Customer Reviews

Continued Story / Hi How Are You (Dig)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is one of the best albums by one of my favorite songwriters, definitely 5-star worthy. I do have a problem with this reissue and it's "remastering," however. Some of the songs have had really horrible digital hiss reduction applied that make the song sound like it's underwater. If you are allergic to tape hiss, you shouldn't be listening to Daniel Johnston in the first place. The end result certainly sounds worse than the original, I'm not sure what they were thinking. They also added some very light digital reverb to a couple tracks. If I were you, I'd avoid this particular reissue and go with the original Homestead CD release or the first Yip Eye reissue if you can find them. If not, this reissue is certainly not unlistenable and some of the studio recordings were cleaned up nicely by the remastering. It's a great album and even a little bad noise reduction can't ruin it.

I think I heard it in a movie once that maybe the books we read choose us. This is the recollection I had when picking up the documentary 'The Devil and Daniel Johnston' from the local video store (no movies to select from that day) and perhaps it applies to video as well - I really didn't know what to expect. 'The Devil...' was my introduction to this unbelievably eloquent lyricist. The first 14 tracks were done in studio some time around 85 and was Daniels first professionally recorded album - these 14 tracks coupled with the next 15 that he recorded himself - listening to them made me feel like I had discovered a treasure chest of priceless feelings. In todays image and commercially driven music scene it's really difficult to think of anything that could compare with the creativity I heard on this album (CD).
It would be wrong to categorize my picks as "hot spots" because every thing on here is GREAT but I will share the ones that come to mind right now:
1 through 29.

"There is a star and a heaven" for Daniel Johnston.

I got into Daniel Johnston through the documentary, "The Devil and Daniel Johnston" after it was recommended to me by a friend. If you haven't heard him before, I suggest you do the same, as it puts a lot of things into context, and it's a good way to here a lot of his music, easy and cheap. As the movie progressed, I found myself seeing a lot of Beck and Brighteyes in Johnston, which is to say there's a lot of Johnston in Beck and Brighteyes, since he came out a solid 10 years prior to either of them. His music is definitely not for everyone, as it's not at all polished. It IS, however, brutally honest and poetic. Definitely worth a listen if you like your lyrics to have a bit of substance.

What an outstanding album by Mr. Johnston. The only problem lies within this release itself: Track 3, "Dead Dog Laughing..." has been erroneously omitted and it's place filled with another song.

Don't let this keep you from discovering this gold mine of musical originality.

Essential!

It's not well recorded, the notes aren't all in tune, but Daniel Johnston is just pure artistic genius

Great collection of Classic Daniel Johnston's music. Not too much 90s stuff, lots of classics and some great rarities. Highly recommended for anyone wanting to get into Daniel Johnston.

On this compilation you can really hear how so many big bands were influenced by Dan (Flaming Lips, Mercury Rev, Sparklehorse etc.)

Great fold-out lyric sheet with artwork/poster!

Very good work from a man working at Mcdonalds. Buy it and listen to it!