Barbra Streisand – People

More Barbra Streisand

  • An outstanding copy of Streisand’s fourth solo studio album with solid Double Plus (A++) sound from start to finish – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • This copy is hard to fault – big, open, clear, with space and three-dimensionality that modern pressings can only dream of
  • 4 1/2 stars: “Barbra Streisand returned to form on her fourth album, People, with a selection of songs that showed some of the imagination of her debut album… it was a definite improvement over the second and third albums. (People won Grammy Awards for Best Vocal Performance and Best Album Cover.)” 

This vintage Columbia 360 Stereo pressing has the kind of Tubey Magical Midrange that modern records rarely begin to reproduce. Folks, that sound is gone and it sure isn’t showing any sign of coming back.

Having done this for so long, we understand and appreciate that rich, full, solid, Tubey Magical sound is key to the presentation of this primarily vocal music. We rate these qualities higher than others we might be listening for (e.g., bass definition, soundstage, depth, etc.).

Hot Stamper sound is rarely about the details of a given recording. In the case of this album, more than anything else a Hot Stamper must succeed at recreating a solid, palpable, real Barbara Streisand singing live in your listening room. The better copies have an uncanny way of doing just that.

If you exclusively play modern repressings of vintage recordings, I can say without fear of contradiction that you have never heard this kind of sound on vinyl. Old records have it — not often, and certainly not always — but less than one out of 100 new records do, if our experience with the hundreds we’ve played over the years can serve as a guide.

What the best sides of People have to offer is not hard to hear:

  • The biggest, most immediate staging in the largest acoustic space
  • The most Tubey Magic, without which you have almost nothing. CDs give you clean and clear. Only the best vintage vinyl pressings offer the kind of Tubey Magic that was on the tapes in1964
  • Tight, note-like, rich, full-bodied bass, with the correct amount of weight down low
  • Natural tonality in the midrange — with all the instruments having the correct timbre
  • Transparency and resolution, critical to hearing into the three-dimensional space of the studio

No doubt there’s more but we hope that should do for now. Playing the record is the only way to hear all of the qualities we discuss above, and playing the best pressings against a pile of other copies under rigorously controlled conditions is the only way to find a pressing that sounds as good as this one does.

What We’re Listening For on People

  • Energy for starters. What could be more important than the life of the music?
  • The Big Sound comes next — wall to wall, lots of depth, huge space, three-dimensionality, all that sort of thing.
  • Then transient information — fast, clear, sharp attacks, not the smear and thickness common to most LPs.
  • Tight, note-like bass with clear fingering — which ties in with good transient information, as well as the issue of frequency extension further down.
  • Next: transparency — the quality that allows you to hear deep into the soundfield, showing you the space and air around all the players.
  • Then: presence and immediacy. The vocals aren’t “back there” somewhere, way behind the speakers. They’re front and center where any recording engineer worth his salt would have put them.
  • Extend the top and bottom and voila, you have The Real Thing — an honest to goodness Hot Stamper.

TRACK LISTING

Side One

Absent Minded Me
When In Rome (I Do As The Romans Do)
Fine And Dandy
Supper Time
Will He Like Me
How Does The Wine Taste?

Side Two

I’m All Smiles
Autumn
My Lord And Master
Love Is A Bore
Don’t Like Goodbyes
People

AMG 1/2 Star Review

After two less successful albums, Barbra Streisand returned to form on her fourth album, People, with a selection of songs that showed some of the imagination of her debut album…

The album opened and closed with songs by Jule Styne and Bob Merrill, first “Absent Minded Me,” and then the Top Ten title song that was the hit from Streisand’s triumphant Broadway show, Funny Girl. Streisand introduced Cy Coleman and Carolyn Leigh’s “When in Rome (I Do as the Romans Do),” a lively song that allowed her to display some of the spirit and humor that had been missing on her last two outings…

… it was a definite improvement over the second and third albums. (People won Grammy Awards for Best Vocal Performance and Best Album Cover.)