Customer Reviews

Telephantasm [Super Deluxe Edition] [2 CD/1 DVD/3 LP]

5 star:		(21)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I was really looking forward to getting this collection, 3 coloured vinyls mastered by Bob Ludwig and a DVD with all the videos on it as well as lithographs, a 7" vinyl of Black Rain also coloured and 2 CD's. The package is very well done, doesn't feel cheap at all. Everything fits nicely together and the vinyl is in a separate side of the box set to the CD's, DVD's and booklets, as it should be. So...where does it go wrong? From the first notes of the first LP or CD you're in for a big disappointment. Another release gets ruined with overzealous dynamic range compression.

Now I wasn't too concerned about how the CD's were going to turn out, I got this first and foremost for the vinyl and secondly for the DVD of the videos. Due to low sales numbers and the methodology in which vinyl records are created, vinyl editions of recent albums have seen better mastering than their CD counterparts. Don't get all defensive and launch into a CD vs. vinyl debate, because this isn't about that. What I'm saying is, the vinyl releases of new albums from Alice in Chains, Dave Matthews Band and others have received less dynamic range compression and less tools that result in dimished dynamics of the master that is to be used to create the vinyl, resulting in a more dynamic performance, one closer to what the producer was hearing in the studio one would hope.

This isn't the case with Telephantasm, the vinyl is as poorly mastered as the CD is, perhaps even worse. The sibilance does not hold up well in Cornell's high notes and Cameron's cymbals and hi-hat, it sizzles into obscurity. There is little in the way of dynamics, everything sounds like your typical 2010 CD. This is very disappointing given that there are supposed to only be 5,000 copies of this. The loudness war sucks wholeheartedly, but with top bands usually only moving between 12,000~25,000 copies of their records per year the vinyl usually escapes as the idiots in A&R at the labels and those musicians who don't know any better usually don't care about the vinyl, it's not getting into enough people's hands, therefore the mastering engineer can master with dynamics intact like most of them want to.

I compared Outshined and Rusty Cage from SIDE THREE of the coloured vinyl with my 2003 German (EU) pressing of Badmotorfinger, man what a MASSIVE difference, the sonics and dynamics of the recording are wonderful on the 2003 edition, which can still be found on the Amazon Germany website, ASIN B000057UWZ.

If you want to order one of the two copies left, just follow through the buttons, you don't need to read German to navigate, it's all the same set-up as Amazon Canada or US. I highly recommend this pressing at 24 Euros, even though you'll have to pony up 14 Euros for shipping to North America it's still worth it to get the best sounding version of Badmotorfinger I've ever heard, although if you don't spin vinyl be content with the original CD, it's also very good.

I was hoping with Bob Ludwig's name attached that the CD's might be okay, but should have know the label and project team probably said "no, we need this to be loud like other bands albums are these days, or kids won't like it" - which is TOTAL BLOODY NONSENSE. You can see a comparison between the Badmotorfinger CD and the Telephantasm CD in a post I made at the Steve Hoffman forums by googling "Soundgarden outshined telephantasm vs badmotorfinger dynamic comparison" and click on the first link that says "New release sounds like crap" and check out post #20.

The 2010 tracks are clearly boosted, well outside the scope of CD's limits resulting in brickwalling and/or limiting to prevent a massive amount of clipping. Dynamics are suffering, what a shame. It's nowhere near as bad as Death Magnetic, but it's still poor.

I will say that the CD actually sounds better than the vinyl to my ears, or maybe it's just that the vinyl sounds so poor compared to the 2003 EU pressing of Badmotorfinger that I don't even remember how bad the CD sounds.

Now maybe there is one saving grace for this package...the DVD. Nope, it suffers too. The audio isn't as bad as the CD and vinyl from a dynamic perspective, but the bitrate afforded the DVD's audio track is poor. They've gone with 2.0 Dolby Digital only at a bitrate of a little over 200 Kbps. No effort was made to visit the studio and create a 5.1 mix, they didn't even add a 2.0 PCM uncompressed stereo mix which would have been much more palatable. I'd love it if they'd included a Blu-ray of all the videos, but really the source material is probably video in most cases and the Blu-ray would only allow for less compression...but a high resolution 24-bit audio track wouldn't have gone amiss. Anyway, that's neither here nor there, it's nice to see some of these videos and remember watching the Buzz Bin on MTV in 1991 seeing Outshined...but the lack of fidelity in choosing only a Dolby 2.0 mix takes away from it. Had they used the full 448 Kbps allowed on DVD for Dolby it would have been a much more enjoyable sonic experience.

Overall I can only give this collection 2 stars. It's well put together and definitely great for collectors, but the sonic misadventures that afflict the DVD, the 3LP's and the 2CD's are just not welcome in my house, I'm probably returning mine to Amazon.

Let me lead off by saying this is an incredibly beautiful and thoughtfully designed box set which is not going to appeal to fans hankering to get their hands on a Nirvana styled WITH THE LIGHTS OUT type boxset. I can somewhat understand the need for some hardcore fans to air those sorts of grievances, but ultimately that's judging Telephantasm on what it is not, versus what it is, setting that aside, this box set is an incredible piece. The housing is dramatic, and the artwork obviously a huge part of the appeal, featuring panoramic two-sided posters, reproductions of the bands litho from the first reunion show in April 2010 at the showbox, art prints of the band members, and individually colored heavy triple LP of the 24 tracks, a booklet featuring rare photos alongside Kim Thayil's entertaining liner notes completes the added goodies. This will surely become a collectors piece in the ensuing years. The highlights are really the band's first ever DVD, which gathers all the music videos along with some rare live performance, 20 videos in all, 13 previously unreleased . Highlights include uncensored versions of BLOW UP THE OUTSIDE WORLD, the rarely seen overseas version of PRETTY NOOSE along side the classic videos for OUTSHINED, RUSTY CAGE and BLACK HOLE SUN. The audio has been remastered and a significant improvement over the previous hits collection A-SIDES, and features 5 previously unreleased tracks, including the spectacular live performance of PRETTY NOOSE from SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE and a rarely seen performance from MTV Live N Loud of BLOW UP THE OUTSIDE WORLD in addition to the new single BLACK RAIN a resuscitated gem from the fan favorite BADMOTORFINGER sessions.

SUPER COOL FAN ALERT - not noted in the packaging, the band tossed in a colored 7" of BLACK RAIN and a previously unreleased live version of BEYOND THE WHEEL from the show box show!

Many bands tend to put together a Greatest Hits album and in order to properly convey the band's sound they must include more than just the hits...but the strongest of the band's catalog. A-Sides was a single disk and did include many great songs but it left off many songs that defined the band's early sound. There weren't many songs from Ultramega Ok and none from the band's EP's. Soundgarden's Telephantasm includes all of tracks from A-Sides (just switching some of the tracks for live versions) and then some. Included is the epic "Beyond the Wheel" , a version of "Flower" that might just have been what it would have sounded like unmarred by SST's bad production, and the original version of "Room a Thousand Years Wide". "Fopp" is an awesome cover of an Ohio Player's song in which the band makes a 70's soul/funk song their own, and "Hunted Down" shows the band was able to write a good song even that early in the game. There's also a DVD of extras. Although i am dissapointed that some of the better B-sides (like "Into the Void (Sealth)" and "Blind Dogs") weren't included. I'm hoping on a new studio album sometime in the future...

Whether or not you were around when Soundgarden came to be known, all fans alike should grab this cd/dvd "best of" albumn. The music and videos on Telephantasm give you a great feel for what the band was about- playing loud, fast, poetic music for people just like them selfs who just don't give a bleep. The albumn isn't perfect though. Like others have said, some songs are on A-sides just live and some videos are a little weak. A lot depends on your personal taste though. Telephantasm could have used a new song or two, and i don't feel like there was enough unreleased material but i might just be greedy for more Soundgarden. But come on, who isn't??? You also can't beat a 3-disc set with unreleased songs and videos for only $15 either.

Sure, it's basically a greatest hits album plus a bunch of live performances and alternate versions, but the bonus music videos on the DVD makes this a great, great buy for any fan - most will recognize the classic videos for Black Hole Sun and Fell On Black Days, but note that 13 of the 20 music videos are previously unreleased, and IMO it makes this album a worthwhile buy.

They look really dated, yes, probably because of the 4:3 aspect ratio, and the grainy quality of some of them might be irritating to some. Not to mention three distinct versions of Pretty Noose.... but as a fan of their music, I think it only adds to the immersive experience of reliving the glory days of the band...and my own.

Not having owned their A-Sides retrospective, for instance, I'm not qualified to judge that compilation's particular merits. Furthermore, I'm sure there will be much quibbling over the individual tracks themselves (why the "video" version of Fell On Black Days instead of the album version, for instance). Still, I think this is overall a great buy for both longtime fans and for people new to Soundgarden's music too.

Telephantasm. A 'Phantasm' is an illusion, or could be used to refer to a ghost. So I guess 'Telephantasm' would be an illusion at a distance, or a ghost from afar. Which I think would be an appropriate reference to what we have here -- a retrospective of a band that had been inactive for thirteen years." -Kim Thayil. So this is a new collection with the purpose of exposing the legendary Soundgarden to anybody who was 8 years old when the last album came out. It does work for that, and not bad for the 38 year olds too. My only real gripe is only 12 tracks on each disc? BUT, with two discs I won't complain that much. Basically it's the 24 songs one would expect, with a handful of them being live to freshen it up. I'm happy with the live songs since I've heard the originals hundreds of times. The "new" song Black Rain is a worthy bonus. The songs I miss most...Little Joe, Ugly Truth, Loud Love, and though I'd never expect it on a best-of, Searching With My Good Eye Closed, which is mind-blowing. The REAL treat for older fans is of course the DVD. Some of these 20 videos I remember very well, some I've never seen, but they all kick-ass, or at least are interesting. Overall a huge improvement over A-Sides, though I'd easily keep A-Sides before I got the single disc version of Telephantasm. Cool artwork as well. Now can I speak for everyone when I say "tour time"!

(This review is for the deluxe version (2CD/1DVD) but not the ultra deluxe version with the vinyl.)

When I saw that all of the songs on this were off their albums/EPs except for one soundtrack song ("Birth Ritual" from "Singles Sdtk") and the one new song, "Black Rain" I admit that I was pretty disappointed as a Soundgarden fan. It seemed like they were making you buy a whole greatest hits package for one new song. I thought "weren't these guys supposed to be against this kind of crap?".

I already own nearly all of their albums so it seemed like a waste of money to me to buy this one but I was still VERY curious to hear "Black Rain". So OK, I justified buying this because I figured at the price point it was worth it for the DVD alone and "Black Rain" was a bonus. There were a few tracks I hadn't heard since I don't have the "Singles Soundtrack" or "Screaming Life/Fopp" yet (though I was and still am planning to add them to my collection before long).

Well, from the very first track I realized this is NOT a collection of stuff strictly from their albums. The version of "All Your Lies" on here is quite different from the version on "Ultramega OK". The version on here is apparently from the Deep Six compilation (I guess that one's now fairly rare/pricey) and it has a much more "New Wave" vibe to it than anything I've ever heard from Soundgarden (though it doesn't surprise me TOO much to hear them sound that way - they did do at least one Devo cover that I'm aware of).

That was my first clue that this collection was more than I had supposed it to be. It turns out that there are something like 8 or 9 of the 24 tracks that are either live or alternate versions of the same tracks that appear on their albums. Between that and the few tracks from the couple of releases of theirs that I don't have yet, there was around half of this collection that ended up being completely new stuff to my ears!!! And in my opinion, all of this "new" stuff rocks!

"Black Rain" rocks!

The DVD rocks! I grew up without MTV so this was the first time I'd seen almost any of their music videos. And if I had grown up with MTV I can only imagine it would have probably been even more cool to finally get their complete music video collection for nostalgia reasons.

The artwork is awesome! I kept reading that people said the artwork was great and I kept thinking "who the hell buys a CD of songs they already own just because it has a new picture on the cover". Well, if that's all you got here I'd still think that way but what you really get is a great collection of stuff that there's a good chance you don't already have AND they went to the trouble of giving you some awesome artwork too! Telephantasm is truly a "whole package" deal.

I now realize they did just about everything humanly possible to make this collection appeal to pretty much ALL Soundgarden fan. The casual fan or newbie gets a great "best of" package with some rarities and a DVD! The diehard fan gets some great rarities and alternate versions of some of their favorites along with the first new Soundgarden track in 15 years AND A FREAKIN' DVD!

So I went from total skeptic to someone who would easily recommend this to just about any Soundgarden fan, even the ones who already have all of their albums. Well done Soundgarden! Thanks for not letting your fans down!

Can't wait to hear their new album when it comes out.

After hearing about the butchered audio mixes on this release, I went back and fourth and eventually plunked down the money and ordered it, thinking "the audio mixes can't be THAT bad".

After receiving my package and putting the first vinyl on my turntable, I couldn't believe how bad it sounded. Yikes! I went through the songs, older and newer, they don't get any better. I put on the cds and their just as bad.

I put on my vinyl pressings of Superunknown and Badmotorfinger, for comparison, and they sound so damn good. Completly blew away Telephantasm. How could have they messed up the mastering for this release so bad? I could see some of the older/unreleased tracks possibly needing to be touched up a bit, but for the most part, the old saying applies to this "if it isn't broke, don't fix it"


The music is overpowering Cornell's vocals in the worst way and it just sounds like a mess. Louder does not mean better. If you don't like to hear Chris Cornell hit those high notes, you'll love this remastering job. This is up there as one of the worst remastering jobs that I've had the displeasure of hearing. The original cd pressings sound much better then this.


I guess on the plus side, they went all out on the packaging and the splattered/colored vinyls look real cool. The art work on everything is very nice and the boxes quality and contents are out of this world. Just too bad, because it's the music that matters most and it's just mastered so poorly.



My advice, if you're really into Soundgarden and are thinking about purchasing the 'Super Deluxe Edition', get your hands on the cd or some mp3's first and see if the sound mixes are going to bother you, before plunking down your hard earned cash on this edition. Don't buy this for the vinyls, thinking you're going to have that good vinyl sound, because you're not. The vinyls are basically a gimmick with a premium price tag. But if the sound quality isn't what matters most, then I can't imagine you NOT being happy with this release.

While this album is somewhat celebrated as the "return" of the mighty Soundgarden, it is merely just a collection of Greatest Hits, demos, and one previously unreleased track that was recorded during the Badmotorfinger sessions. "Black Rain" is the name of the song, and once you listen to it, you'll wonder why the group decided not to include it on the album. For me, as a collector and huge fan of the band, Telephantasm was worth the purchase just for that one song and to catch a glimpse at the liner notes. The album artwork is typical Soundgarden and is quite unique and appealing.

Purchasing this album depends on your perspective of how you decide to support the band or not. This is not Soundgarden's comeback album, but it's something new in over 10 years and it's the return of one of the greatest bands ever assembled.

"Telephantasm" is the first release from Soundgarden since 1996 and is an excellent overview of their music. It's a great intro to those not that familiar with the band or who only know their "Superunknown" period. The two discs are very well recorded, and are sure to make you want to delve deeper into their music with "Badmotorfinger" being a good followup. What really sets the collection apart is the DVD of all their videos which is stunning and worth the price by itself. I am very happy with "Telephantasm", if for no other reason, than to draw attention to the band. Soundgarden has produced a wonderful catalog of music through the years which has drawn critical raves, a loyal fan base, and been a strong influence on many other musicians. They are well worth your time so take a listen and see why Soungarden's music will stand the test of time.