Dollarhyde wrote: ↑Fri Feb 26, 2021 7:45 pm
Is there something unique or special about Varese e.g. type of music or artists, sound quality?
Oof. Lots to say there @dollar, some of it subjective. Here's my personal bullet points though:
- They are terrific pressings, and invariably a well cared for 40yr old Varese will take a giant shit on a modern reissue. They had a fantastic audio team at Varese, and combined with the fact that it was an era of vinyl production being the
height of music repro, they knew what they were doing in the pressing plants.
- The main era of Varese activity (70s-90s) was a golden era for film scoring, especially in genre cinema.
- They developed relationships with composers, and would release multiple albums by them over the years, representing a career output in some cases (ie Goldsmith)
- I love the sleeve design, and various house styles, of VS albums over their main production era. They almost always employed key art used in the film's marketing, so there is strong synchronicity with the experience you had with the film (look at their Reanimator release - why would anyone consider putting anything else on that cover??)
- Feels. For me, because of their ubiquity in the import ost racks when i was a teen getting into films/scores (esp horror and sci fi/genre stuff) these were the LPs i was buying, drooling over, plotting to save and buy, and religiously playing over and over. I couldnt tell you objectively whether Evil Dead is a 'good score' - having it and listening to it is wrapped up with multiple emotions and strong associations: my collection would feel like a joke without it (and so many other VS albums)