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That's funny...my copy of Live at Abbey Road jumped as well. I remember recording it onto a TDK AD90 cassette with my finger on the pick-up arm at the 'jump' points! (You do these things when you're young!) I think quality control in the vinyl industry had gone by that point...I remember the flimsy covers splitting along the top edge as well. Nowadays the quality is on a par with '50s/'60s pressings - with prices to match!

strongbow wrote:In his autobiography, Bruce has described the Shadows Silver Album as selling 300,000 copies. So it would have been a major chart hit had it gone out via normal retail.

Assuming that it sold these 300,000 copies fairly quickly, then I reckon it could easily have got well within the top 10 had it been available in the shops. Mind you, some people (even then) used to prefer shopping via mail order as it saved them a walk into town! I wonder how many people bought this album who might not have bought it if it had meant walking to the shops? We'll never know. Actually, I've got Bruce's book, so I should have just looked! Too lazy I suppose!

Moderne wrote:That's funny...my copy of Live at Abbey Road jumped as well. I remember recording it onto a TDK AD90 cassette with my finger on the pick-up arm at the 'jump' points! (You do these things when you're young!) I think quality control in the vinyl industry had gone by that point...I remember the flimsy covers splitting along the top edge as well. Nowadays the quality is on a par with '50s/'60s pressings - with prices to match!

I remember the 'Silver Album' being quite flimsy, with thin, wobbly vinyl. I don't remember the sound quality being bad though. Today's vinyl seems to be aimed at collectors and it seems that more effort goes into a release now than it did then. The recent sky releases (all double albums or at least gatefold sleeves) with coloured vinyl attest to that. Plus the recent re-release of The Shadows at their Very Best.

I thought that, in terms of design, the sleeve for XXV was terrible... whereas the sleeve design for 'The Silver Album' was very eye-catching and seemed to point the way that the Shads album covers would look from the mid 80s onwards.

Never had any probs with any other Shads vinyl - just Life in the Jungle/Live at Abbey Road. The cassette was fine and got played a lot for the ten years or so before it got nicked. They also took the first CD I ever bought ('Listen to The Shadows') and my recently purchased CD of 'Live at the Paris Olympia', complete version. So if anyone here gets offered all three...

A month or two after I got my copy of the "Rockin' With Curly Leads" LP in early 1974, the track Turn Around And Touch Me started to jump across one groove - very annoying.

Eventually, I supplemented it with a copy of the 45rpm single, as well as (quite a bit later) the "Original Chart Hits 1960-1980" double LP and CDx2. And then, of course, one CD after another (the current count is seven CDs with the original studio version, including, of course, one which shouldn't have it).

I quite like the "XXV" album sleeve, because of its simplicity. The album sleeve of the "Tasty" album falls in the same category in my opinion. I never had any problems with the vinyl of the album "'Live' At Abbey Road". The vinyl itself for the albums of the late 1970's, the 1980's and the early 1990's was indeed quite thin.

JimN wrote:A month or two after I got my copy of the "Rockin' With Curly Leads" LP in early 1974, the track Turn Around And Touch Me started to jump across one groove - very annoying.

Eventually, I supplemented it with a copy of the 45rpm single, as well as (quite a bit later) the "Original Chart Hits 1960-1980" double LP and CDx2. And then, of course, one CD after another (the current count is seven CDs with the original studio version, including, of course, one which shouldn't).

Didn't you bother with this version then...?

I too thought the XXV cover was very bland and it does seem that vinyl is better produced now (especially on 180gram vinyl) as i have some early 90's vinyl from Bruce Springsteen that is poor quality and skips now, despite being well looked after.

JimN wrote:A month or two after I got my copy of the "Rockin' With Curly Leads" LP in early 1974, the track Turn Around And Touch Me started to jump across one groove - very annoying.

I had the same problem with MWF's "Second Opinion". The heavy drumming on Black Eyes sent my stylus almost into orbit. I took it back and the shop replaced it with one that didn't cause that. However, it still sounded distorted at that point in the track and I suspected the pressing had been poorly done.

I have never been in the habit of buying pre-recorded "musicassettes" as they are officially known. I have bought a few, mainly secondhand, over the years, and I got a few as Pipeline Magazine review copies, before the CD really caught on, but for me, the "proper" way to buy a record was always on vinyl until 1990, then on CD.

One 'fix' for tracks with jumping grooves was a blob of blutack on the cartridge to make it heavier - easy to remove afterwards.