In 1996, the vinyl industry was practically dead since the CD had taken the #1 spot as the medium of preference for music listening. That’s why LPs pressed in the second half of the nineties are pretty uncommon. One of them is Pantera’s “The Great Southern Trendkill”, which was released as a single LP with one track removed (“Suicide Note Pt. I”).

In 2012, Rhino Records reissued the album as a double LP with the missing track reinstated and expectedly better sound because of the greater physical space available to hold practically the same material (the removed track from the original LP is less than five minutes long).

Here you can compare both versions with one of the best songs ever created by Pantera (in my opinion) as test subject. Featuring the 19th greatest guitar solo ever recorded according to Guitar World magazine’s top 100 list, and the best solo in Pantera’s discography according to the same list (followed by “Cemetery Gates” and “Walk”).

You can click on the following time marks to quickly jump between pressings:

(00:00) Video intro

– (00:35) Original 01
– (00:52) Original 02
– (01:21) Original 03
– (01:45) Original 04
– (02:01) Original 05
– (02:54) Original 06
– (03:39) Original 07
– (04:05) Original 08
– (04:58) Original 09
– (05:37) Original 10
– (06:04) Original 11
– (06:43) Original 12

– (07:42) Reissue 01
– (08:01) Reissue 02
– (08:30) Reissue 03
– (08:54) Reissue 04
– (09:11) Reissue 05
– (10:03) Reissue 06
– (10:48) Reissue 07
– (11:15) Reissue 08
– (12:07) Reissue 09
– (12:47) Reissue 10
– (13:14) Reissue 11
– (13:53) Reissue 12

Of course, and regardless of sound quality, fans of the song will immediately notice the huge mistake made by the record company on the reissue (allegedly, it happened because the missing part in the reissue was a last minute addition to the original release after Dimebag Darrell recorded it on a DAT, and that tape got lost).

Numark TTXUSB turntable – Nagaoka MP-500 phono cartridge – ART DJPRE II phono stage preamp – Vinyl record vinilo LP