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The Immaculate Collection

I loved The Immaculate Collection. For years it was my go-to Madonna album - I didn't listen to the originals much if at all following the release of Immaculate until maybe a decade or so ago. I thought the mixes were great, and even if I didn't prefer a couple of them to the originals ("Like A Prayer" in particular), I was glad to have them and didn't feel any of them "ruined" the song. The mix of "Express Yourself" here is my favorite - it's quite similar to the version used for the second cut of the video.

I was a little critical of the fidelity of this one awhile back, but I listened to it again since, both on the home stereo as well as with Subsonic on my iPhone over my $250 RHA earbuds, which sound . . . well, as good as I can imagine earbuds ever sounding (and better than most full-sized cans - certainly better than Beats junk). Anyhow, it sounded really good on both. The QSound does drive the Logic 7 processing on my Harman/Kardon receiver nuts, so I have to switch off fake surround (which I use for casual listening these days because the layout of my apartment at the moment is a temporary disaster - I don't spend most of my time anywhere near the "sweet spot", which is where the middle of an enormous bed/sectional current rests). The Logic 7 apparently picks up on all the phase trickery QSound utilizes and treats it like surround encoding - the speakers pulse on and off over a noticeable period of time as a result. Very bizarre.

Anyhow, over headphones or in vanilla stereo, and at full lossless or the high lossy bitrates I have Subsonic set to use, the QSound effects aren't as bad/artificial as I recall. They're kinda fun actually and not fatiguing. I did some A/B comparisons of the original album tracks off Like A Prayer and their QSound equivalents off Immaculate, and Immaculate blows them all away. The originals sound flat, pinched, kinda harsh and muddled. No air, no space, just a wall - and not a pleasant one. On The Immaculate Collection the same tracks open up, her vocals clearly separate from the background, and instruments are all far more distinct and detailed. It's not a "surround" effect really - it's more like added reverb or echo or some other ambiance, or like QSound "turned up" what was already there without making everybody sound like they were playing or singing from the bottom of a well. Indeed, some elements come off as far more forward than before.

Transgressive...
Now, how much of this was QSound's phase processing or whatever and how much was due to other factors I don't think we'll ever know. Shep remixed a bunch of this stuff and probably re-EQ'd it all as well. And if he didn't, someone else did, either during the mixing on a track-by-track basis or barring that someone at least EQ'd the final two-track master. Anyone along the line could be responsible for a good chunk of the difference I'm hearing between the originals and here. It's also possible QSound includes some kind of automatic equalization (and maybe compression too, although given a DR value of 12, there can't be much compression here).

Anyhow, whoever or whatever did it, it sounds great, at least on the LAP tracks. Not sure about the others, because I haven't A/B'd any. Treble seems a little excessively boosted on several of them to my ear, but so's the bass, which leaves everything well-grounded and fairly balanced. The LAP cuts have noticeably superior bass, but it's not overwhelming. Probably some smiley-face EQ going on here, but whatever. It's mostly club music, not Joni Mitchell. The Immaculate Collection succeeds in making it even more fun than it was before.

Madge has baggage...

 Of the two new tracks, one was clearly inspired by the past but looked to the future with its spoken verses ("Rescue Me"), and the other ("Justify My Love"), with its come-hither seduction, just looked to the future. This was Madonna stomping all over what had - almost a decade before - been Prince's raunchy, hypersexual territory, putting a post-hip hop spin on it. Ironically, she'd be the only one of the big three of the '80s (Michael Jackson, Madonna and Prince) to make the transition to the post-hip hop era with her fame and her commercial success largely intact. 

Just a typical evening at The Standard...
The Immaculate Collection probably marked her career peak. With the massive controversy swirling around "Justify" and its video - and coming off the epic sales of both it, "Vogue" and this hits album - I don't think she was ever more critically, culturally or commercially relevant. "Justify" was such huge news Madonna ended up on ABC's evening news program Nightline, where the MTV-banned video made its US television debut. What she did next shocked - and even appalled - a good chunk of the audience though, and it would take her a bit to largely recover commercially. Artistically though it opened up a whole new frontier for her work, and by the end of the decade she'd have radically reinvented herself not once but three times, and establish a new record for commercial longevity that none of her peers could even approach.

I did a quickie comparison of some of the other Immaculate tracks to the originals from Madonna (the 2001 remaster), LAV and True Blue. The one constant is much stronger very deep bass on Immaculate. Shep clearly EQ'd stuff below about 80Hz way, way up. Good for Shep!

I said up above that QSound didn't leave anybody sounding like they were playing down in a well on the LAP tracks, but that's not entirely true on all of the other tracks from Immaculate. A couple of times Madonna's vocals or other instruments did sound a bit unnaturally echoey. It's like they had the QSound set to 7 when it should have been dialed to 5. I think it might have to do with how much reverb or other processing was on the vocal or other instruments originally - stuff that was fairly dry popped nicely with QSound. Stuff that was already kinda wet got flipped over the top and sounded a bit too unnatural.

If they ever do a proper Madonna singles box, I hope they get Shep in to EQ the thing. It seems like he understood exactly how this mostly-dance music should sound, although I think even the versions of "Cherish" and "Live To Tell" here are much better-equalized than on their source albums.
Poor is the man whose pleasures depend on the permission of another...


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 In case you missed 'em, here are overviews of Madonna, Like A Virgin, True Blue, Who's That Girl / You Can Dance, Like A Prayer, and I'm Breathless.



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