New Peter Gabriel album in high resolution

PS3SACD · Site Admin Joined: 17 Aug 2007 Posts: 316

Peter Gabriel has just finished recording a new album called Scratch My Back, due March 2 in the US and out now elsewhere. It's a collection of covers of songs by other artists who will be returning the favour by covering one of his songs. These will be released on a companion album titled I'll Scratch Yours.

While it comes in a Super Jewel Box, there's no SACD. There is a Special Edition. Sadly it does not contain a multichannel mix -- remarkable considering the artist's view on surround sound and the fact that the last of his eleven SACD albums, Up, was in 5.1 -- but it does provide access to 24-bit (stereo) versions of the songs. It also holds several more songs.

Brandon B · Joined: 14 Oct 2007 Posts: 392

"access to 24 bit . . "

Do we presume that to be some sort of code good for a download?

PS3SACD · Site Admin Joined: 17 Aug 2007 Posts: 316

Presumably, yes. Including these on a physical carrier (necessarily a DVD-ROM if not a solid-state memory card) would surely be too costly to bundle, and apparently not considered worthwhile to release as a separate SKU.

Another assumption: the 24-bit files will be 96 kHz. Just a wilde guess. You never know: The Beatles' 24-bit versions were in 44.1 kHz after all.

Brandon B · Joined: 14 Oct 2007 Posts: 392

I'm going to guess 44.1.

Do they release 24/96 into the wild without DRM?

raveer · Joined: 17 Jul 2008 Posts: 12

Yes. HDtracks, 2L, B&W SoS (Gabriel has a lot to do with it) downloads are all without DRM. I have a feeling the distribution will go through B&W SoS channel, will see when Amazon ships me the item. Otherwise the Album is already there, but my subscription expired and I did not renew it yet.

Brandon B · Joined: 14 Oct 2007 Posts: 392

Cool.

The Seventh Taylor · Joined: 17 Aug 2007 Posts: 401

http://www.petergabriel.com/live/tourdiary/ now states the following:

Brandon B · Joined: 14 Oct 2007 Posts: 392

My wife had gotten me the 2 disc US set for our anniversary. It's produced quite nicely, sounds very good even as an RBCD.

She also picked me up Big Blue Ball, and SACDs of Clapton's Slowhand and Orbison's Black & White Nights DVD/SACD set.

Good wife.

The Seventh Taylor · Joined: 17 Aug 2007 Posts: 401

Indeed. Do you keep an (online) wishlist or is she simply that well aware of your taste?

Brandon B · Joined: 14 Oct 2007 Posts: 392

The latter.

rbpett · Joined: 13 Aug 2008 Posts: 7

I've ordered 2 of these from Amazon - both have the same sticker (on the amazon site) as was posted here on this site. When it actually arrived here, The sticker didn't list the fact that it had access to the downloadable files. No code in the set either. What gives?

Brandon B · Joined: 14 Oct 2007 Posts: 392

Mine did not either, but I did not expect it to since it is the U.S. version.

The Seventh Taylor · Joined: 17 Aug 2007 Posts: 401

I guess (based on the information from the Peter Gabriel website I posted above) it's the European special edition only.

Why? I'm not sure. It could be the local policy of the record company in each territory (but it's Real World in all cases, isn't it?) but I fear what's behind it is the same thing that prevents or deters labels from issuing SACDs in the United States that are released in Europe: thanks to the Harry Fox Agency they would have to pay royalties for every version the consumer gets access to, which in the case of a hybrid stereo/multichannel SACD amounts to three -- the CD layer, the DSD stereo and DST multichannel.

Due to this utter stupidity, the Depeche Mode and Genesis remasters were issued as CD and DVD in the US, instead of hybrid SACD and DVD.