Corinne Bailey Rae – The Sea

My copy sounds pretty good. Before playing I cleaned the blue vinyl and ditched the cheap paper inner for a MoFi style sleeve. I love the soundstage. Highs, mids and lows are nice. Not perfect with little surface noise.

This pressing is crap. I went and bought the CD

Piss poor pressing. One of those rush-from-digital numbers. Sounds totally flat and has no dimension.

I had been waiting for a repress of this album for yeeeears and it's a shame the quality control for this was so bad. It's not *the worst* sound quality but especially side B has random pops and surface clicks even after cleaning the record. Sadly, the biggest victim is the title track, my personal favorite from the album. Judging by the reviews, this seems to be a production issue. The red pressing of her debut album was pretty superb, so I had high expectations for this one but it was a bit of a let down.

My copy also suffers from the issues on Side B, especially on what is arguably the best song on the record and final track 'The Sea'. Terrible Quality Control as this seems to be on most copies. Can't say I'm surprised as it was pressed at GZ. Will try cleaning on my Okki Nokki but I'm not confident it will help...

Update: As expected, cleaning on my RCM hasn't helped. I'd avoid this and hope for a black pressing at some point.

My pressing has clicks at the end of "The Sea" on side B as others have mentioned. I also notice that the vocals seem to be behind the instruments, which is a shame since I really bought this for CBR's voice. Still an enjoyable album.

I've been waiting for this for many, many years! It's a decent pressing; not the worst and not the best. Side A of my copy sounds quite good, except for a couple very minor pops. As someone else mentioned, there's a repetitive tick on the last few seconds of the last track. Side B is worse than side A and has random pops throughout, but they're not terribly distracting. No visual flaws. I think I'll give it a cleaning on the VPI and report back if anything changes.

The mastering is good and I have no complaints. Some songs sound exceptional while others sound good. None sound bad. Might come down to where and how they were recorded originally. Overall, it is a very enjoyable listen.

Given the price of the original, you would be stupid not to go for this one. Judging by reviews of the 2010 pressing, it's plagued with pops and clicks so probably not a wise risk. It does look like the prices have been falling over the past couple days though.

At $25-30, this is a good deal, given the price of the original. Due to the issues noted above, I wouldn't recommend spending more than that. If the price starts creeping up, grab a CD copy.

Good pressing, random surface clicks at the end of side B. Other than that flawless

Very nice record, i'd say it lacks just a bit of higher ends frequencies, also, I find the perceived volume between tracks a bit inconsistent, you often have to turn up or down the volume to get it right, and overall quite low. I also have the cracks at the very end of both sides. 4 out of 5 stars :-)

Beautiful color and love this album so much but mine has bad clicks on the last tracks on each side. Otherwise sounds great.