Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I am a recording engineer and sound mixer. I grew up in Texas, listening to and watching ZZ Top. The first two ZZ Top albums were released on vinyl records. Tres Hombres was the first to be released on Compact Disc. When the inevitable popularity of the CD overtook the market, Bill Ham thought it would be a great idea to release the first six albums on CD, which they affectionately called the "six pack." While remastering this compilation, somebody (who knows, but who controlled all of ZZ Top's musical movements??) got the bright idea to re-edit, reproduce, re-arrange and remix the first three albums. At the time, there was a new device in the studios that was known as a "digital echo" device for adding reverb and delay textures to sounds. Most notably, Phil Collins was using this echo device to enhance his drum sounds. ZZ Top's producer (you know who) decided it was the way to go as well, that the new sounds would attract the day's "new audience." The echo and reverb patterns on the "six pack" were so much bigger and wetter than on the original first three albums. Then I started to notice that there were different vocal performances and different guitar riffs in a few places. Talk about re-arranging an original! At a later time, the reproduced versions released on the "six pack" were then released on individual CD's which contain the original artwork of the first three albums. However, they are definitely NOT the original recordings. This process is much like Jimi Hendrix's producer, who went into the studio after Hendrix died and actually hired a player to finish the guitar work on recordings that were incomplete when Hendrix died. Those recordings were subsequently released as "Hendrix's final unrealeased recordings." Suffice it to say, that if the world's art museums decided that certain Rembrandt or DaVinci paintings looked "faded" or weren't "up to date with today's audience," and they repainted certain brush strokes on these masterpieces, the world art community would have a cow! Don't buy these CD's, they are not ORIGINAL works. They have been repainted to fit what someone thought would be a new and "catchy" idea.