Cowboy (2024 Remaster)

[kwerty]

Here's a thought:

More time has passed between the release of The Innocents deluxe edition and the Cowboy deluxe edition than the time passed between the original editions of those two albums.

[Pughie]

[Pughie]

(Oh dear,sorry not a fan)

[ben]

The Stealing Sheep Remix is what i feared. So far no regrets not ordering a physical format. I think Cowboy deserved a bit more love.

[JSchultz]

So happy to see Earth & My Love on this release. I had enjoyed them (especially Earth) since their appearance on "Buried Treasure"

[Pughie]

[mrblue]

The thread title seems incorrect again, since this release is just expanded not remastered.

After a few listens, the main highlight for me is In My Arms (Crumbling Down Extended Instrumental Mix). The Crumbling Down Mix has always been one of my favorite mixes from the era (along with Oh L’amour (Matt Darey Remix)) and this instrumental version is just awesome. I love being able to hear all the layers!

Magic Moments (Alternative Mix) sounds pretty much the same, just stripped down. I’m happy they included it, but it’s a shame the original (which never got much love anywhere) couldn’t have been included.

The Telex and Blancmange mixes are simply ok, nothing great or terrible about either one. The Stealing Sheep mix of Rain is rather weird though. Oddly I don’t dislike it but it really doesn’t sound like they cared about the original at all. And it certainly would have been nice to get mixes of other Cowboy gems like Boy or Save Me Darling, instead of multiple Rain remixes.

All in all, the Cowboy expanded edition is ok and I’m happy to have it, but falls short of what us fans would have chosen.

[Pughie]

The thread title seems incorrect again, since this release is just expanded not remastered.

All in all, the Cowboy expanded edition is ok and I’m happy to have it, but falls short of what us fans would have chosen.

The press blurb as posted on first post of this thread says it’s digitally remastered & expanded.

From Lexer website-



This 2CD Expanded edition is the first reissue since its initial release, and is presented in a deluxe 2CD Mediabook format with a 28 page booklet containing sleeve notes by Mat Smith from Electronic Sound. The whole package is entirely digitally remastered, and the second disc contains previously unreleased material, new remixes, alternative and extended edition tracks as well as live material from ‘The Tiny Tour’.

Yes it does fall short of what fans would expect,for me the worst so far,for what is one of my personal favourites.

[kwerty]

The thread title seems incorrect again, since this release is just expanded not remastered.

The press blurb as posted on first post of this thread says it’s digitally remastered & expanded.

Sure, but it also says the second disc contains "live material from The Tiny Tour", which is a really disingenuous way of saying it's just got 'Heart Of Glass' live on it (which was already remastered for the digital only EBX7). So maybe it's not really been 'remastered' either, just 'expanded' as @mrblue says?

I've said before that I thought maybe 'Erasure' was the last album that needed to be remastered, and wondered if Cowboy was the first album not to need it because it was already digitally mastered in the first place. If that was the case, I thought the only reason to release Cowboy again would be to package it with the Tiny Tour DVD, but obviously that hasn't happened.

It came out in 1997, and it was only two years later that we got EBX 1 and 2, which was the first time we got anything 'remastered'. So maybe Cowboy did 'need' remastering, but presumably, if we get any more albums re-released, they will just be 'expanded' and not 'remastered', because surely everything after that was digitally mastered from the outset.

[mrblue]

Hmm, my mistake then about the remastering. I’ll compare the audio files with my original CD this weekend and see.