 | | DINOSAUR JR. | CASSETTE TRILOGY (Joyful Noise Recordings, $39, 3 cassettes) |One of the greatest justices done to the canon of rock in the digital-remastering era was the scrubbing given to the first three Dinosaur Jr. albums in 2005, when Merge finally wrested the master tapes from Greg Ginn's SST. We all knew that You're Living All Over Me was the greatest rock album of the '80s, but the remaster was like viewing a painting in person after spending decades looking at it from outside the museum through a really dirty window. So of course it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever to buy all three of the band's original-lineup albums for the third or fourth time, this time on cassette, right? The epic guitar blowouts in "Sludgefeast" really mow your head off, but were they really missing an extra heaping of 21st-century tape hiss, with the added drama of "Will my player eat this limited-edition tape?" making each listen a pins-and-needles gamble? It comes in a handmade wooden box, and it's all sold out anyway, so forget it already. |
