Here are my thoughts on analog versus digital and what makes a good album a good album.
1 - Analog is great. Caveat: You must be able to bleed the most out of the system to make analog great. If any part of the analog chain is deficient, the whole final product suffers. This means that your tape machines MUST be calibrated, demagnetized and cleaned regularly. Your tape has to be in great condition (you can't overdub it 30 times and expect it to sound the same as it did brand new).
1A - Analog sucks. Okay...before anyone grabs any weapons, bear with me here. People that LOVE analog site its flaws as its benefits. The noise, the distortion, the non-linearities and all of its other limitations.
2 - Digital is great. There so little that can go wrong in digital. You get a pristine transfer from even modestly priced converters and once it's digital, nothing can happen to the 1's and 0's to degrade it (other than poor mixing...). There is no terminal point to digital - it should last forever as long as the medium is stable (unlike analog).
2a - Digital Sucks! - Because of its clarity and precision:
1 - poor engineers have nothing to hide behind.
2 - as human beings, we are not accustomed to hearing music (even live) without distortions, non-linearities, noise...digital seems fake.
There are lots of people who record to tape then dump into digital or vice versa and I think that, if you're looking for an analog sound, this is a great way to do it in the modern world. No need for razor blades and isopropyl and band-aids.
Personally, for the work that I do, I like digital and there's not a chance I'd be going back to analog any time soon. There's too much maintenance and headache with analog not to mention a much more lengthy editing process.
As usual, Tom is right. A good recording is a good artist, a good performance, good recording, mixing and mastering techniques. The messenger (or the format) should not be a concern other than for the purpose of effect.
Anyway...rambling over.
Slap your friend for me.