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|  | | | Customer Reviews: | | | Average Customer Review:
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 Classic Kansas Feb 18, 2010
The ying to the yang of the Kansas production that put not only the state but the artistic group on the musical landscape. Minstrel lyrics and harmonies with Kerry Livgren's indelible christian-judeo nuances. Masterful instrutmental overlays combined with thoughtful and insightful lyrics.
Wow! What Great Sound Quality! New Life for the Album! Oct 08, 2008
To be very candid, years ago (and I mean years!) I got this cd just for "Dust In the Wind" as I was learning how to play the tune on my new at the time Taylor 812C (by the way, few joys in life compare to playing any tune on a Taylor acoustic)and even after I mastered the tune and incredibly still do after all these years I had always thought that the album was just "Dust ..." and a whole lot of poor fillers.
Then I decided to get the remastered mini-lp sleeve replica version issued by our mlps experts from Japan and boy have I been blown away! It's amazing how much new life a well-remastered cd can give to a cd! My old cd sounds like a totally different album compared with this as the sound quality is simply excellent. In fact, it's so good that I am actually able to properly hear practically every nuance that eluded me on the old cd and I now think that this album is excellent and I now think that there are no fillers at all on this baby but I do feel that "Dust..."'s groove is still a little out of place on the overall scheme of things but I now have to totally re-evaluate what I had always felt about Kansas all these years. Having listened to the old cd so many times to give myself a chance to like the "fillers" with no effect, now because of excellent remastering, I am a fan!
I have always been against bonus tracks because from my experience, 7 times out of 10 they only detract from the main course and in many cases actually make me like the overall package even less. This is not the case here as thankfully they kept the bonus tracks to just the two: "Sparks of the Tempest (Live)" and "Portrait (He Knew) (Remix). The first track was interesting as it gives us a glimpse of Kansas live although strangely enough the first 3/4 of the track had excellent sound quality even by live recording standards but the last quarter drastically deteriorated and it was as if they stopped remastering the track at that point; bizarre indeed. The second track is a true rarity as it was very well remastered and remixed to the point that it was even better than the original album track!
The inner sleeve jacket very faithfully replicates the original lp sleeve and an insert with all the lyrics in Japanese but not in English (strange)is included. The only reason this mlps version is not getting all 5 stars from me is because of the mlps design itself which is not the best that I've seen. The cardboard itself is of low quality thin material and looks as if it will fall apart once the glue gets old. For good quality mlps designs check out the Hall & Oates and The Band series to see what I mean about how much better mlps designs can be.
Otherwise, sound quality-wise this is a vast improvement over the normal cd version and so much so that it actually made me really enjoy what I thought to be the horrible fillers surrounding the brilliant "Dust...." This mlps version is pricey though but at least the sound quality justifies much of the price although the mlps design itself leaves much to be desired.
Kansas rejuvenated!
1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
 My Favorite Kansas Album - You Never Forget Your First Time or Your First Love Sep 03, 2006
Please pardon my moment of nostalgia but this is the first Rock and Roll album I ever heard and the first album (vinyl) I ever bought. It still rates among my all-time favorites. I remember the time, it was 1977 and I had heard all the pop/disco [...] on the school bus. Then my friend turned me on to Kansas and that was the very beginning. He played "Point of No Return" and it was amazing; the lyrics were like real poetry and the melodies varied from the soft "Dust In the Wind," to the brazen, "Lightning's Hand," to the enigmatic, "Portrait." It even had cool graphics on the cover and Rock-n-Roll violin!! How can you beat that??!! My favorite songs are "Point of No Return," "Portrait," and the sad, "Nobody's Home;" but really I do not think there is a bad one in the bunch. I highly recommend this album; a great album which I still love after almost 30 years. It is a true masterpiece of 70's rock and I think I am going to play it right now. (The CD that is - I'm pretty sure the vinyl is in a bar in South Korea somewhere but that is a different bit of nostalgia.)
4 of 4 found the following review helpful:
Don't buy the remaster, but buy this first issue if you want great sound quality Jan 24, 2006
I've already done a review under the entry of the new remastered POINT OF KNOW RETURN, but would like to encourage people interested in buying this cd to buy it under this entry of the one that was released in about 1984 because the remastered one with bonus tracks is a terrible remaster, if you have come to know the vinyl or this first issue. Like was said by a previous reviewer, Jeff Glixman has remastered the new one and made it sound compressed, without much of a dynamic range like it was in the previous issue. If you are new to this recording you may not think the remaster is too bad, but if you know it like the back of your hand like me, you know that somethings wrong with this remaster. So basically I'm saying, buy under this entry here without bonus tracks and you will be getting a very good quality recording. I think right now under this entry a used copy is something like $2.99. Enjoy this progressive rock masterpiece!!!
Kansas' commercial - but not artistic - peak Feb 28, 2005
Along with "Leftoverture", this is the non-compilation Kansas album most casual fans are most likely to own, due in no small part to the huge hits that the title track and "Dust In The Wind" became. I still hear "Dust In The Wind" on adult-contemporary easy-listening radio!
There are some other very good tracks on here - in fact, there's really not a weak track on the album. The instrumentation (as always) is up to Kansas' virtuoso standards and the arrangements on songs like "Closet Chronicles" and "Hopelessly Human" are reminiscent of "Song For America".
If I have one quibble, it's not as guitar-oriented as either of the studio albums that preceded ("Leftoverture") or followed ("Monolith") it. However, there's some nice, grindy, out-of-phase Stratocaster chording (is it Kerry Livgren or Richard Williams?) on "Sparks Of The Tempest" and Robby Steinhardt is his usual manic self on "Lightning's Hand".
They never were this big again sales-wise, even though they released quite a bit of high-quality (and heavier) music for many years after this, right through the line-up changes of the '80s and '90s until today.
An essential purchase by this band which is among the greatest this country has ever produced.
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