster from amazon.com. paid around $24. If you like older metallica albums, this is a must have

 

[Trevor H]

Must be a US thing because here in Canada you can get remastered versions of Kill 'Em All, Ride The Lightning, Master Of Puppets, ...And Justice For All, & Metallica (Black Album) I have all of them.

 

[Robert V]

Hows the remastered version of the Black akbum compared to the original? The original sounds pretty good IMO! Just curious if there is/are differences in quality.

 

[Jeff Adkins]

Thanks for the quick responses. Sounds like I may have to get those DCC issues of RTL and MOP.

Jeff

 

[Todd Stout]

Has there been any word on the re-release of the DCC Master Of Puppets and Ride The Lightning CDs? Any word on any of the other Steve Hoffman Metallica remasters for DCC?
Link Removed

 

[KeithH]

Jeff,

That is a great question. I wish I had the answer. I too have the DCC gold-CD versions of Ride the Lightning and Master of Puppets, and they are excellent. It's too bad Steve Hoffman hasn't worked with the rest of their catalog. Maybe someday, or maybe Warner will re-do the entire Metallica catalog.

The only thing I have seen Warner/Elektra do over the years in the US is reissue Kill 'Em All. The original version had a couple extra tracks that were left off the current version. I have both and will never part with the original version.

Trevor,

Thanks for the information. I had no idea that Metallica's catalog had been remastered anywhere.

I wonder how good the Canadian remasters are relative to the CDs we have available in the US. In perusing hmv.com I noticed that the remastered versions of Kill 'Em All, Ride the Lightning, and Master of Puppets were issued in 1991, so they aren't exactly new. They obviously were not remastered in 24/96 PCM, for example.

 

[FrankT]

I have both the orignial Canadian Justice disk and the "remastered" one (it had a little silver sticker on it that said "remastered") and it is not much of an improvment to me. I would think that the US verions would also be the "remastered" version as well. Anyway, it really needs to be remastered properly.

 

[KeithH]

Frank, thanks for the information. Warner has released some nice remasters in the past year or two, so hopefully they will get around to re-doing the Metallica catalog. They have to know that the remasters would be a big hit.

 

[Matt Birchall]

For as financially strapped as Metallica is, after the whole Napster debacle, I'd think they'd want to get some remasters out on the market as quickly as possible, to try and make back some of the millions (and possibly billions) of dollars they've lost from the whole ordeal. . .

(Where's that dead horse, anyway?)