Month: May 2020

Sly and the Family Stone – Dance to the Music

More Sly and the Family Stone

  • Dance to the Music makes its debut on the site, with KILLER Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound and reasonably quiet vinyl
  • This early Epic Yellow label pressing blew them all out of the water – the hit “Dance to the Music” sounds better here than we have ever heard it – who knew?
  • “This is exuberant music, bursting with joy and invention. Consider this — prior to this record no one, not even the Family Stone, treated soul as a psychedelic sun splash, filled with bright melodies, kaleidoscopic arrangements, inextricably intertwined interplay, and deft, fast rhythms.”

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Simple Minds – Live In The City Of Light – Reviewed in 2007

This is a very nice looking Virgin British Import Double LP with BIG BOLD live rock sound. These import pressings consistently trounce the domestic versions.

Recorded primarily at Le Zenith in Paris on the last date of a world tour in August 1986 and released as a stopgap to satiate fans while the group spent another two years crafting its studio follow-up to Once Upon a Time, Simple Minds’ double-album Live in the City of Light was a good summation of the band’s rise to worldwide fame between 1982-1985.

Carpenters – A Song For You

  • An outstanding original A&M pressing, with both sides earning excellent Double Plus (A++) sonic grades – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • This LP is full of the Midrange Magic that has the Carpenters sounding rich, smooth, sweet and breathy – in other words, in ANALOG, so they sound every bit as good as you remember them
  • 4 1/2 stars: “The duo’s best album, and the place to start beyond the hits compilations… a seemingly unified concept album written and recorded during a frantic period of concert activity, and brimming with lovely musical ideas even more lovingly executed, laced with good humor, and enough hits of its own to have established any artist’s career on its own. And even in between the hits, the album was built on material that could have made a whole career for anyone.”

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Stillness – Our Four Plus Shootout Winner from 2013

More of the Music of Sergio Mendes and Brasil ’66

Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of Sergio Mendes and Brasil ’66

TWO AMAZING SIDES, including a BETTER THAN WHITE HOT A++++ SIDE TWO! That’s right folks, four pluses!

Our lengthy commentary entitled Outliers & Out-of-This-World Sound talks about how rare these kinds of pressings are and how to go about finding them.

We no longer give Four Pluses out as a matter of policy, but that doesn’t mean we don’t come across records that deserve them from time to time.

This is an incredibly well-recorded album and a member of our Top 100, in fact. The soundfield itself has a three-dimensional quality that will absolutely blow you away. If you are looking for DEMO DISC QUALITY SOUND with music every bit as good, look no further – this record is for you. 

We figure we’re about due for a thank you note from Mr. Mendes, because we’ve turned a huge number of audiophiles into die-hard fans of this album. It’s easy to see why when you play a copy that sounds like this. All of the qualities we look for on this album are right here.

Side One

The vocals on this side are Right On The Money — present and breathy. It could use a bit more extension up top but at A+ – A++, this side is a nice step up over the average copy.

Side Two

A++++, absolutely As Good As It Gets! The side is doing everything right. It’s big, bold, rich and lively with none of the vocal edginess that plagues the average copy. The vocals are wonderfully breathy and it’s tonally correct from top to bottom.

Even if you don’t know much about this music we encourage you to take a chance on this one. We’re fairly confident that anyone who values amazing sound enough to be in the Hot Stamper market will get a LOT out of this record — it’s pure, unadulterated, audiophile gold. We have turned a lot of people on to this album, and we’ve received quite a few letters from folks who had totally missed out on this wonderful music back in the day, only to fall in love with a Hot Stamper copy forty years after its release. (The album bombed when it was released, which accounts for the fact that it’s not nearly as common in the used record bins as others by Sergio and his bandmates.) (more…)

Blow-Up Soundtrack on Heavy Vinyl


Years ago, probably sometime in 2002 when this remastered record was released, we wrote the following:

TOP RECOMMENDATION from Better Records. What an amazing discovery! I can’t take credit for it, the credit belongs to Four Men with Beards.

Herbie Hancock manages to get a lot of different jazz artists to play some of the most interesting jazz I’ve ever heard. I have no idea who all is playing but each of the different songs involved different players playing in different groupings: sometimes it’s guitar and organ, sometimes it’s saxophone-led quartet; it pretty much runs the gamut of jazz. And the amazing thing is every track is great. And the sound is great.

If you want a jazz primer that introduces you to the different ways jazz groups are arranged, I can hardly think of a better record.

If you want a great jazz record to demonstrate your stereo, it works on that level too. The sound is that good.

Side 1 has the best music overall; it’s superb from beginning to end. Side 2 is very good as well, but side 1 has the real demo disc quality material in my opinion.

We can’t be sure that we would still feel the same way. My guess is that this is still probably a good record if you can get one for the 25 bucks we used to charge for it.

The Butterfield Blues Band – Sometimes I Just Feel Like Smilin’

More Butterfield Blues Band

More Electric Blues

  • A KILLER sounding copy and first to ever hit the site — Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound on the second side and solid Double Plus (A++) sound on the first exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • We guarantee there is dramatically more richness, fullness, vocal presence, and performance energy on this copy than others you’ve heard, and that’s especially true if you made the mistake of buying whatever Heavy Vinyl pressing is currently on the market
  • “Decades later, the album still sounds like a fresh blend of Americana music, with a soundscape reminiscent of Phil Spector’s wall of sound… Butterfield shows up as a much stronger songwriter on this album too. He has credits in over half of the nine compositions, all of them well crafted.”

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Fleetwood Mac Is a Demo Disc for Bass

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Fleetwood Mac Available Now

Another recording that, on the right pressing, can be Demo Discs for bass.

One of the special qualities this album has is amazingly well-defined, punchy, deep bass — the kind you just never hear on most records (or most pressings of this album for that matter).

The bass is typically bloated on most copies of this album, something that is especially true for the MoFi. When you get a copy with note-like, properly balanced bass, the whole album works. Bass is the foundation of the music. When the bass is blubbery and ill-defined, the music itself sounds blurred. It loses its focus.

It’s also very dynamic and punchy. The kick drum sounds exactly right — there’s a room around it, just exactly as you would hear it if you were in the studio with the band! It took a copy like this to show us what an amazing pop recording it is.

So few copies we ran across in our shootout had that “jump out of the speakers” sound we knew was possible from our previous shootouts of the album. When finally one did, boy did it ever. What a knockout. Hot Stampers? They’re on fire!

If you have a big speaker system and have taken advantage of the audio revolutions we discuss throughout the site, this is the kind of record that can help you chart your progress. When a record like this blows everything you’ve ever heard out of the water, you are definitely on the right track! (more…)

Letter of the Week – “I am just amazed by the clarity and vibrancy of the LP. “

Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of Randy Newman

One of our good customers had this to say about some Hot Stampers he purchased recently:

Hey Tom,   

Good afternoon, Tom, I hope you are doing well today! I wanted to thank you so much for the Randy Newman Little Criminals LP I purchased from your website. This White Hot Stamper truly lives up to your assessment of it, with delightfully natural sound.

Thanks for listening!

Jonathan R.

Added 5/18

I was very honored to see my note to you about Randy Newman’s Little Criminals appear on your On the Record website.  Had I known that was a possibility, I would have gone into a lot more detail about how great the record sounds (especially since I’ve heard that early pressings of the album are very noisy, and your beautifully playing White Hot Stamper most decidedly is not).

Listened to it again on Saturday and am just amazed by the clarity and vibrancy of the LP.  That was money very well spent!

Gabor Szabo – Dreams

More Jazz Recordings Featuring the Guitar

Reviews and Commentaries for Gabor Szabo

This original Black Label Skye LP has an EXCELLENT SIDE TWO backed with a pretty good side one.

Szabo has made a number of mediocre albums, some of which are poorly recorded, but thankfully this is not one of them. In fact, this is some of the best sound and music he produced for Skye. Side two is open and spacious with a HUGE three-dimensional soundfield that really allows you to hear into the music.

Side one is pretty darn good as well. While not quite as three-dimensional as side two it still retains some of that quality. Listen to all the crazy studio recording effects on the first track. (more…)

Schubert / Piano Sonata in B Flat Major / Anda – Our Shootout Winner from 2011

 

This Super Hot Stamper original Large Tulips DG pressing (with stereo in red on the cover) has the kind of Tubey Magical Midrange that modern records cannot even BEGIN to reproduce. Folks, that sound is gone and it sure isn’t showing signs of coming back. If you love hearing INTO a recording, actually being able to “see” the performers, and feeling like you are sitting in a real concert hall, this is the record for you. It’s what Golden Age Classical Recordings are known for — THIS SOUND.  (more…)