My 2 cents is this. What you are experiencing is poor mastering from the enginer and producer. Many multi-track recordings were poorly mastered by the recording enginers over the years especially in the 80's. It was all about profit and CD's during the 80's.
Pat Metheny along with many perfectionist musicians made sure their recordings represented them and their craft. The groups you mentioned may not have taken that same level of care as Pat. Don't blame the label blame the artist for letting a mediocre recording get released. If you want to hear something special check out Dire Strait On Every Street LP and listen to Fade to Black. Even the CD is exceptional. They made sure that every recording they made exceeded expectations. There are many other artist out there that take care of their business. You may not listen to much Mowtown but during the 60's and 70's I can't remember a bad recording on that label. A couple may have been a little bass shy but most were well recorded. Look at Earth Wind and Fire, James Taylor, Fleetwood Mac, and many others took pride in their recordings.
Some labels took short cuts for profit during the 80's mainly becuse the CD revolution "Perfect Sound Forever" was the mandate at $18.00 per disc. If you look at the quality of vinyl during the 70's and compare it an 80's LP you will see the 80's vinyl is very thin and "Floppy". There was more poorer quality vinyl which led to more noise. The age of disco was not very friendly to our ears and even the quality of the cover art went down.
See if you can find a European copy of that release and see if there are any differences. Vinyl was still made there even when we abandoned vinyl for the silver disc. That's my 2 cents on the topic.
Pat Metheny along with many perfectionist musicians made sure their recordings represented them and their craft. The groups you mentioned may not have taken that same level of care as Pat. Don't blame the label blame the artist for letting a mediocre recording get released. If you want to hear something special check out Dire Strait On Every Street LP and listen to Fade to Black. Even the CD is exceptional. They made sure that every recording they made exceeded expectations. There are many other artist out there that take care of their business. You may not listen to much Mowtown but during the 60's and 70's I can't remember a bad recording on that label. A couple may have been a little bass shy but most were well recorded. Look at Earth Wind and Fire, James Taylor, Fleetwood Mac, and many others took pride in their recordings.
Some labels took short cuts for profit during the 80's mainly becuse the CD revolution "Perfect Sound Forever" was the mandate at $18.00 per disc. If you look at the quality of vinyl during the 70's and compare it an 80's LP you will see the 80's vinyl is very thin and "Floppy". There was more poorer quality vinyl which led to more noise. The age of disco was not very friendly to our ears and even the quality of the cover art went down.
See if you can find a European copy of that release and see if there are any differences. Vinyl was still made there even when we abandoned vinyl for the silver disc. That's my 2 cents on the topic.