inspirit wrote:

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I read somewhere that brickwalling is bad for the hearing - as there are no lulls in intensity, the mechanism by which the ears protect themselves from loud noise relaxes and are not protected. I don't listen to music very loud, but getting older, it's worrying that more releases are following this pattern. Does anyone have technology to check if this is true of More and DC30?

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 Brickwalling is not True or False. It's a question of levels. You can try to open some tracks with a software like Audacity and see how the graph looks like.

I used myself Audacity to boost the sound levels of the It/Freaks/Separation remasters (2012) to reach the level on the 2006 H&H/DC/TIH remasters. I also boosted the sound level on the Intro original CD. 

Scottbloodyfrazer wrote:

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What does Brickwalling mean? Im not quite down with you younguns these days.

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 Basically it's the variation between the loud and quiet parts, the dynamic range. When something is brickwallef it means the loud bits and the quiet bits are all at the same volume ie loud.

Do artists not care about "loudness wars"? Maybe you have to be an audiophile to really let it bug you but Jarvis has produced records and has sat in on remastering of this album at Abbey Road. He's also suffered from tinnitus.

You would think he'd cares about this although shilling the new DC deluxe LP as a 45RPM record rather than 33 suggests maybe not. New money for old, louder rope...

This is all rather impressive stuff. Thanks for the info.

His 'n' Hers 25th anniversary release in 2019 was remastered at Abbey Road, supervised by Steve Mackey according to the press release. There was a photo posted earlier that year of Steve and Jarvis at the mixing desk together, with Geoff Pesche, "working on something special to be revealed soon".

In Steve's statement in late 2022 when the new Pulp tour was first announced, he said: "Jarvis and I remastered Pulp's entire Universal Records back catalogue together just over two years ago at Abbey Road Studios. It was a huge pleasure to do that and review our songs and recordings together." (e.g. quoted by the NME here)

When the Record Store Day version of Intro was released in 2024, this was also described as having been remastered at Abbey Road. (There was no mention of Steve or Jarvis.) 

The press release for DC30 included "The audio has been remastered/mastered by Geoff Pesche at Abbey Road, overseen by Jarvis ****er and Mark Webber", e.g. reported by SDE here. (So it sounds as though this might not be from the same remastering session that Steve was involved in. Certainly I would have thought they would have made a feature of Steve's involvement, if so. Or... perhaps someone credited Jarvis and Mark when it should have been Jarvis and Steve?)

-- Edited by hawalius1 on Tuesday 28th of October 2025 12:58:40 PM

I'd be surprised if they have re-remastered Different Class again since circa 2019 but perhaps... a few years have passed, maybe Jarvis wanted another opinion from Mark to listen to what he, Steve and Geoff Pesche had done.

My vinyl deluxe set arrived today. It's an absolutely gorgeous-looking thing. The alternate covers are all glossily reproduced as cardboard sleeves. Both albums have their own plastic sleeves, the wonderful "Please understand..." album message is embossed beautifully.

Mild spoilers below so I'll put in the spoiler tag...

 

Spoiler

There is a note, presumably written by Mark (it sounds like him!) about how the multi-track master-tapes for the Glastonbury '95 album couldn't be found but they've used the best existing sources possible and remixed it (i.e Russell's violin not being quite as piercing as it is on the TV footage). It's well-explained, fair play for him/them to get into the details of it. Also, judging by the writing credits, Mark is now given co-writer status for Underwear and Common People! And Do You Remember The First Time? per the back of the Sorted - Live At Glastonbury credits, unless an error was made on that one (maybe not, he did come up with the bass line to the chorus, albeit partially lifting it from Bowie's 'Heroes' according to the man himself!).

The new essay in the booklet is decent, a few nice stories and quotes that I don't think have been told before along with the familar story about Glastonbury '95  that we all know quite well by now. I would have loved to have read more about the genesis of the songs, of how the material came together in Catcliffe and then London during mad rushes between recording and promoting Common People.

Also, it would have been great to see some pictures of the band in the studio recording the record - Russell being moody away from everyone, trying to design his board-game, Chris Thomas calling the shots in the control room etc. Of course there's a good chance that none of that exists! Still, I do get a feeling there are more images in the archive - the strings session at Air Studios in summer '95 was snapped by I think Mark and shared somewhere (could have been the Different Class Twitter listening party 5 years ago). The centre-fold of the iconic Common People shoot with an alternate snap is fantastic. Quite funny that there's another customer in the cafe, just out of the original shot, looking out the window like the rest of the band. I wonder who she was and what happened to her! In fact, the visuals for Different Class, using the cut-outs, is so striking even 30 years on that it's understandable that they would want to reproduce as many images as possible from the campaign.

I haven't listened to the records yet, Discogs is always full of audiophile critiques, I don't want to feel bad about having spent a lot of money on my favourite ever album so haven't read what's been said but apparently there are mutterings of disapproval. The whole 45 RPM actually being 33RPM is a little embarassing to be honest, and given the price-point of this release, is something that Universal/Pulp should probably front-up. I can't see a mention of the album being cut at 45RPM any more on some of the online stores selling it i.e HMV, Rough Trade - does anyone know if the descriptions have been quietly edited?!

I've checked the Midweek Charts and Different Class is currently at number 13! That will likely fall as all the pre-orders will have been counted already but still, it's probably in the region of 1k-2k units sold. With the vinyl box retailing at nearly £100, that's not a bad old return. More impressive, in a way, is the fact that Different Class was at number 128 in the charts last week - i.e the standard version. Which, (depressingly, in a way) is probably higher than More. The Mercury Prize effect wasn't as much as might have been expected. More was at number 99 in the physical charts (but not the overall charts) the week of the Prize, and is at 94 the week after.

Fair play, you deserve the comic after buying DC30 more than once!

I assume the mix on this release for the Glastonbury '95 tracks is of equal quality to the radio broadcast at least? Judging by the notes, they've clearly spent time on locating the best sources to make it sound as good as possible.

The mix of the Glastonbury set is very much different than what is already in public domain. A couple of songs sound like there is no difference (common people for sure as it was released on the misshapes single - I'm certain that it is the same mix, Disco 2000 sounds pretty much as radio broadcast, but I assure you - this new version of Glastonbury 95 is far superior to anything else out there. I won't spoiler too much, but just listen to DYRTFT?, and Pink Glove in particular. A lot more focus on the synths :)

As for DC 30 itself, there are subtle differences, not just in volume but certain instruments are more apparent. Feeling Called Love, Common People, Monday Morning, Sorted all majorly improved. As for the others, I'm struggling to notice too much different apart from volume levels.

Well, I got stiffed on the stickers - I pre-ordered the CD only, from the 'stickers' link at Sound Of Vinyl - but they didn't come.

Not surprised, I bet they only went out with the LP, but disappointed I spent an extra £3 on the shop price.

(Not disappointed with the CD though - Pink Glove and especially Acrylic Afternoons are tremendous.)

Can anyone share anything about the stickers, as I can't find images or info about them?

Thanks for sharing @luckyduck , they look lovely.

The LP's still available from the Pulp shop, and despite all my whining about the price, I'm quite tempted now.

It looks so nice in AA's review and reveal. I was trying to spend my money on actual audio this year, and not just stuff... but as far as stuff goes, this is pretty gorgeous.

I fancy the Air Virgin Suicides super deluxe, plan to treat myself this winter (self employed, and winter is when I work out if I made any money for the year, and can let loose a bit). I adore that album, and want the demo and unheard session tracks. It has the bluray dics, but I won't benefit from it, as my hi-fi set up is 20+ year old Denon, and my bluray player only outputs to the crappy little speakers on my titchy little telly.

I'm not an audiophile, never had opportunity to find out if I'm sophisticated enough to hear the difference. I am a cinephile though, and I really should get sorted out to watch and listen to my films on a better quality set up.