Gladys Knight & The Pips Album: “Gold”

And they did it again... It seems that Sony/BMG/Universal Music, through their many labels (like Hip-O, under which this album was released), are becoming the leaders of the infamous "loudness war" (Google the expression for more info). Basically, that means mastering the CD with the audio normalized beyond the CD format dynamic range limits. That way, on many of the songs, louder parts are simply clipped, that is, those audio frequencies are simply not present anymore, because the audio was mastered so loud that the audio was clipped (cut off) when it reached the limit the CD format allows, and those frequencies are irreparably lost in the process. The idea is to deceive the average consumer into thinking that he is getting a better sounding recording, when it's the exact opposite - it's just louder, and worse - with parts of the audio actually missing.

I've just received the CD set and ran a full audio analysis of the "On And On" track. There are at least 446 clipped samples on the left channel and at least 264 on the right channel. To see the sound carnage for yourself, just extract the track and open it with an audio editor like Cool Edit, zoom in on the clipped sections, and see the poor sound wave cut off into a flat line, with the sound it was meant to reproduce completely LOST.

The excellent Universal Music Group GOLD series continues with this great collection of classic cuts by Gladys Knight & The Pips. What makes this compilation so special is that it contains all but three of the group's top-20 r&b hits (the three not on this collection are 1968's "Didn't You Know You Have To Cry Sometime" and "I Wish It Would Rain", and 1978's "It's A Better Than Good Time"). With improved sound and always great liner notes, GOLD is definitely the perfect introduction to this legendary group.

Because Gladys & the Pips recorded for so many labels, until now there has been no single collection which includes tracks from all of those labels -- a most annoying situation. Hip-o has been able to get their hands on everything, finally, and put it into a concise, chronologically-arranged collection. The remastering is pretty meticulous and the price tag is amazing. Bravo!

Loved Gladys Knight growing up and had to come back to my roots. This is a great compilation of the group's work at a great price. Two weeks ago, I paid 2X the current $10.99 for the 2-disk set and thought it well worth the price.

This CD is the complete Gladys has all the hits from back in the day up to the 80's. I have had 3 or 4 different great hits of Gladys Knight and the Pips but none of those had all the songs like this one. Years ago I had two different ones that almost equaled this one but still would have fell short. I have another now that is close but this one really covers her career. It won't have any of the 90's or 2000's I have a couple newer cds she did in late90's or early 2000's but these are the classic hits she is one of my all time favorites, I love Gladys she doe's not know that her songs have helped me through some difficult times.