Numbered Limited  Edition - Plays On All CD Players

Mastered by Kreig Wunderlich from the Original Master Tape at MFSL

Mastered on the Mobile Fidelity GAIN 2™ Mastering Technology for Ultradisc UHR SACD   

 singer-songwriter Billy Joel channels John Lennon on this musically ambitious and socially poignant baby boomer-themed set. Mobile Fidelity broadens the expanse of the orchestral arrangements, the sweep of melodic breadth, and the microdynamic reach. This multi-platinum 1982 album includes "Allentown", "Laura", "Pressure", and "Goodnight Saigon". Having triumphantly asserted himself as a take-no-mess singer-songwriter on 1980’s hard-rocking Glass Houses, Billy Joel continues to push his creative impulses on The Nylon Curtain, a fascinating song cycle that pays tribute to John Lennon and stands as the most ambitious project of his career.

 

Enriched by sweeping orchestral arrangements and socially conscious lyrics, the 1982 set addresses unemployment, war, and realities of the Reagan era with exacting precision. Insightful and clever, the album’s Baby Boomer-themed narratives continue to resonate. A requisite piece of Mobile Fidelity’s Billy Joel catalog restoration series, The Nylon Curtain is mastered from the original master tapes on SACD . The myriad nuances amidst Phil Ramone’s crisp production assume greater tonality, texture, and detail.

 

This album is now an audiophile-caliber favorite, with transparency, clarity, and microdynamics enhancing the poignant connection between Joel’s expressiveness and the listener’s emotions. The Nylon Curtain is now an even more personal experience, a brilliant distillation of sadness, loss, hope, and anger. Harnessing concerns, obsessions, reflections, and feelings that consumed a majority of the Baby Boomer generation near the beginning of the Reagan Era, Joel delves into job loss (“Allentown”), wartime fallout (“Goodbye Saigon”), and, of course, romantic longing (“She’s Right on Time”). Rather than take a long-view perspective, Joel gets up and close to the issues, infusing the fare with a mix of sadness, frustration, cautious optimism, and moodiness that he wears on his sleeve. Joel’s melodies, too, ricochet with unmistakably personal sentiment, as he constructs arrangements in tribute to Lennon, whose ghost arises on pieces like “Scandinavian Skies” and “Laura.”

 

Pop culture author Chuck Klosterman addresses the Beatles link and The Nylon Curtain’s timeless appeal in Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs, writing: “’Laura’ and ‘Where’s the Orchestra’ really are as good as what’s on The White Album. This is because the first song says things so directly that its words shouldn’t make sense to anyone else (and yet they do), while the latter is so metaphorically vague that anybody should be able to understand what he’s implying.” But relate and understand audiences do: The Nylon Curtain remains a pop marvel, introspective juggernaut, and now, courtesy of Mobile Fidelity, a sonic landmark. Joel’s anguish, regrets, sorrow, and worries transcend both tastes and time. Somewhat underappreciated upon its original release, the 55-minute effort is now regarded as a conceptual masterpiece.

 

 

Selections: 

1. Allentown

2. Laura

3. Pressure

4. Goodnight Saigon

5. She's Right On Time

6. A Room Of Our Own

7. Surprises

8. Scandinavian Skies

9. Where's the Orchestra

 

 

Mobile Fidelity believes that mastering systems should be neutral and transparent. The essential idea is to unveil all the detailed musical information on the original master recording without adding deterioration, coloration or other sonic artifacts. 

It is worth noting that Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab stands out as one of few record labels that independently invests in research and development of audio technology. With proprietary innovations such as GAIN 2™, general music enthusiasts and audiophiles alike have reaped the benefit of a higher consumer audio standard without investing in costly new hardware. Mobile Fidelity is pleased to work with a variety of engineering legends and companies including Tim de Paravicini, Ed Meitner, Pass Labs, Theta Digital and Sony Electronics. 

Our joint efforts to seek out the ultimate audio experience, has resulted in significant advances for the technology of music reproduction. 

GAIN 2™ Mastering Technology for Ultradisc UHR™ Hybrid SACD and Ultradisc II™ 24kt Gold CDs 

For over twenty years, Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab has continually searched for the ultimate audio experience. During this search MFSL engineers and associates created The GAIN™ System, a proprietary mastering technology which brought warmth and ambience to the compact disc format. A few years ago - with higher resolution formats on the horizon - the vision of GAIN 2™ began. As it stands today, GAIN 2™ is one of the greatest technical advancements in analogue and digital technology in the last ten years. It consists of a series of critical modifications and new components to Mobile Fidelity's proprietary mastering chain. 

We feel that GAIN 2™ has come extremely close to meeting this goal. The key accomplishments of GAIN 2™ System are 1) the ability to extract all the musical information as possible through the Ultra High bandwidth analogue tape playback system with proprietary custom tape playback heads, reproducer electronics and 2) transparently capturing and storing that information with the Direct Stream Digital recording system.