Thomas Pugwash posted a thread over at Steve Hoffman forums that there were new Badfinger remasters in the works. He was at Abbey Road mastering a new album and got the engineers to play a couple of the songs for him. He said they finally found the real masters so they didn't have to use noise reduction which is great news but that lead someone to ask what tape was used for the DCC releases and a few minutes later the entire thread was gone. Poof!!

Does anyone have information on these new discs?

The rumor is that the non-Beatles Apple catalogue is being taken off EMI....and onto Rhino. Rhino's parent company Warner Music is an important client of Steve Hoffman, and so Hoffman's censors swung into action and squelched the discussion. Why should Hoffman care, since he won't be the one mastering the new releases anyhow? But it may be, because the talk in the discussion was inferring that previous releases of the Badfinger's Apple recordings weren't from the original master tapes. I seem to recall that Hoffman mastered two Badfinger albums for DCC Gold CD releases.

I'm restricted on what I can say but I have it on good authority EMI showed displeasure to Thomas for letting the cat out of the bag too. It's possible he might of been told to get it removed.

This information was preserved at another site:


TBH this would be a bigger deal to me than the Beatles remasters, if it comes to pass.

I'd say genuine. Only sorry I can't share why I'm saying that with everyone.

If a reissue of the non-Beatles Apple catalogue is going to happen, hopefully they won't omit the intro of "Sali Bloo" by "The Iveys"(early Badfinger). Ron Furmanek accidentally omitted an edit piece containing the guitar intro, and then, because of Apple's "This remastering is etched in stone" policy, Furmanek couldn't correct it on subsequent pressings.

Just wishmastering on my part, but if the Apple albums end up being done by Rhino/Warner, it would be fantastic if they cleaned up and expanded the entire Ham-era catalogue straight through to the end of the Warner Bros. years. Badfinger's first Warner album has been mistitled since its release and suffers from major distortion in places on the CD, Wish You Were Here is flat and hissy on CD, and Warner Bros. is still sitting on the master tapes that have the correct mix and running order of Head First.

Well, I hope the news is true. I have a friend of mine who lives back East. For the past 15 or 18 years, I've been telling him what a fantastic album Straight Up is. I tried tracking down a DCC copy of the album to no avail. I even had gottten a hold of Marshall Blonstein at Audio Fidelity. He once told me he still thought he had a few copies left. He checked and then he told me that he didn't have any left at all. One of the first things I'm going to do for my friend, if this comes true, is buy him a copy of the album and send it to him.

SteveT, if you need a CDR from the DCC PM me.

Rick A.

Thanks. I'll get a hold of my friend and see if he'd like one in lieu of it eventually getting reissued (possibly-hopefully).

Someone (can't tell you who because the post was removed) at the SHF mentioned a post from about EMI working on Badfinger remasters. Hopefully we'll get something in the way of decent bonus tracks. I know it's probably asking too much to see a boxed set but I'm certainly hoping for one with unreleased tracks, alternate takes, etc. or even multiple disc titles of their popular selling albums (Magic Christian, No Dice, Straight Up although I'd love to see ASS also receive the same treatment it never sold all that well and Maybe Tomorrow would be the title that I would think would have the least amount of appeal).

Thoughts? Comments?

Merged into the previous thread ... the thread from the last time this was mentioned elsewhere and immediately deleted. Why is this topic a state secret?

Thomas "Pugwash" was at Abbey Road mastering one of his albums and someone on staff played him some of the Badfinger remasters. Since the Badfinger remasters hadn't been announced yet they deleted the thread so the Abbey Road employees wouldn't get into trouble.

This explains it all. It would be nice to see/hear bonus tracks or, at the very least, alternate masters prepared particularly for "Straight Up" and "Ass".

I'm certainly in for any improvement to the Badfinger catalog. Essential, brilliant stuff. I'd also love to see a new version of James Taylor's Apple album, maybe with bonus tracks (?)...

One nice thing about this place is you can type:

"Badfinger - Ass" and it doesn't come out as "Badfinger - ***"

True, but if you type in "Badfinger - ***" it comes out as "Badfinger ***."

Really? I'm going to try it.

Badfinger ***.

Hey, you're right. Who knew?

The Shadow knew:

Doesn't he always?

I'm keeping my Apple and Warner original CD reissues, but will probably get on board for this round, never completed my run.

It's funny that among the original EMI / Apple reissues on Badfinger, 'Ass' gets the most flack for SQ
yet it is the best sounding Badfinger cd of the Apple era.

The tapes that Ron picked for the 'Magic Christian Music' disc are better than the ones
used on my US open reel tape from back-in-the-day (I played this reel recently to compare the SQ)