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John Williams & Boston Pops Orchestra - Complete Philips Recordings (NEW 2022 21-CD boxset)


Jay

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Yeah that figures, I, too, just purchased a ton of these used on eBay and Amazon in the last 1-2 years  ROTFLMAO

 

January 14th??  You'd think it'd be a 4th quarter release for the holiday season.

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These releases didn't make the cut for whatever reason...

 

Some of these also credit Arthur Fiedler which could be one reason.

 

  • That's Entertainment
  • The Very Best of the Boston Pops
  • Music from the Star Wars Saga
  • Pops Stoppers
  • Salute
  • Over the Rainbow
  • Kid Stuff
  • Space-Taculars
  • Wish Upon a Star
  • America the Beautiful
  • Romance Classics
  • American Classics
  • Encore!
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11 minutes ago, bollemanneke said:

That's where my normaliser comes in and delivers.

 

Oh I personally tweaked my own files with Audacity, for the more problematic albums, like "The Planets", "Pops Britannia", and two or three more...

 

3 minutes ago, ATXHusker said:

These releases didn't make the cut for whatever reason...

 

Some of these also credit Arthur Fiedler which could be one reason.

 

  • That's Entertainment
  • The Very Best of the Boston Pops
  • Music from the Star Wars Saga
  • Pops Stoppers
  • Salute
  • Over the Rainbow
  • Kid Stuff
  • Space-Taculars
  • Wish Upon a Star
  • America the Beautiful
  • Romance Classics
  • American Classics
  • Encore!

 

It's because they are compilations.

 

All the original material will be on the boxset.

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2 minutes ago, Bespin said:

It's because they are compilations.

 

All the original material will be on the Philips boxset.

 

 

Technically all of these are compilations, right?  :)

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Thor get out of this body.

 

In the record business, a "compilation" is mainly made of previously released material, often taken from various sources.

 

A new album, is a new album.

 

In a discography, original albums and compilations are two different categories.

 

And as you don't understand the difference, you asked this stupid question in your post! ;)

 

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That's Entertainment is NOT a compilation album!

 

It was the third album released in the line, after Pops on the March and before We Wish You A Merry Christmas.

 

 

The rest of those titles listed are just compilation of already released recordings, indeed.

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3 minutes ago, Jay said:

That's Entertainment is NOT a compilation album!

 

The rest he listed are.

 

Maybe it's missing from the list because it have been merged with another album on the same CD... well I hope!

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Definitely getting this. It will go nicely next to the John Williams & Steven Spielberg: The Ultimate Collection set and the John Williams: Conductor box set.

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There's something unusual going on, because there was 22 albums in the series, and only 20 discs here.  They seem to be combining the new music from By Request with Pops Britannia, but dropping That's Entertainment entirely.... and presenting them in a different order then they were released in?

 

1 1980 Pops in Space 1.Pops on the March
2 1980 Pops on the March 2.Pops in Space
3 1981 That's Entertainment  
4 1981 We Wish You A Merry Christmas 3.We wish you a merry Christmas
5 1982 Pops Around The World (Digital Overtures) 4.Pops around the World
6 1982 Aisle Seat 5.Aisle Seat - Great Film Music
7 1983 Out of This World 6.Out of this World
8 1984 On Stage 11.On Stage
9 1984 Peter and the Wolf/Nutcracker 7.Prokofieff: Peter and the Wolf; Tchaikovsky: The Nutcracker (excerpts)
10 1984 With A Song In My Heart 8.With a Song in my Heart
11 1985 Swing, Swing, Swing 9.Swing, swing, swing
12 1985 America, The Dream Goes On 10.America, the Dream goes on
13 1986 Bernstein by Boston 12.Bernstein by Boston
14 1987 Pops in Love 13.Pops in Love
15 1987 Holst - The Planets 14.Holst: The Planets
16 1987 By Request 20.By Request / Pops Britannia
17 1988 Digital Jukebox 15.Digital Jukebox
18 1989 Pops Britannia 20.By Request / Pops Britannia
19 1989 Salute to Hollywood 17.Salute to Hollywood
20 1990 Pops a la Russe 18.Pops a la Russe
21 1990 Pops by George: The Music of Gershwin 19.Pops by Gershwin
22 1992 Lucky To Be Me 16.Lucky to be me
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2 minutes ago, Jurassic Shark said:

It's not uncommon that the big labels forget to include everything in such boxes... they don't know what's in their vaults.

 

...or perhaps the masters burned in the Universal fire...

 

If it's not remastered, it's just a copy and paste of the old CDs... exactly like Sony did for their Conductor boxset.

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If it's not remastered, I will not get this boxset. I have all the original CDs.

 

I know, I purchased the Sony boxset, even if I had all the CDs... but the cover was COOL.

 

"CONDUCTOR"... WOW!!!! :P

 

I doubt that Decca will use a cool cover for their new boxset.

 

Decca is the poor children of Universal... and Universal means "cheap" from the word "cheap".

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38 minutes ago, Jay said:

There's something unusual going on, because there was 22 albums in the series, and only 20 discs here.  They seem to be combining the new music from By Request with Pops Britannia, but dropping That's Entertainment entirely.... and presenting them in a different order then they were released in?

 

1 1980 Pops in Space 1.Pops on the March
2 1980 Pops on the March 2.Pops in Space
3 1981 That's Entertainment  
4 1981 We Wish You A Merry Christmas 3.We wish you a merry Christmas
5 1982 Pops Around The World (Digital Overtures) 4.Pops around the World
6 1982 Aisle Seat 5.Aisle Seat - Great Film Music
7 1983 Out of This World 6.Out of this World
8 1984 On Stage 11.On Stage
9 1984 Peter and the Wolf/Nutcracker 7.Prokofieff: Peter and the Wolf; Tchaikovsky: The Nutcracker (excerpts)
10 1984 With A Song In My Heart 8.With a Song in my Heart
11 1985 Swing, Swing, Swing 9.Swing, swing, swing
12 1985 America, The Dream Goes On 10.America, the Dream goes on
13 1986 Bernstein by Boston 12.Bernstein by Boston
14 1987 Pops in Love 13.Pops in Love
15 1987 Holst - The Planets 14.Holst: The Planets
16 1987 By Request 20.By Request / Pops Britannia
17 1988 Digital Jukebox 15.Digital Jukebox
18 1989 Pops Britannia 20.By Request / Pops Britannia
19 1989 Salute to Hollywood 17.Salute to Hollywood
20 1990 Pops a la Russe 18.Pops a la Russe
21 1990 Pops by George: The Music of Gershwin 19.Pops by Gershwin
22 1992 Lucky To Be Me 16.Lucky to be me

 

Is any of the albums short enough to be combined with That's Entertainment on one CD?

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All of the early albums are around 40 minutes, though none are actually under 40 minutes.  So if they are limiting themselves to 80 minute CDs then no.  If they are overburning to 81-84 minutes, then yes.

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That’s Entertainment clocks in at almost exactly 41 minutes. So it would have to be an album 39 minutes or less.  A lot of them hover around that 40 minute mark.  I suspect, though, that it just won’t be here, since it’s not listed.

 

I’ll just use this as a checklist to pick up used/cheap copies of the 2-3 I don’t have instead.

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10 minutes ago, mstrox said:

That’s Entertainment clocks in at almost exactly 41 minutes. So it would have to be an album 39 minutes or less.  A lot of them hover around that 40 minute mark.  I suspect, though, that it just won’t be here, since it’s not listed.

 

I’ll just use this as a checklist to pick up used/cheap copies of the 2-3 I don’t have instead.

 

Maybe Decca put 1-2 tracks of it at the end of some CDs.... It's called a "quartering", but it's legit!

 

DECCA, WE HAVE A PROBLEM!!!

 

WE NEED A TRACKLIST NOW!

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1 minute ago, Hedji said:

How cool!  I was considering following the Jay path.  Getting them used could still end up being cheaper.  Maybe.

 

Never follow Jay's Path, it's at your own risks and perils!

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Maybe it's just a copy&paste issue, and "That's Entertainment" didn't get in the page by mistake.
They even dropped the "J" of John Williams in the description of the set, showing as "ohn Williams"...

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It's not unusual for a website to make several errors when announcing a product 5 months before release date. If it says complete, there's absolutely no doubt that That's Entertainment will be included. At this point, I wouldn't consider the disc ordering or contents to be final. 

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10 hours ago, Jay said:

 

Is this the only link available to pre-order this, or will it be available to pre-order on, say, Amazon? Just wondering.

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7 hours ago, Jay said:

There's something unusual going on, because there was 22 albums in the series, and only 20 discs here.  They seem to be combining the new music from By Request with Pops Britannia, but dropping That's Entertainment entirely.... and presenting them in a different order then they were released in?

 

Combining the tracks newly recorded for By Request along with Pops Britannia would push that disc to 85 minutes, according to an iTunes playlist, unless they were to remove Orb and Sceptre, with was originally from Pops on the March.

 

That's something else about the Philips CDs, many of them include tracks that were originally included on earlier albums.  Maybe if they remove all of the duplicated material they can get it down to 20 discs?  I don't know if it's really that much of a difference, but if they don't want to keep the original album setlists, maybe it could be done?  It seems unlikely, since the announcement clearly listed the album titles...  more likely somebody simply forgot the existence of That's Entertainment.  Hopefully by January it will all shake out and become a 22-disc set, with That's Entertainment and the full By Request... album included.

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9 hours ago, Jay said:

All of the early albums are around 40 minutes, though none are actually under 40 minutes.  So if they are limiting themselves to 80 minute CDs then no.  If they are overburning to 81-84 minutes, then yes.

 

Universal are known to break the Redbook standard in order to fit more music onto CDs when necessary. So it's possible that That's Entertainment is included on one of the discs, but they forgot to list it. 

 

However, someone with connections should make them aware of this, now, before the set gets pressed, in case they've forgotten to include the album.

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Ah.....And I only bought from Japan: America,The Dream Goes On and By Request.. (as a duplicate) a few months ago! 
 

But since Iam missing about 15 of them, this box set will be mine. Funny thing I was earlier in the day just thinking of asking Mike Matessino if he would have been considered by Williams gang to remaster these for future proofing them; since he did that Boston Pops recording of the ‘Inside the Mothership’ cue for the Close Encounters set. But alas these are giant labels unto themselves. He kinda rolled his eyes when I asked him later. lol.

 

I think the That’s Entertainment CD could have been merged in between the way By Request and the Britannia album are listed..or this listing is preliminary and will hopefully be revised as more details come forth?

 


 

 

 

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Many (if not most, if not all) digital recordings done by Philips in the 1980s were some of the very best available in terms of sound quality, rivalling Telarc and far outstripping, say, DG, who really went through a funny patch back then. I’ve not got a single Philips Digital Classics CD from back then that doesn’t sound tip-top on my fairly high-end rig. Considering some of the electronics that will have been used (DACs in the 80s were mostly fairly primitive compared to today), this is “impressive… most impressive”.

 

If you want to add a crap-ton of compression to your rips, then please go ahead - what you do in the privacy of your own copy of Audacity is no business of mine - but please don’t whine about it on a public forum where the grown-ups might hear you and think that’s what everyone wants on the master release. You can add compression to an uncompressed recording if that’s how you get your kicks, but I can’t remove it if I want to hear what JW actually heard in Symphony Hall back in the day. Which I do.
 

In sound quality terms, these excellent recordings need a modern-style (i.e. compressed to sound OK on FM radio or a free pair of earbuds) remastering like we need another Universal fire.

 

Mark

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10 minutes ago, QuartalHarmony said:

If you want to add a crap-ton of compression to your rips, then please go ahead - what you do in the privacy of your own copy of Audacity is no business of mine - but please don’t whine about it on a public forum where the grown-ups might hear you and think that’s what everyone wants on the master release. You can add compression to an uncompressed recording if that’s how you get your kicks, but I can’t remove it if I want to hear what JW actually heard in Symphony Hall back in the day. Which I do.

 

He's talking to you, @Bespin!

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I can tell you that Emilio Audissino wrote a new introductory essay for this release.

 

I can also confirm this is going to be 20 discs, as That's Entertainment is not part of the collection (don't ask me why) and By Request has been shortened by the pieces that were culled from previous recordings (so you'll get just Olympic Fanfare, Liberty Fanfare, The Mission Theme, the 1941 March and the Jaws main theme) and coupled with selections from Pops Britannia (including the suite from Jane Eyre) on a single disc.

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