I remember the days when we could be in packed venues, shoulder to shoulder, sweat and heaps of fun enjoying bands such as Mi-Sex (NZ 1970's) and Baby Animals in the late 1980's and so many more - seems like an alien world now!
Most the time if a CD has issues (I play every single CD I offer - completely) they get used by others to create wonderfully creative works of art on the wall!
But sometimes, I come across some special music which I hope someone else can find a use for - Baby Animals are one such band, I just couldn't bear to see their music glued up on a wall mosaic!
PLEASE READ THIS DESCRIPTION CAREFULLY, I HAVE FULLY DESCRIBED WHAT THE "ISSUES" ARE ...
ISSUES: (details are below)
Usually I test play every CD ENTIRELY on an assortment of consumer CD machines (Sony, Marantz etc) but this CD gave unreliable reads (details below) unless I used my professional Marantz or Tascam equipment, which is more "forgiving" of marks/scratches and they have better error correction circuits.
So these issues I describe below will occur on SOME machines but not nearly as bad on others - it really depends how good your CD player is at reading the CD layer and allowing for surface errors.
Some machines (like my Tascam etc) will not show any playback problems (EXCEPT the last track) at all but others will "hiccup" in the latter tracks.
Baby Animals - Australian Tour Edition June 1992
Imago
Cat# 210022D
1992 (Reissue of the original tour release in 1991)
Digipak is a 3 way foldout. Overall it is in good condition but it has seen some handling wear (look at the photographs) and medium edge wear for the same reason. Front of the digipak has a retail marketing sticker "Album of the year ...) There is no writing anywhere on the digipak. No tears on the digipak and the CD hub is still in great condition. The inside front of the digipak has a booklet insert, 12 panel. This booklet is in great shape.
CD media is in good (minus) condition. Visually inspected under a bright white halogen light source and I can see quite a number of very light scratches but a couple towards the outer edges of the data area that concern me. I then played the ENTIRE release, every single track (often repeatedly!) and here is the issues that occurred with a "normal domestic grade" CD player that doesn't have particularly good laser reading/error correction design:
Tracks 1 ~ 8 (inclusive) absolutely no problems - very good play without any "glitches"
Once you start getting to the outer data area (where there are a number of marks/scratches) things start to go a bit flakey!
Track 9 (One Too Many) - this track does have a couple of quick glitches (glitches glitches sort of thing) which are short but cause "double beats" and then continue on with the song. It is still very listenable, just ignore the drummer getting out of time a little!
Track 10 (Ain't Gonna Get) - this track does have serious issues, in fact at around 2 minutes into the song, the CD loses its tracking and skips backwards, continuing on until it reaches the same point and skips backwards, continuing on .... get the idea? You can skip over this area but later on it is a bit dodgy as well - not a good play on this track.
Track 11 (Some Things Are Better - Live) this track has jumping issues at 3:33, jumps back a few seconds, plays then jumps back again and again and again - trying to skip over the area 3:33 really doesn't help - this track is great if you like LONG guitar riffs (where the skipping occurs) but otherwise, very dodgy!
Track 12 (Working For The Enemy - Live) oh dear this one is BAD, jumps at 00:52 and goes back a few seconds OR right back to track 9! Lost cause unless you like listening to the intro of this track only!
Track 13 (Big Time Friends - Live) another sad track, jumping again.
Track 14 (Smile On My Face - Live) yes, this track also skips - jump back starts at around 01:10, jumps to the beginning of the same track.
So, for the most part, this is a great nostalgic studio recording of the band unless you particularly wished to hear the complete live tracks, then its an audible nightmare UNLESS you have a CD player that has a really good laser read head with decent error correction built in! But even with really well reading CD equipment, the last track is still very dodgy - there is only so much even a pro machine can do!
You could even consider this release as a "Test CD" for your own equipment!
Track Listing: Rush You, Early Warning, Painless, Make It End, Working For The Enemy, One Word, Break My Heart, Waste Of Time, One Too Many ***, Ain't Gonna Get ***
Bonus live tracks: Some Things Are Better - Live performance (Rotterdam) ***, Working For The Enemy (Live performance (Rotterdam) ***, Big Time Friends (Live performance (Rotterdam) ***, Smile On My Face - Live performance (Rotterdam) ***
*** this denotes tracks with media issues
If you do have a really top notch CD player that can read discs no matter how bad the media surface is, then you can ignore ALMOST ALL of the above - it will play EVERY TRACK beautifully EXCEPT track 14!
