Customer Reviews

Classic Masters

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

At first glance you may think Classic Masters is just another Grand Funk Railroad Hits CD, and it is that. But it is also a 24 BIT fully remastered Hits CD and it sounds absolutely wonderful. If you have Capitol Collectors Series, Great Grand Funk, More Of The Best, Super Best, etc., there all good, but this CDs sound simply blow's all those CDs away. You can hear the Lyrics so clearly, listen to We're An American Band and you can hear Don sing "Up all night, with Freddie King, I got to tell you Poker is his thing." And Listen to Time Machine and you can hear what Mark says right before he goes into his lick. I won't say it hear to influence anyone, you all go listen and see what he says? Its clear as a bell. The Music is so clean and I can't hear tape hiss over my speakers (have not listened with earphones yet). Every instrument is balanced and mixed well, and clean to the ears. This CD rocks. I hope everyone that has Capitol Collectors Series will replace it with this CD. BUT I think the liner notes in Capitol Collectors Series are better then the liner notes in Classic Masters, but who cares its the sound that maters. I like the sepia tone photos on the cover and back of the CD. The one on the Back was used for the photo on the back of GFRs picture sleeve for Locomotion/Destitute and losin 45. The front picture is the picture used for the art work on the cover of E Pluribus Funk. This Classic Masters CD has a good representation of Grand Funk Railroad's career at Capitol (69-76) from Time Machine and Mean Misterater, to I'm Your Captian/Closer To Home (There Magus Opus), to We're An American Band (there biggest Hit) Walk Like A Man and Shinin On (Both Big its), to Take me and Bad Time (there two last Radio hits whit Bad Time being the most played song on the radio in 76). This is a MUST Have for any Grand Funk Railroad Fan; A Must have for anyone who gets hits CDs of the bands they like; and a must have for anyone who want's to try Grand Funk Railroad out.

Grand Funk Railroad's ham-fisted approach to rock 'n' roll left music critics appalled, but they sold twenty million records and even broke the Beatles' record for selling out Shea Stadium. During the band's tenure at Capitol Records (1969-1976), they hit the Hot 100 singles chart more than a dozen times. Mark Farner--the band's underrated guitar player and usual lead singer--wrote much of the group's material. However their two No. 1 singles, "We're an American Band" and "The Loco-Motion," were written by drummer Don Brewer and Goffin & King respectively.

Despite the non-stop criticism from the rock press, nothing succeeds like success, and Grand Funk was undeniably one of the biggest bands of the era. I do, however, have a few issues with this remastered collection:

*It's nice to see that they added the 1976 hit "Take Me" (No. 53), not found on the 1991 Collectors Series compilation. But with a running time of only 71 minutes why did they also delete "Inside Looking Out" from 1970 which was the only UK hit of their career? [These are the only two track listing changes that differentiate between Collectors Series and Classic Masters.]

*Three other singles are missing: "Upsetter" (No. 73) from E PLURIBUS FUNK, "Sally" (No. 69) from BORN TO DIE, and "Can You Do It" (No. 45) from the Frank Zappa-produced album GOOD SINGIN' GOOD PLAYIN'.

*Also, the track sequencing on Classic Masters is not chronological, which hurts the continuity.

All told, this is a great artifact from one of the great power trios of the era. GFR was a no-nonsense party band, and if you're looking for a single CD to provide you with all of their best moments--this is it. For maximum effect, crank this up to ten, and roll down the windows. LOUD! HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

As an old fan of GFR from back in their heyday, I wanted a "best of" CD to remember them by. A few months ago, I purchased the Capitol Collectors Series: Grand Funk Railroad, and I found the sound quality to be quite unsatisfactory. I later found this Classic Masters disc in the closeout bin of a record shop. The Classic Masters disc claimed to be "24-bit remastered", so I figured the sound quality might be better. And the price was cheap enough that I figured what-the-heck.
The songs contained on these two discs are the same, except for one song on each: the Capital Collectors Series includes "Inside Looking Out"; and the Classic Masters disc includes "Take Me". Neither of these songs are among the bands's best IMHO, so it shouldn't be a deciding factor.
I compared the sound quality of both CDs quite carefully on a high-end CD player listening through high-end headphones, switching back and forth multiple times for each song, and the Classic Masters CD sounds noticeably better: overall dynamic range is better, which makes the vocals cleaner; and high notes, particularly cymbals and violins, are much less distorted than on the Capital Collectors Series CD. Both discs still exhibit plenty of distortion at times, but that is to be expected from 30+ year old master tapes.
I find the sound qualtiy on the Classic Masters to be acceptable, so I think I'll keep it.

The new Grand Funk Railroad album, Classic Masters is a collection of some of their best known songs from the bands heyday of the late 60's through the mid 1970's. The remastering work on these songs is excellant and gives you the feel of how they should have sounded origionally. Certain tracks such as We're an American Band, Walk like a man, Gimme Shelter, Footstompin' Music and Feelin' Alright sound better then they ever did before. The live version of Mean Mistreater is also a good example of how the remastered Grand Funk Live album will sound too. This album should be in every GFR fans collection!

I love this compilation, it has all of the great songs by GFR and the sound is excellent. If you get a one-disc GFR compilation, it should be this one. GFR was an important part of the hard rock development and they were good at what they did. I highly recommend this to anyone who loves good rock.

A "must have" for the casual or long time fan! A great way to familiarize yourself with the biggest band in the land from 69-76, or to update your Funk catalogue with a remastered hits package. All the singles are here, which is great for the new or casual fan, but none of the FM radio tunes that made Funk so popular (not a "best of" package). You get all the popular classics (American Band, Some Kind of Wonderful, Footstompin' Music, etc), but no garage stuff (Inside Lookin' Out, Into the Sun, TNUC). If you want those, check out the Thirty Years of Funk or the "new" Live 1971 Tour CD (blows your socks off!) All in all, a great CD from a great band. We wait for more reissues from Capitol!!!

I have had Grand Funk Railroad LPs from the original 60s releases and was looking forward to this new 24 BIT remastering. I have over 1000 CDs and this CD is by far the most DISTORTED--LOUD peace of aluminum and plastic I have ever heard or owned. Even the stings on I'm Your Captain are distorted. The 1980s CDs have much less distortion. I understand analog 60s technology was not the greatest recording invention known to man but this new 24 BIT digital CD is in one word--TERRIBLE!!! I guess I should have recognized the cheap price is representative of this.
However, if you like CDs remastered at zero dB digital maximum so as to be clipping as loud as possible this CD is for you!

At first glance you may think Classic Masters is just another Grand Funk Railroad Hits CD, and it is that. But it is also a 24 BIT fully remastered Hits CD and it sounds absolutely wonderful. If you have Capitol Collectors Sires, Great Grand Funk, More Of The Best, Super Best, etc., there all good, but this CDs sound simply blow's all those CDs away. This Classic Masters CD has a good representation of Grand Funk Railroad's career at Capitol (69-76) from Time Machine and Mean Misterater, to I'm Your Captian/Closer To Home (There Magus Opus), to We're An American Band (there biggest Hit) Walk Like A Man and Shinin On (Both Big its), to Take me and Bad Time (there two last Radio hits whit Bad Time being the most played song on the radio in 76). This is a MUST Have for any Grand Funk Railroad Fan; A Must have for anyone who gets hits CDs of the bands they like; and a must have for anyone who want's to try Grand Funk Railroad out.

I really enjoyed the classic rock sound the grand funk railroad presented in its day. They could be compared in its era to Led Zeppelin. Some Kind Of Wonderful ranked among the group's biggest hits including We're An American Band. I didnt like the covers of the rolling stones Gimmie Shelter, or their cover of Feelin' Alright. But besides the poor cover songs their original material had a bigger impact on the group and the era. This is not my favorite classic rock band but its def. one of the better bands of the classic rock era. This deserves 4 stars because of the poor covers, other than that this deserves 5!

For those unwilling to delve deeply into the Grand Funk catalog this is the cheapest, most convenient disc to purchase. It contains fifteen tracks including almost every hit they had; the few omissions are very minor. If you want to know what Grand Funk was really about then this disc isn't a very good representation of their career. Grand Funk did make an effort to produce charting singles but their most essential recordings weren't hits nor were they ever meant to be. This was put together for the casual fan of Funk that just basically wants to hear what was played on the radio. The biggest drawback of this disc's presentation is that the songs aren't in chronological order; if one cares at all about the growth & progress of a group then this song order is a mistake. Of course, to the casual fan this isn't anything important, the pacing of the songs becomes the most prominent feature.

Classic Masters opens with "We're an American Band" (73), arguably their most famous song; it peaked at #1 & was the first of two singles to accomplish this feat. Next is "Time Machine" (69), perhaps their weakest single peaking at #48. "Walk Like a Man" (74) made it to #19. "Some Kind of Wonderful" (75) was one of many songs that they did a cover version of that peaked at #3; it has a near gospel feel with some excellent harmony vocals. "Gimme Shelter" (71) is a cover of a Rolling Stones song that went to #61. "Shinin' On" (74), from the album of the same name, went to #11. "Heartbreaker" (70), it charted at #72. "Rock & Roll Soul" (72) went to #29 & was the first single to feature their newest member on keyboards, Craig Frost. "The Loco-Motion" (74) was their only other #1 hit & a cover of a Little Eva hit written by the husband & wife team of Gerry Coffin & Carole King. "Footstompin' Music" (72) peaked at #29 that featured Farner on keyboards. "Mean Mistreater" (70) is a live version of the song & charted at #47. "Feelin' Alright" (71) was a cover of a Dave Mason song that peaked at #54. "Take Me" (76), sadly, was their last charting single & peaked at #53. "Bad Time" (74) was a song Farner wrote about his marriage going south, it was Funk's last major hit peaking at #4. "I'm Your Captain/Closer to Home" (70), probably Funk's second most famous song, peaked at #22 & was their highest charting single until "We're an American Band".

When you look at the chart positions you can tell that Grand Funk wasn't truly a singles act. This changed somewhat with the single "We're an American Band"; Capitol Records, their record label, was pressuring them to increase their sales in 1973. Their previous album, Phoenix, had been a mild disappointment, but the real reason was money, Capitol Records felt like Grand Funk needed to produce more income by having successful singles. It was unfortunate that when the singles ran dry Grand Funk pretty much did too but they had a great run of about six years that was almost as much fun for me as it was for them.