June 13, 2019

Dodgy - Ace A's + Killer B's (1998)

*A photo of the disc is included in the RAR file.
Country: United Kingdom
Genre: Alternative Rock
Style: Britpop
Label Number: 541 018-2:
.FLAC via Mega (Link)
.AAC 256 kbps via Mega (Link)


© 1998 A&M/Mercury Records
AllMusic Review by Jason Damas
Dodgy were never considered to be one of the more important bands in the Brit-pop movement; rather they more often played the part of jesters to the more critically and commercially acclaimed bands who rode on the wave of the movement during the peak of its popularity. It is no surprise, then, that lead singer Nigel Clark left the group in mid-1998 when the popularity of Brit-pop had officially hit an all-time low. With the release of Ace A's and Killer B's, a 18 track greatest hits and B-sides retrospective, the band effectively closed the book on their first incarnation and also opened the doors for the future. The disc collects nearly all of Dodgy's finest moments from their first three albums and 19 singles onto a single disc featuring one new single "Every Single Day." It seems pointless to be so nostalgic over a band that was so short-lived and released so little material, but what is contained on Ace A's and Killer B's is nothing less than first-rate Brit-pop. From the sloppy, electrified "In a Room" to the tribal beats on "The Elephant," there's enough here to please any fan or non-fan. The inclusion of several B-sides and the one new track makes it essential for collectors as well. The only true flaws are that a few singles are substituted by lackluster album material ("Grassman," "Ain't No Longer Asking") and that Dodgy will never make music like this again. [Some copies of this album were issued with a second disc featuring remixes of many of Dodgy's biggest hits and album tracks. While the disc is competent electronica, it hardly represents the sound of the band as a whole. Dodgy were essentially trad-rock revivalists, so their songs don't work well in the remixed format. Also, the tracks are so heavily remixed that almost none resemble their original versions, especially since the remix disc is largely instrumental. The double-disc version is truly for collectors only.]

tags: dodgy, aces as and killer bs. +, a's, b's, 1998, flac,

5 comments:

  1. Hi Lass thank you for the rip/share. Why not include the CUE + LOG with your posts?

    regards,
    Sara.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sara, how's it going? We tag all of our rips and thus the CUE sheets would be rendered useless since they do not hold that information or preserve it. This was intentional. It was done for both convenience and so that you would not need a CUE sheet/additional software to extract or otherwise split the image+cue file into separate tracks. We rip all of our CD's into separate tracks so you don't have to. Everything is ready for you once you extract the RAR file.

      We also do provide a Log file. The notepad file present in every download is the Log file. It's the Accuraterip log file. All of our rips are passed and verified through the Accuraterip database as well as the CTDB database. We use Cue Ripper, not EAC for ripping since it already has built in Accuraterip support right from the box. Sometimes certain pressings/CD's differ or are not registered in one of the 2 databases. When that happens, we provide a photograph of the CD as compensation.

      The metadata/tags for these 2 databases can be found in every rip via the tags. You can view the tags in a program like MP3 tag via it's "extended tags" settings. Please see the screenshot below for an example. Cheers and thank you visiting our website. 🙂

      Screenshot: https://imgur.com/fav6fGO

      Delete
    2. HI Lass,

      I am good and hope you are too.

      Thank you for your reply. I am very new to your site (which is very nice) and am grateful for your time and effort to share such great music with us.

      I personally don't 'care' for extended tags and prefer the old school method of simple image+cue+rip log (year's of Usenet EAC rips!) and Accuraterip log can be made even by cuetools which I can also use to verify and reconstruct/decompress your Flac rip into say a Wave file (with Cue). I personally am just interested in Artist Track title and album press info etc, I use foobar to read the cue file (Image or just Tracks) of my personal rips and this is fine by me.

      Unless I am missing some big point, I can see that a Cue file could be provided as separate tracks too, if a service like freedb is used, standard artist, track info is written to non-compliant Cue file which can be handled very easily by free software like Burrrn or EAC .

      Anyway, we all know everybody has their own preferences in doing things and that is fine.

      Best regards,
      Sara.

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    3. The old school method is the reason why we chose not to do it that way. Everything mentioned in your comment has already been taken care of by us. That's our goal. We take care of all of that so you don't have to. We did it this way so that people who aren't' familiar with lossless audio to get into it much easier, without the hassle of finding other software for extractions and verification. For further verification, our rips can be verified through CUETools by simply dragging and dropping the actual music file (1 track will do) as if it were a CUE file and then running the software. It can be done through foobar2000 as well. Burning the files to a CD with Burrn will preserve the metadata present in the files as well. All the information plus Accuraterip tags and other verification is already present in the metadata for these software's to verify the rips. Once you download from us, the only thing you need to decide is where you want to store your albums. Whether is on a PC, mobile or external hard drive etc... All of us personally rip our music in this fashion. We don't like missing information in our files and it looks much better to the eyes by doing it this way. This is how I have my foobar200 set up and this is how it looks with all of the proper metadata data......

      Screenshot: https://imgur.com/e46qw74

      It looks the same on a mobile as well. You can also look at the accuraterip data in foobar2000 via "right click + properties" Thanks again for your comment. I hope that you're enjoying the site.

      Delete
    4. Hi Sentinel,

      I am very much enjoying the site!

      Thank you for the detailed reply, I understand where you guys here are coming from. Keep the cool lossless music coming!

      Sara.

      Delete

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