Everything You Need to Know About the Grateful Dead

As you may take heard, the 6th edition in Vinyl Me, Please Album is centered effectually the catalog of the Grateful Expressionless. Anthology is Vinyl Me, Please'due south box ready series that aims to requite an overview of legendary bands, scenes, and record labels. Past editions have centered on Stax, Blue Note, Zamrock, the Women of Motown, and Ghostly International. This edition of VMP Anthology, The Story of the Grateful Dead, is an eight-album, xiv-LP box meant to give the uninitiated an like shooting fish in a barrel mode into the Grateful Dead, who boast a catalog that is as vast equally information technology is varied. Here, we breakdown what to await with the box, and all the decisions we made when putting it together with the Expressionless and their characterization, Rhino.

In some ways, the Grateful Dead are in fact two divide bands. There's the studio band, with a robust catalog of studio albums ranging from psych-rock freakouts to mellow folk rock. They started as a studio ring long subsequently they developed the other version of the Expressionless: the live version, which played shows at Acid Tests and, eventually, football stadiums. Because the central premise of the live Dead was a never-ending quest for some version of perfect — the perfect transition from "Communist china Cat Sunflower" to "I Know You Rider" is possible, if you believe in it — they encouraged fans to tape their shows, and even taped many of their own, meaning their live catalog is, in some ways, positively endless. It makes the Dead a hard band to completely grasp, and since 2020 marks their 55th anniversary as a band — and a twelvemonth where they arguably might be as popular as ever — we partnered with the ring and the label to curate viii albums we think give a gateway into the Dead as they were, and opens upwards unlike alleyways for listeners to explore.

Nosotros start our box with the studio Expressionless, since the two albums nosotros start with — Workingman's Dead and American Beauty, both out in 1970 — are the about well-known and attainable albums in the band's catalog. In some ways, they made everything that happened later possible, as the albums were big hits, and set the Dead upward on legendary tours that gained word-of-mouth reverence around the world.

The next two albums are Live/Expressionless and Europe '72, the first being their beginning release every bit a live band, and the one that convinced Warner Brothers to let them stay on the label long enough to make the start 2 albums in our box, and the latter of which is often considered the best commercially released alive Expressionless album, captured on the band's legendary European bout.

The side by side four titles are what we consider continuing studies: Nosotros have 1973's Wake of the Flood and 1977'due south Terrapin Station in studio Dead, and 1981's Reckoning and 1990'due south Without a Net in alive Dead, all four albums giving different snapshots of the Expressionless equally they rolled along their winding road of a career.

As nosotros practice with VMP Album, picking eight incredible titles isn't enough: Nosotros spared no expense in making these the best sounding albums they can be. Nosotros were granted admission to the original analog tapes of seven of the eight albums, and for Without a Net nosotros were granted original digital tapes, since it was recorded digitally. We then sent the tapes to Bernie Grundman mastering, where Chris Bellman cut new lacquers for this project, attempting to preserve the original audio and intent of the Dead every bit much equally possible. Here, Bellman talks his procedure:

All eight albums come up on color 180-gram vinyl, and almost of them (Live/Dead, Europe '72, Wake of the Flood, Terrapin Station, Reckoning, and Without a Net) are on color vinyl for the first time every bit part of this box. Without a Net has never been reissued on vinyl at all until this box set. An original copy of that i in great shape will ready you lot back a pretty penny past itself. Nosotros think this box volition be filled with definitive editions of these albums that the beginner Dead Caput will enjoy, just also will permit the experienced Dead Caput to have updated copies of their well-worn editions.

This edition of Anthology will be express to 7,500, and each set comes in a deluxe box designed by Jeremy Dean, who is known in the Dead community for his work with the Dead iconography. Instead of asking a historian or journalist to write the liner notes for this Album, we went to 9 artists to give you their personal stories and the history of the albums included, and you lot tin see more info on who's involved in the affiche below:

The first 3,000 purchasers volition also receive an exclusive animated Tetzoscope slipmat. Everyone who purchases volition also receive a trial of nugs.cyberspace, a site that has exclusive shows from multiple Dead offshoots and much more than. And like with all by Anthologies, this one comes with an sectional podcast series, where 2 VMP staff members — one who loves studio Dead and hasn't dived into the live stuff, and i who has never listened to the Dead — grapple with these albums and the Dead.

Yous tin head over to our Album site to buy this box. We expect it to send later this summer.

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Source: https://www.vinylmeplease.com/blogs/magazine/grateful-dead-vmp-anthology

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