The original album starts with a crowd cheer. Albini deletes it. Instead, you hear Robin Zander count in, "One, two..." followed by the ring of Bun E. Carlos’s snare that sounds like a gunshot. The FLAC reveals the room —you hear the wood creak.
The result? A brutalist, stripped-down re-recording of their 1977 classic, In Color . Officially released as a promo CD in 1998 (and later a very limited Japanese tour item), this isn’t just a remaster; it is a full-throated exhumation. Today, we are analyzing the of that elusive disc. The original album starts with a crowd cheer
Rick Nielsen’s guitar solo is sloppy. Not lazy, but aggressive. You can hear him stomp a distortion pedal in the left channel 0.5 seconds before the solo starts. Most producers would edit that out. Albini left it in because "that’s what playing feels like." Carlos’s snare that sounds like a gunshot
Do you own the original 1998 promo CD? Have you compared the vinyl pressing of this session to the FLAC? Drop your thoughts in the comments below. stripped-down re-recording of their 1977 classic
If you only know Cheap Trick from the glossy sheen of Live at Budokan or the radio-friendly crunch of “Surrender,” you might be shocked to your core by the session that almost wasn’t. In the midst of the late-90s alt-rock gold rush, the legendary rock pranksters stepped into the lion’s den: Steve Albini’s Electrical Audio.