this post was submitted on 28 Oct 2023
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Mastering engineer here. Remastered means that the audio has been modified to fit a different sonic aesthetic.
In general this means made louder, clearer and perhaps bassier, to make it sound "as good" as contemporary albums, as well as optimising it for contemporary consumer sound systems (which nowadays range from 5.1 kits with huge subwoofers, to a mono smartphone speaker).
It's also an excuse to sell the same album again.
I'm not currently able to listen to the examples you've given, but I do believe it to be sometimes detrimental to change the aesthetic of a song and "take it out of it's era", because a cleaner or brighter mix might make it lose a lot of its charm.
It's also worth noting that nowadays, the quality of remasters can vary a lot due to more (potentially less experienced) people using music-making software to create and upload their own.
Hope that helped!
The one original I don't miss is the CD mix of Rushs Vapor Trails, as that was practically unlistenable and I have no idea who approved it, it clipped like crazy to the point where I was afraid it would damage speakers. Finally remixed in 2013 to a loud (which is fair that's the vibe of it) but listenable mix. I'm glad rush managed to make that happen, one little victory is a great track that was murdered by the mixing.
Sugar Ray is also highly brick walled but I can't tell if that's agressive mixing or just an aesthetic choice to have that kind of distortion and dirtyness in there.