![]() ![]() Additionally, I can’t stand it when hype stickers don’t peel away from the plastic wrap all in one piece, and/or leave behind any sticky/glue residue and don’t affix to the cover properly. To each his own, but that’s my preference. Now, some collectors pooh-pooh this hype-sticker-affixing practice outright, but my view is this - that’s how I saw the box’s presentation when I opened up the box it was shipped in, so that’s where I want those stickers to be visible every time I look at the cover. (Incidentally, the blue-hued sci-fi-centric cover art itself is courtesy of artist Dotty White.) ![]() I also took care to affix the two hype stickers from the outer shell’s protective plastic wrap directly onto the box’s front cover, both of them on the all-black right side so as not to cover up the gold-framed Countdown album cover image that is perfectly center-squared. I’ve done that more than once over the years, and, believe me, I absolutely hate being somewhat personally responsible for blemishing a pristine cover. The ease of accessibility to what’s inside this box is in stark contrast to so many uniformly square/rectangular box sets that verge on being too seamlessly aligned in a way that makes removing any of the inner contents somewhat of a chore - and, if you’re not careful and/or get as frustrated/impatient as yours truly does sometimes, your fingernails may wind up scraping the outer surface and leave behind a mark. By my count, this box measures 13 3/8 x 12 13/16 x 1 1/8 inches (w/h/d), and it slides open to the right quite effortlessly, thanks to its grippable, convex edge. As I often do with box sets, I unfurled my trusty Lufkin Red End folding ruler to measure it exactly, just to make sure. In the case of Countdown, the black textured box looks as upwardly classy as all UHQRs do, and it uniformly fits alongside other UHQR boxes, with a clearly delineated spine with sans-serif gold type that’s easy to read at a glance. And yes, we all deal with shelving issues - and that’s certainly a legit dilemma as time rolls on and the deluxe reissues and box sets just keep on a-coming - but as long as there is a relatively uniform presentation to them, I can usually accommodate these boxes in and on my primary shelving units (which are, admittedly, always seeming to be in a growth pattern). Me, I tend to look at any given box set’s contents not only from the audiophile perspective, but also from the collector’s perspective. I totally get why there are those who continue to balk outright at the $150 pricetag for these UHQR editions, which is one reason why I’m going to spend a decent amount of time and space here discussing the packaging specifically to give you a better sense of what you’re paying for beyond the pair of 200g LPs themselves. The Countdown box set, as do the other entries in this series, has an SRP of $150. Each UHQR is pressed using hand-selected vinyl. The 45rpm 2LP UHQR version of Countdown has been pressed at Analogue Productions’ Quality Record Pressings on 200g Clarity Vinyl, packaged in a deluxe box, and it includes a booklet detailing the entire process of making a UHQR along with a certificate of inspection. (You can read my own News report about the entire Steely Dan UHQR series to come here, and then you can read my esteemed colleague Mark Smotroff’s review of the UHQR Thrill here.) ![]() The version of Countdown we have here before us today is also the second entry in Analogue Productions' comprehensive Steely Dan UHQR series, which began in earnest with quite the bang last fall with Can’t Buy a Thrill. The next treatise in the mighty Dan’s West Coast decay-and-decadence diary, Countdown to Ecstasy is the blueprint for how the band’s conjoined pair of masterminds, the aforementioned Donald Fagen and Walter Becker, would come to both chronicle and embody the excesses of the ’70s - sometimes in firsthand documentarian fashion and other times via more ironically detached narratives, more than occasionally resulting in soaring over the heads of numerous listeners who never quite got the sardonicism therein. After setting the SD sonic template with November 1972’s debut LP on ABC Records, Can’t Buy Thrill, they reshuffled some personnel - for one thing, original co-lead vocalist David Palmer departed (albeit providing some backing vocals here and there), while keyboard whiz kid Donald Fagen took over essentially all the lead vocals fulltime, from this point forward - and the five-piece collective worked out much of their sophomore album’s core material live onstage during 1973’s hectic tour schedule, all of which added to Countdown’s inherent interactive grit. Steely Dan were finally hitting their stride with July 1973’s Countdown to Ecstasy. ![]()
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