Geffen Records lp's

My experience is exactly the opposite, though I don't know if I have any Geffen pop/rock LPs. I have three Pat Metheny Geffen LPs (Still Life (Talking), Letter From Home, and Question and Answer), and they are some of the best commercial pressings I have, easily on a par with '70s-era ECM jazz records.

In fact, Question and Answer has exceptional dynamics, especially Roy Haynes' drumming, and I don't know how they managed that given that the pressing has over 30 minutes per side.

"Double Fantasy" by John Lennon on Geffen is not bad as I recall.

On the other extreme the first "Asia" album from Geffen about a year or two later is a huge letdown as you describe.

I don't know if any more meaning can be inferred other than some were good and some were bad as was common with many labels back then.

Mapman, I have 2 double fantasy records, and they are both pretty dull sounding. But if you remember a good one, then I suppose they are out there! Thanks, I will look for a third! There is a Lennon compilation I have as well, and hands down the cd smokes it!
I'll have to grab a couple of those Metheny albums, Thanks guys.

I was going to talk about the Pat Metheny recordings but I see someone beat me to it. The sound quality of "Still Life" is very good, but the pressing itself and vinyl suck. My Geffin label pressing suffers from noisy bad vinyl. too bad, as the Metheny recording is wonderful. Had to resort to buying the CD for sound without the dirty vinyl noise. and in my experience, no amount of cleaning gets out that dirt pressed into the vinyl itself.

My 2 cents is this. What you are experiencing is poor mastering from the enginer and producer. Many multi-track recordings were poorly mastered by the recording enginers over the years especially in the 80's. It was all about profit and CD's during the 80's.

Pat Metheny along with many perfectionist musicians made sure their recordings represented them and their craft. The groups you mentioned may not have taken that same level of care as Pat. Don't blame the label blame the artist for letting a mediocre recording get released. If you want to hear something special check out Dire Strait On Every Street LP and listen to Fade to Black. Even the CD is exceptional. They made sure that every recording they made exceeded expectations. There are many other artist out there that take care of their business. You may not listen to much Mowtown but during the 60's and 70's I can't remember a bad recording on that label. A couple may have been a little bass shy but most were well recorded. Look at Earth Wind and Fire, James Taylor, Fleetwood Mac, and many others took pride in their recordings.
Some labels took short cuts for profit during the 80's mainly becuse the CD revolution "Perfect Sound Forever" was the mandate at $18.00 per disc. If you look at the quality of vinyl during the 70's and compare it an 80's LP you will see the 80's vinyl is very thin and "Floppy". There was more poorer quality vinyl which led to more noise. The age of disco was not very friendly to our ears and even the quality of the cover art went down.

See if you can find a European copy of that release and see if there are any differences. Vinyl was still made there even when we abandoned vinyl for the silver disc. That's my 2 cents on the topic.