This is a wonderful compilation of music from The Smiths BUT CD ONE HAS BEEN POORLY TREATED! In fact I would normally put a CD in this condition out for collection on the street (in the hope that someone may use it for a creative art piece! It happens ...)
But this is the music of The Smiths and I could not bear to subject it to this fate.
I give full details of the playability of this release below but suffice to say, CD ONE has been badly damaged (mainly scuff marks) but thankfully CD TWO is perfect and shows no signs of playability problems
My price reflects the poor condition of CD ONE, although you CAN still play some tracks ... read on
THE SMITHS - The Sound Of (Compilation)
Rhino Records
Cat# 2564693717
2008
Australian release (remastered)
Double jewel case, front cover and rear insert are all in very good condition.
There are two CD's, called CD ONE and CD TWO. Here follows a detailed description of both CD media and the playability
CD ONE:
CD media is in poor condition, visually inspected and one of the staff members did not look after this disc. It has considerable scuff marking, particularly from around the halfway point of the data area, right out to the outer edge. Most marks/scratches are light but some (particularly after the halfway point in the data area) are of considerable concern.
Test machine TASCAM 601 (an old but trusty ex broadcast machine)
I then played the CD, the TOC reads fine and away she goes playing tracks 1 ~ 11 without any audible issues although I did see a higher data error rate on my test equipment but not so much that it affected the CD playback audibly - sounds great!
Then all sorts of issues begin from track 12 until the end of CD ONE. The laser keeps losing track of where it is, going backwards a few seconds or more - it tries it's best to play these later tracks but the media has been too severly damaged, it's a bit like a map showing your location based on GPS information and suddenly the GPS is turned off - the map then becomes extremely confused, so it is with the CD tracking - it cannot figure out where it is reading from on the CD media. So in effect, the end result is that you have a "half-a-CD" that is playable.
CD TWO:
Thank goodness for the second disc.
The media is in very good condition. Visually inspected under a bright white halogen light source and I can only see one VERY faint little mark. I then played the ENTIRE CD, all tracks, and there are absolutely no problems with CD TWO. Actually this was very fortunate because some of the more interesting songs are on CD TWO anyway!
So, in the spirit of sustainability and not discarding everything because it is not perfect, this double CD set is being offered for a token amount to barely cover the time taken testing and playing the release.
CD ONE
TRACKS: Hand In Glove, This Charming Man, What Difference Does It Make? - Peel Session version, Still Ill, Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now, William, It Was Really Nothing, How Soon Is Now? - 12" version, Nowhere Fast, Shakespeare's Sister, Barbarism Begins At Home - 7" version, That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore
NO FURTHER CD ONE TRACK TITLES WILL BE LISTED AS THEY ARE PRETTY WELL UNPLAYABLE
CD TWO
TRACKS: Wonderful Woman, Back To The Old House, These Things Take Time, Girl Afraid, Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want, Stretch Out And Wait, Oscillate Wildly, Meat Is Murder - Live performance, Asleep, Money Changes Everything, The Queen Is Dead, Vicar In A Tutu, Cemetry Gates, Half A Person, Sweet And Tender Hooligan, Pretty Girls Make Graves (Troy Tate Demo), Stop Me If You Think That You've Heard This One Before, What's The World? - Live performance, London - Live performance
