For years I pined for a good cut on CD of "Cut Across Shorty" and in fact the whole Gasoline Alley album. Old college day memories of a mostly out-of-print album. Now, most of my rocking friends back then were audiophiles in their own way, and one thing I always have noticed is that the production quality of Rod's albums left a little something to be desired, while personnel, song choices, arrangement, were all mostly fantastic. At the time you could take Highway by Free and just be blown away by the dynamics of Kossoff's guitar and Paul Rodgers vocals: so why couldn't Rod's people capture that close realistic sound?

The truth is that it's got something to do with Rod's vocal style, which is a remarkable head voice charging up effortlessly into falsetto range while retaining most of the power of a full-out tenor in his throat range. It's simply much harder to mike up a voice like this accurately, compared to more baritone voices like the abovementioned Rodgers or, say, Freddie Mercury or David Bowie. This shows up with Led Zep also, since Plant's voice, which like Rod's may not be a falsetto, is in the falsetto range and requires the same kind of breathing and acoustics. There is a certain muddiness to the mixes for what were usually two and four track mixes at the time. Still, a lot can be done.

These masterings, I am pretty sure, coming over a Cambridge audio system and Athena floor speakers, or over my Tascam reference desktop monitors, are done about as well as they could be, and the result is very gratifying in that it sounds a lot better than the original albums did. Rod's instrumental arrangements, for these early albums, favored acoustic and folk-like ensemble play, similar to amny Faces arrangements. I should add that this offering culls pretty near all of the memorable and well-done tracks from The Rod Stewart album, Gasoline Alley, Every Picture Tells a Story, Never a Dull Moment, and Smiler. I think. So here you have a full album version of Maggie May, Cut Across Shorty, I'm Losing You, Twisting the Night Away, Every Picture Tells A Story, Mandolin Wind...and so on. I don't think I have to vouch for the quality of recording or of the songs, even with the very negative review this has received so far. What I found was several hours of real listening pleasure where I could hear ever nuance of the mandolin and Ron Wood's guitars and slides and Rod's amazing voice. (Most of the personnel were usually the same familiar suspects who show up on Faces albums, and absolutely tight and excellent as an ensemble.)

This CD was exactly what I had been looking for, and I am glad I found it, at a very bargain bin price, and I continue to listen to it, misogyny, excess. folkiness , and all: I love the Rod from this era, I had wanted to replace all that old vinyl and the old memories with something fresh for years: this CD allowed me to do exactly that. If you don't already have the whole works from 1969 up to about 1975, then forget about it until they release updates authorized by Rod of all his back catalog, and get the individual albums, which are usually a fantastic value these days. But for now, if you just wanted to hear some of that old, early Rod, this is quite a good deal.

If you're not familiar with the term "loudness compression", go to Wikipedia and search "loudness wars". In that article, there is also a link to an excellent You Tube audio/video demonstration of this reprehensible practice, which is being propagated by bean-counter record company executives.

The technical explanation of loudness compression is the application of an increasingly high ratio of compression to the dynamic range of a particular recording, and then increasing the gain of the recording, until the peaks have reached maximum. In layman's terms, what this means is there are no longer any quiet or loud passages in the recording, EVERYTHING is at the same volume.

Basically, the iPod is responsible for the proliferation of this practice. When music is played back thru iPod earbuds in any environment where there is ambient noise present, by having the volume artificially jacked across the entire music spectrum, you can hear the content more clearly. However, when you listen to the same recording thru a home audio system, it sounds like the music is coming thru a megaphone.

Universal recently released several artists in this "Playlist Plus" series. All of them are classic examples of this insidious process. The original dynamic range of these recordings has been totally obliterated, and the vocals are nearly buried by the instruments. It's just AWFUL, and quickly tiring, to listen to.

I've used the following analogy previously reviewing other, similarly-bastardized "remasters", but it really does clarify what you're going to hear if you waste your money on this travesty: Imagine Stewart & band on stage in a concert venue with an appropriately-sized concert sound system. Every instrument in the band is piped thru the main system, EXCEPT Stewart, who is amplified only by a small speaker onstage... THAT'S what this set (and every other Playlist title) sounds like.

There are a plethora of compilations of Stewart's Mercury recordings, most of which are far preferable to this abomination. Also, just like every other Playlist set, all of the music here would easily fit on two CD's, so the 3rd disc is just a marketing ploy to fool you that you're getting something extra when you're not.

Avoid this set, and the entire Universal "Playlist" series, like you would AIDS.