Reviews: Blink-182 | Lionel Richie
The Definitive Sound Series gives Enema of the State and Can’t Slow Down the one-step treatment.
Back in December, we reviewed four installments in the Definitive Sound Series (DSS), Interscope-Capitol’s ultra-high-end reissue series of one-step pressings. Refreshingly, the series seems to be primarily focused on the ’80s, ’90s, and ’00s rather than the usual ’70s war horses, and the sound quality on all the discs thus far has been pretty remarkable. Plus, they come in expertly appointed packages, with tip-on jackets and sturdy but not overly thick slipcases, so as to free up valuable shelf space.
The downside? The price is pretty prohibitive, hitting $100 for a single LP and going higher than that for their 2-LP packages. This means that casual fans may be steered away from checking out the great sonic work that has been put into these editions. Today’s reviews are interesting in that both albums were phenomenally huge sellers but may not have the cult appeal that leads obsessives to throw down serious money for the best pressing.
Nevertheless, we took a listen (many, many listens, actually), and came back with some thoughts:
- Blink-182: Enema of the State
- Lionel Richie: Can’t Slow Down
Before we get to the reviews, just a quick reminder about our March vinyl giveaway. It’s excellent. We’re giving away the four latest Vinylphyle reissues to one lucky subscriber on our paid tier. Could that be you? It very well could. Click here to get all the dirt on the contest and how to upgrade to our paid tier, where only the coolest Vinyl Cut readers hang out.
Ned Lannamann
And now, let’s put on our rubber gloves and fiesta forever.
Blink-182: Enema of the State [Definitive Sound Series]
Review by Robert Ham
Were you to ask me to map out the future releases in the indisputably great Definitive Sound Series, I never would have guessed that Blink-182’s Enema of the State would make the cut. That’s not a commentary on the quality of the music on the 1999 12-song set. Blink-182’s third album is pop-punk at its heartfelt, puerile, weird best. Few other genres would comfortably match a song about guitarist/vocalist Tom DeLonge’s ongoing obsession with extraterrestrials (“Aliens Exist”) with sincere tunes about appreciating life’s little treasures (“All the Small Things”) and, you know, “Dysentery Gary.”
But for as clean and crisp as the production of Enema of the State is, the album isn’t one that’s talked about breathlessly in audiophile circles. The accolades it tends to receive are via regular placements on lists as one of the best pop-punk albums ever or, according to a 2003 edition of Blender magazine, one of the “500 CDs You Must Own Before You Die.” That last superlative feels especially important, as this album arrived in peak CD era, when the format had fully supplanted both vinyl and cassettes—to the point that, according to the RIAA, it accounted for 92 percent of physical music media sales. Although the album was recorded to analog tape at a variety of studios in California and clocked in at a comfortable 35 minutes, the first vinyl pressing didn’t arrive until 2009.
Since then, Enema of the State has seen multiple vinyl pressings from the sublime to the godawful. Until now, the bar was set by a 2016 edition that was pressed from lacquers cut by Kevin Gray, but all signs are now pointing to that version being blown out of the water by this new DSS one-step. The new edition was mastered by Chris Bellman at Bernie Grundman Mastering in Hollywood, with the pressing handled by RTI. And while I don’t have an older vinyl version or even a CD to compare it to, there’s no denying that this is a dream to listen to. With dead-quiet backgrounds and a wide soundstage, the vinyl bursts with energy and volume that emphasizes the hugeness of these songs.
Musically, Enema was a huge step forward for Blink-182. At that point, the band was on an upward trajectory after alternative rock stations got their hooks into “Dammit,” an undeniably catchy tune from 1997’s Dude Ranch. With their benefactors at MCA Records offering encouragement and a sizable recording budget, the group opted to level up. DeLonge and bassist/vocalist Mark Hoppus pinched drummer Travis Barker from the Aquabats, and he brought along the perfect mix of power and subtlety. With the new line-up set, the band hunkered down with focused songwriting sessions and then a full four months in the studio. Behind the boards for these sessions was Jerry Finn, a producer and mixer who helped Green Day and Rancid achieve mainstream success.
What Blink-182 came away with was an album that matched their outsized ambition. The guitars are thickly layered to the point of near-overkill, and Barker adds a remarkable complexity to even the most lunkheaded of tunes. The arrangements are given an extra bit of juice courtesy of Roger Joseph Manning, Jr. of Jellyfish, who contributes keyboards to a handful of tunes. His piano, for example, adds a lovely air of melancholy to “Adam’s Song.” This new pressing gives all these elements plenty of breathing room even as the volume takes on a touch of edginess. Hoppus’s bass playing, a muted presence on the streaming version of the album, comes alive on Bellman’s cut, commanding plenty of attention on otherwise busy songs like “The Party Song” and album closer “Anthem.”
While I have no doubt in my mind that Enema of the State was worthy of the DSS treatment, I remain a tad skeptical that there are enough folks populating the area of the Venn diagram where Blink-182 fans and audiophiles meet who will plunk down $100 for this new reissue. Anecdotal evidence indicates that they’re out there: As of this writing, 273 people have added it to their collections on Discogs, and positive reviews for the reissue have been popping up online. And on paper, giving the record an all-analog re-release with a hefty price tag makes a good deal of sense. Enema sold over four million copies in the US alone, and those folks who kept the album in regular rotation around the turn of the century have likely reached that sweet spot of having money to burn and a nostalgic itch that needs scratching.
Geffen/Definitive Sound Series 1-LP 33 RPM slightly translucent vinyl
• One-step pressing of Blink-182’s 1999 LP
• Jacket: Tip-on gatefold with outer slipcase
• Inner sleeve: RTI-branded rice-paper-style poly
• Liner notes, insert, or booklet: Double-sided album insert with lyrics and credits, and a DSS certificate of authenticity
• Source: Analog; “Original analog master tapes”
• Mastering credit: Chris Bellman at Bernie Grundman Mastering, Hollywood, CA
• Lacquer cut by: Chris Bellman at Bernie Grundman Mastering, Hollywood, CA; “CB” in deadwax
• Pressed at: Record Technology, Inc., Camarillo, CA
• Vinyl pressing quality (visual): A
• Vinyl pressing quality (audio): A
• Additional notes: Limited edition of 3000. Vinyl compound is Neotech VR900-D2.
Listening equipment:
Table: Cambridge Audio Alva ST
Cart: Grado Green3
Amp: Sansui 9090
Speakers: Electro Voice TS8-2
Lionel Richie: Can’t Slow Down [Definitive Sound Series]
Review by Ned Lannamann
Of all the ’80s blockbuster albums, Can’t Slow Down appears to have the smallest cultural footprint. Thriller and Purple Rain still more or less define the era in the popular imagination, while Appetite for Destruction and Back in Black still get regular classic-rock radio play; Like a Virgin’s hangover lasted long past the Britney era, and even the TR-808s of No Jacket Required echo throughout the contemporary music scene. (“Take Me Home” even popped up in the just-released straight-to-Amazon action flick The Wrecking Crew.)
Lionel Richie’s 1983 album, on the other hand, is something of an anonymously kitschy relic, its indigo-mauve cover photo belying the conformist mainstream pop within. Can’t Slow Down’s most recent cultural relevance came via the meme from the 2010s that ridiculed the silly-looking clay bust of Richie that appears in the video for “Hello,” a treacly ballad that was a number-one single in its day. (If you think the “Hello” bust is goofy, take a look at the photo in Can’t Slow Down’s inner gatefold, of Richie gleefully hanging onto a weirdly chunky fireman’s pole—or is it a stripper pole?—that does not appear to be properly affixed to the ground.)
And yet Spotify numbers don’t lie: The big hits from Can’t Slow Down currently stream in the hundreds of millions, with “All Night Long (All Night),” “Stuck on You,” and “Hello” clearly making the workout and/or makeout playlists of broad swaths of the populace. Still, it was something of a head-scratcher when Can’t Slow Down was selected as part of the Definitive Sound Series of one-steps. Does the album in the year 2026 have enough fans—enough vinyl-preferring audiophile fans, to be precise—to justify the production of a high-end copy that costs a Benjamin? Fortunately its sales numbers are not our concern here at The Vinyl Cut (although we would like for it to do healthy business so the Universal bean-counters allow the DSS series to continue). Rather, we’re concerned with the sound quality, which should be off the charts, judging from DSS’s previous installments.
But I’m hitting something of a wall with Can’t Slow Down. The pressing, made with Neotech vinyl at RTI, does indeed sound superb, and the new mastering—by Chris Bellman from the original master tape—offers a transparency and precision that no doubt reveals exactly what Richie and the dozen-plus engineers who worked on the album were going for. You can hear everything clear as a bell, right down to the members of the in-studio crowd that whoop along in the background during “All Night Long (All Night).” There is nothing to come between me and the music, and yet I’m finding myself unable to make a connection with Richie’s slick pop, to the point that I’m reminded there are blind spots in my taste palate. Clearly millions love this music, and clearly it was deemed worthy of a mega-luxe vinyl reissue. But barring some minor intrigue in “All Night Long” itself—surely the album’s best and most enduring song—I’m finding it to be a completely sterile experience.
The eight-song LP is 50 percent ballads, as that was Richie’s bread and butter; the success of tunes like “Easy” and “Still” made him the dominant artistic voice in the Commodores, and non-Commodore hits like “Endless Love” and Kenny Rogers’s “Lady” set him on a strong course for a solo career. And yet I find all four of the Can’t Slow Down ballads to be gloppy and uninvolving. “Penny Lover” is simplistic enough that it sounds like a child wrote it, “Stuck on You” sounds like a song Rogers turned down for being too ordinary, “The Only One” shows signs of melodic life but is bogged down by a tepid arrangement and an unpleasant key change, and the less said about the wretchedly maudlin “Hello,” the better. The uptempo songs fare better, betraying the massive influence the previous year’s Thriller had on the recording, but I find the only one with any real substance is “All Night Long.”
“All Night Long (All Night)” is also the sonic highlight of the disc, boasting an incredibly busy production that is a showpiece for percussionist Paulinho da Costa while also featuring strings, horns, a backing chorus, and more than 30 people making “hoopa hollers” to add to the festive atmosphere. Despite all the activity, the recording is animated by forward momentum, with a rhythm that’s propulsive and yet effortlessly relaxed. Richie was trying to evoke a Caribbean feel without explicitly making a calypso or reggae song, and he struck an effective marriage between those genres and the American radio pop milieu he was working within. It’s a universal pop song that plays great at dances and weddings, appeals to children and the elderly, and has joyful lyrics that mean absolutely nothing at all.
The articulation in the DSS cut is remarkable, and Bellman’s mastering is able to house all these disparate elements without any of them getting buried or overblown. It’s a very good-natured sound, without extreme bass or edgy highs—just easygoing, breezy sounds for the ear. However, when I compared it to an original 1983 copy—pressed at Motown’s SPRC Tempe plant and mastered by Bellman’s current boss, Bernie Grundman—I found the older cut to be more exciting. The bass is still relatively subdued, but the mids and highs are more open; the snare drum has a snap and impact that I didn’t hear on the DSS, for example. However, the real telltale moment comes after the bridge of “All Night Long,” when the trumpets come in with two-note blasts, the crowd screams, and the track hits its aural peak. This is a goosebump moment on the Grundman cut, but on the Bellman cut, it feels like the dynamics barely change.
Elsewhere, the Grundman cut just has a bit more life to it. Certainly some of the definition and crispness of the Bellman cut is absent, with the separation between the instruments a little more smeary on the Grundman. And I think one could argue that Richie’s voice has less presence and realism on the older cut. But overall, the songs simply sound less antiseptic, with the dated ’80s synths sounding a bit meltier and more glowing than the boxy timbres that appear on the DSS. The sound is both more hard-hitting and more pillowy on the older pressing, as oxymoronic as that sounds; the DSS cut is buffed, polished, a bit more distant-sounding, and ultimately less forgiving on the ear.
Nevertheless, I think it may appeal to a certain kind of listener who values precision and articulation above all. The DSS is a remarkably clean-sounding record, and Can’t Slow Down is a very clean-sounding recording, made with an enormous budget and a huge supporting cast. “Running with the Night,” perhaps the album’s second-best track, conjures up a real sense of space on the DSS, with a wider soundstage than the Grundman and a clearer sense of the aural ingredients. And yet I responded a bit more to the messier-sounding version on the Grundman cut—it was just simply far more danceable.
Despite my prolonged exposure to it, this remains an album I have not fully embraced, and I doubt I ever can. Everything I’ve read about Can’t Slow Down talks about its unmitigated success: its diamond-status sales history, its five singles that all went into the US Top 10, its Grammy for Album of the Year, beating out Purple Rain and Born in the USA. There is almost nothing written about Can’t Slow Down’s artistic merits, which I find pretty telling. It is a commercial endeavor first and foremost, and maybe it’s so damned good at being a commercial endeavor that its value comes from that. But—to quote our guy Richie—still…
I may listen to too many pop-culture podcasts, but one of the things they continually harp on is the loss of the monoculture, i.e., the pre-internet era when everyone watched the same television and listened to the same music simply because there were no other options. I kept thinking about that while listening to Can’t Slow Down. This album was a decided product of the monoculture—a collection of songs that wished to appeal to as much of the general population as it possibly could. As such, it feels like an album that belongs to no one. It is music that was designed merely to be enjoyed, not to exercise the mind or move the heart. More than 40 years later, it doesn’t seem to have anything more interesting to say than “Gee, weren’t the ’80s simple and fun?” And to this listener, hearing Can’t Slow Down’s bromides with absolute clarity only reveals how insubstantial they were to begin with.
Motown/Definitive Sound Series 1-LP 33 RPM 180g slightly translucent vinyl
• One-step pressing of Lionel Richie’s 1983 album
• Jacket: Tip-on gatefold with outer slipcase
• Inner sleeve: RTI-branded rice-paper-style poly
• Liner notes, insert, or booklet: Two-sided insert that replicates the original album’s inner sleeve, plus a DSS certificate of authenticity
• Source: Analog; “Original Analog Master Tapes”
• Original album mastering credit: “Mastered by Bernie Grundman”
• DSS mastering credit: Chris Bellman at Bernie Grundman Mastering, Hollywood, CA
• Lacquer cut by: Chris Bellman at Bernie Grundman Mastering, Hollywood, CA; “CB” in the deadwax
• Pressed at: Record Technology Inc. (RTI), Camarillo, CA
• Vinyl pressing quality (visual): A
• Vinyl pressing quality (audio): A
• Additional notes: Limited edition of 3000. Vinyl compound is Neotech VR900-D2.
Listening equipment:
Table: Technics SL-1200MK2
Cart: Audio-Technica VM540ML
Amp: Luxman L-509X
Speakers: ADS L980
