3 out of 5

Produced by: Ant

Label: Rhymesayers

Review of the original here.

For our tenth anniversary remaster, we’re talking about what we get for a 4 x LP set: the remaster quality, instrumentals, and… shitty packaging.

Firstly, I’m a loser, but I don’t consider instrumentals a real “bonus.”  It’s just the tracks I already know with the lyrics stripped out.  That said: the instrumentals on You Can’t Imagine are pretty damn enjoyable.  Because Ant is such a slick producer, I sometimes forget how good his cuts are – meaning his production being so seamless covers up a lot of the nuance he brings – and this was Atmosphere at sort of their harshest, delivery- and beat-wise, which I dig, so having that isolated is nice.  (If, admittedly, a little repetitive without Slug carrying us from verse to verse; Ant doesn’t really mix it up too much over the course of a track.)

And the remaster does sound pretty good, methinks.  This isn’t a super old album, but I feel like I’m getting a bit more depth out of the recording, which, see above regarding Ant’s “slickness,” is definitely a good thing.

But nothing extra otherwise.  Is 43 bucks (the original price, not including shipping if ordered online) justifiable for a 4xLP set?  Mmm…  Lookit like this: if you’re like me, and see instrumentals as nice-but-not-really-new, then you’re paying that premium for, basically, a single album.  So I’d consider this pricey.  Add on top of that Rhymesayers’ horrendous multi-LP packaging, which folds each side of the pack up and down, with the openings facing in toward the spine, requiring you to not only lay the whole thing down on a surface to get out one LP, but also to bend the packaging back in order to slide the LP out… and that’s why I’ve knocked the rating down.