Universal Japan released a 40th anniversary Olivia Newton-John box set of 10 CDs, with typical Japanese attention to detail they made the CDs replicas of the vinyl albums, tending to follow the EMI releases, from the 1974 Long Live Love album through to 1988's The Rumour. Regrettably, they didn't take the opportunity to include the lovely live album from 1976 that had only been released in Japan, Love Performance.
There was a booklet which features some of the Japanese singles covers and Olivia recalling where these photoshoots were taken. A DVD featuring the videos completes the set. The DVD features:
- Grow Young
- Have You Never Been Mellow
- Hopelessly Devoted To You
- Just The Way You Are
- Who Are You Now?
- the video to the 1976 song from Don't Stop Believin' - Every Face Tells A Story
Tracks 1-5 are taken from the 1978 Olivia ABC special and seem to be sourced from a very good quadruplex tape source, the 1976 Every Face Tells A Story video is good but there are some picture disturbances from the source which was over thirty years old.
The attention to detail is amazing, both for the mini-gatefold issues like Clearly Love, and the general quality fo the reprographics. For instance Don't Stop Believin' reproduced the inner sleeve from the 12" album, and you can read the text. The following images are from the CD covers - compare it with the images of the LP cover if you like, and yes, the HD LP pictures are sharper, but I would say Universal Japan did an absolutely top quality job within the limitations of the medium. These are some of the clearest CD covers I have ever seen. They have even replicated the strange textured effect from the Long Live Love album on the CD cover.
The designs tend to follow the UK EMI issues. US fans may be disappointed to find Making a Good Thing Better is not a gatefold sleeve as they will remember from the US album, that is because the UK Making a Good Thing Better album was not a gatefold.
Remastering
Universal have pushed the audio in remastering this. Listening to the track Don't Stop Believin' on my computer the sound is fuller and a bit more in your face than on the MCA originals. But on reflection I would probably still favour the MCA originals on my hi-fi, though you may want to increase the volume on them. In a noisy environment this mastering may be preferable. Foobar 2k shows an integrated LUFS of -17dB for the MCA version and -10dB for the remastered version, so the remastered version will sound about twice as loud if you switch between the CDs and leave the volume the same.
That's good if you are listening in your car or on your phone, but if you are listening to Olivia with the lights out on your home stereo then it will get tiring to listen to, because it doesn't fall back enough. Go with MCA and crank the volume up. John Farrar and mastering engineer Mike Reese intended Olivia's vocals to rise and fall in volume to carry her message more like the MCA CD.
Oddly enough the outer cover of the box is quite sparse, with a bowtie design with small images of the album covers, in keeping with the DVD and book, it covers lots of white space.
The albums are
- Long Live Love - extra tracks:
Mon Amour, Mon Impossible Amour (I Honestly Love You in French)
Long Live Love sung in German - Clearly Love - extra track:
Fairy Tale Hero (not previously released) - Have You Never Been Mellow
- Come On Over
- Don't Stop Believin' - extra track:
Looking For Space (not previously released) - Making A Good Thing Better
- Totally Hot- extra tracks:
Love Is Alive (originally from Love Performance album)
Totally Hot extended version - Physical - extra tracks
Heart Attack (originally from Greatest Hits Vol 2 album)
Tied Up (originally from Greatest Hits Vol 2 album) - Soul Kiss - extra track:
Electric (originally only found on European releases of the album) - The Rumour - extra track:
It's Always Australia For Me (originally only found the Australian release of the album)
Release date: 13 Oct 2010