Van Der Graaf Generator – World Record

Considering how better is the remastered CD in terms of transparency and dynamics, this one was a bit of a dissapointment. It's not bad comparing to the original, in fact I prefer it in some passages, but the (remastered) CD is inexplicably better in all aspects, quite unlike "Still Life", where the vinyl first press reigns above all others. Live and learn, I suppose...

Crisp, clear, loud - this brings out the particular magic that VdGG brought to this album.

Starting already with the first vinyl issues of this album, there has always been confusion about the subtitle of track 4, the very long "Meurglys III" (sometimes even misspelled as "Meurglys 111"!) with its infamous "reggae" coda.
On this remastered, expanded issue that subtitle is once again incorrectly written as "(The Songwriters Guild)" on the back of the tray card and in the tracklist on page 2 of the booklet, while in the heading of the song's lyrics on page 10 we get "Meurglys III, The Songwriter's Guild" as its title. This way of writing it with a comma instead of brackets had already occurred as the heading to the lyrics on the back sleeve of "World Record" vinyl editions from 1976 onwards and in the booklet of the previous CD edition by Virgin/Charisma from the late 1980s (CASCD 1120).
The correct version of the subtitle would have to be "(The Songwriter's Guild)"; that's how it is to be found in Mark Powell's liner notes to this remaster at the top of page 12 of its booklet and how it was printed both on the back of the tray inlay and in the tracklist on the second page of the booklet for the afore-mentioned previous reissue on CD (CASCD 1120) - curiously enough, the CD label of the latter has the plural form of the genitive, i.e. "(The Songwriters' Guild)"!
In the singular genitive form the subtitle makes the most sense and can also be viewed as a play upon words: Guild as in guild of craftsmen (phonetically perhaps even an allusion to guilt?) and Guild as the brand name of Peter Hammil's = the songwriter's electric guitar, which he had christened "Meurglys III".
Its predecessor, "Meurglys II", had by the way been stolen in Rome at the beginning of a Van Der Graaf Generator concert tour through Italy (planned to last three weeks) in December 1975.

Is the 2005 CD issue the first occurrence where A Place To Survive has no fade-out?

Side1: a2 C11 4 side2: b1 C 12 1 If anyone has earlier matrix than this, or just like this one, in a nice condition for a sell, please write me.

this is a Netherlands issue more likely. (with uk cover...)

Ignore the detractors, this is a superb album, my favourite of theirs, rivaled only by Still Life and Godbluff. Highly recommended.

A lot better than most of VdGG commentators allow to be, this must always supposedly doff its cap humbly to the genius of their earlier works, and know its place. 'When She Comes' is a great upbeat rocker with a sniff of Mexican brass. Hammill wails and grates all over the LP, and by prog standards the playing is tight and unpretentious. Meurglys III reminds me of Floyd's 'Echoes', in that it has a strange groovy section, but in this case the song that started never returns.

My Copy has the Mercury Skyline lable but unlike the photos included her, the label has:

"SIDE A" above "STEREO" to the centre left and "SRM-1-1116" above [in smaller font] "SRM-1-1116-A" to the centre-right. There are also some other font differences.

World Record was a massive disappointment after the superb Godbluff and Still Life albums. Considered an embarrassing aberration/abomination by almost all UK VdGG fans at the time (the "word of mouth" on this album was atrocious. Bizarrely, however, it's been inexplicably "rehabilitated" by some present day VdGG fans), World Record sounds like the work of an exhausted, uninspired band at the end of its life, which is pretty much what it was. Most of what made VdGG great is conspicuously absent, and is replaced with what might best be termed a sort of "simplified VdGG" music. This means an album of mostly generic sounding, often plodding, and slightly clunky prog rock. Even the lyrics are nowhere near Hammill's usual standard and could have been written by any slightly-more-literate-than-average rock lyricist. Roger Waters, say.

Godbluff and Still Life gave us Hammill thoughts on consciousness, alter egos, death, the nature of memory. immortality etc., World Record gives us songs about someone pretending to be depressed (Masks) actually being depressed (A Place To Survive), and Hammill droning on about his bloody guitar (the dreary, laboured Meurglys III, complete with a risible extended cod-reggae jam). Only the opening When She Comes and the closing Wondering hint at anything resembling VdGG at its best. Well, they sound like songs not considered good enough for either of the two preceding albums, which, for When She Comes at least, was actually the case.

This line up of the band fell apart within weeks of World Record's release - which came as a surprise to no-one who had actually heard the thing - by which time Charisma had already dropped its doomed "VdGG Is For Everyone" campaign like a stone (presumably upon first sight of the album's initial sales figures). As tired and unimaginative as its awful title and even worse cover, World Record is best avoided by all but completists and is definitely not recommended for newcomers to the band's work. Start with either Godbluff, Still Life or Pawn Heats.