Customer Reviews

Very Worst of Spike Jones

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Unfortunately, they attempted to turn the original mono recordings into stereo. The end result is terrible. It sounds like they added stereo simply by panning from the left to right channel occasionally, which is a very annoying effect if you are wearing headphones. It sounds like they also (unsuccessfully) tried to add some "depth" to the sound. I have heard other versions of some of these tunes in mono with a much "brighter" sound quality, and it sounded a lot better.

It's a shame, because it really is a great collection of tunes.

Since these Spike Jones tracks are all available elsewhere, the point of this CD is the Robert Parker Digital Stereo treatment, so there's no reason to fault it for being stereo-ized. The key to enjoyment is the "Dolby Surround" logo on the back of the box. Played through a Dolby Pro-Logic decoder, the sound stays centered up front (most of the time), with the other speakers filling the room with a nice reverberant environment. It is very unfortunate that Parker could not resist occasionally panning various elements to the right or left. That sort of thing simply does not work when all you have is a monophonic source.

Played in simple stereo, Parker's processing adds an uncanny presence that quickly becomes overbearing. Over headphones, the added echo and panning is just repulsive. If you plan to load this into your iPod-like device, I strongly suggest finding a way to mix it down to mono.

The frequency balance is very good; a bit bass-heavy, but that's true of all of Parker's work. He manages to restore a bit of life to "Cocktails for Two", which was originally released with a very limited frequency response.

The claim on the box of "unprecedented clarity" simply is not true, however. That honor belongs to Rhino's "Spike Jones Anthology", produced by Dr. Demento and Cub Koda, that was released 6 years earlier. Here, Parker has reduced the shellac noise to a soft but ever-present fuzz that would be easy to take if it wasn't modulated by the music--the old Gating Filter trick--the noise gets louder when the music gets louder.

There are a lot of worse-sounding Spike Jones compilations out there, and if you have a Dolby Surround system to play this on, you just might enjoy Robert Parker's audio tricks.