Month: February 2023

Debussy / La Mer / Haitink

The Music of Claude Debussy Available Now

This is an older review. When we revisited this title recently, we felt it was badly lacking in Tubey Magic, a real deal killer for us here at Better Records.

It’s a decent sounding record, not much more than that, but it does have a top performance. If you see one for cheap in the bins, pick it up and give it a spin.

We prefer Ansermet’s performances for Decca of both La Mer and Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun.

Our review for the album from years ago can be seen below. As for other records we think we got wrong — we may change our minds again! — you can find more under the heading of Live and Learn.

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A Nod Is As Good As A Wink… – Glyn Johns Lets It Rip

More of Glyn Johns’ Best Recordings Available Now

This album was produced by one of our favorite engineers around here, Mr. Glyn Johns, the man behind tons of Better Records faves — Sticky Fingers, The Eagles’ 1st, Who’s Next, and many, many more.

The proper sound for a band like this is RAW AND ROCKIN.’ Any phony EQ or overproduction would really make a mess of what the band does here, which, put simply, is kickin’ out the jams. It would be fair to call these guys a bar band, but they’re about the best darn bar band we’ve ever heard.

The best Faces pressings have amazing live-in-the-studio sound. 

That’s the right sound to convey the power of one of the hardest rockin’ bands of all time. What more can you ask for?

You won’t get a minute into this record before you’re blown away by all the ambience and echo. You can really hear the sound of the big room around these guys as they rock out. The vocals sound Right On The Money — smooth, but with all of the raspiness that Rod Stewart is famous for.

The drums are big and punchy and the guitars sound grungy and right.

The sound on both sides is open, spacious, and transparent — nothing like the muddy, congested sound we heard on most of what we played (all green label domestic originals – no reissue or import has ever won a shootout and we don’t really bother much with them anymore).

Here you will find none of the glossy artificiality you might hear on many of the rock records we sell — there’s nothing wrong with that sound, mind you, but this recording captures much more of what the real instruments sound like in the studio.

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Peter Tosh – Equal Rights

More Peter Tosh

More Soul, Blues, R&B and Reggae

  • An original Columbia pressing that boasts an INCREDIBLE Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) side two mated to a superb Double Plus (A++) side one – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • The sound is huge – big, wide, deep, and open, with a punchy bottom end and rhythmic energy to spare, as well as cleaner, smoother, sweeter upper mids and a more extended top
  • 4 1/2 stars: “‘Downpresser Man’ (based on a folk standard), ‘Stepping Razor,’ and his definitive version of ‘Get Up, Stand Up’ are as good a trio of songs as you will find on any album, reggae or not.”

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Can’t Hide Love Is the Best Song These Guys Ever Wrote

More of the Music of Earth, Wind and Fire

More Recordings by George Massenburg

As you may have read elsewhere on the site, the high point for me on this record is the song “Can’t Hide Love,” the best track this band ever recorded and a work of True Pop Genius. (Check out side four for the best lineup of any side.)

Grammy nominated for Best Arrangement For Voices, it’s hard to imagine that another song beat it. The album was of course nominated as well.

The second best thing about this album is that it allows Earth, Wind & Fire to stretch out and incorporate some funky jazz into their music, like on “Sun Goddess”, a song that they recorded with Ramsey Lewis and which doesn’t appear on any other EW&F album. They do a couple of extended saxophone solos on the live stuff that really take the songs to another level. The band is on fire for practically every track here. This and The Greatest Hits Volumes One get you most of what’s great about the band. Both are Must Owns for anyone who likes Big Production Pop, soulful and otherwise.

Old News

A while back, I happened to have heard the Joe Gastwirt mastered CD and noted:

What a joke. LIFELESS and DULL. This record kills it. If you want to hear this music right you better own this record or one like it, otherwise you are wasting your time.

Of course, since this is a Hot Stamper copy, “one like it” is hard to find. But if you don’t want to buy one from us, get a hold of any LP you can, because this music belongs in your collection.

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Aretha Franklin – Soul ’69

More Aretha Franklin

More Soul, Blues and R&B

  • Superb Double Plus (A++) sound brings Aretha’s underrated Soul Album from ’69 to life on this early Atlantic pressing
  • If you want to hear the Tubey Magic, size and energy of this wonderful record, a vintage pressing like this one is the only way to go
  • Tough to find this quiet – Aretha made a lot of amazingly good records in the ’60s and they got played good and hard
  • This is a Must Own Soul Classic that belongs in every right-thinking audiophile’s collection
  • 4 1/2 stars: “One of her most overlooked ’60s albums, on which she presented some of her jazziest material. Her vocals are consistently passionate and first-rate, as is the musicianship; players include the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section, and respected jazzmen Kenny Burrell, Ron Carter, et al.”
  • This is a Must Own Soul Classic from 1969 that belongs in every right-thinking audiophile’s collection
  • The complete list of titles from 1969 that we’ve reviewed to date can be found here.

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Nat King Cole – Just One Of Those Things

More Nat “King” Cole

More Pop and Jazz Vocal Recordings

  • Nat’s 1957 release returns to the site on this vintage Capitol Stereo pressing with excellent Double Plus (A++) grades or close to them from first note to last
  • This is the sound we love at Better Records – this side two is full-bodied and Tubey Magical, with especially smooth, present vocals, and side one is not far behind in all those areas
  • “Cole gives an assured, unhurried performance. And that’s the point: that Cole has tamed the rambunctious May does not mean he doesn’t give wonderful interpretations to some wonderful songs: ‘Don’t Get Around Much Anymore,’ ‘Just One of Those Things,’ ‘The Song Is Ended (But the Melody Lingers On).’ And the light-handed swing supports those efforts well.”

Turn up the volume, turn down the lights, and let Nat serenade you from right between your speakers — he’ll be IN THE ROOM with you!

The immediacy of the vocals is startling, and the transparency of this pressing will blow your mind. The bass has the typical “tubby” sound so common to this kind of album, but it’s tighter here than on most copies we played.

The overall sound is three-dimensional, with Nat up front and the orchestra behind. The brass sounds wonderful, with just the right amount of bite and more breath than we heard on many pressings.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that this record is not one of those “cry in your beer” Sinatra rip-offs. The songs are actually fairly lively: mid-tempo and even up-tempo. Maybe it’s the influence of Billy May, the arranger for these sessions. His arrangements keep lifting the spirits of the down in the dumps Nat King Cole (see cover), which is fine by me.

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Count Basie / Kansas City 3 – For The Second Time

More Count Basie

More Jazz Recordings Featuring the Piano

  • A KILLER piano trio recording with superb sound on both sides of this original Pablo LP
  • It’s bigger, richer, more Tubey Magical, and has more extension on both ends of the spectrum than most other copies we played
  • A different, more compact sound for Basie, joined here as he is by two of the most sympathetic sidemen in jazz: Ray Brown on bass and Louis Bellson on drums
  • “[T]he main joy of this set is hearing Basie stretch out on such numbers as ‘If I Could Be with You,’ ‘On the Sunny Side of the Street’ and ‘The One I Love,’ tunes he did not play much with his orchestra in this later period.”
  • Steer clear of the OJC of this title – it’s thin and opaque, the opposite of the sound you want

It’s a joy to hear Basie perform as a frontman, stretching out on tunes that were no doubt dear to him. Veterans of hundreds of sessions, Ray Brown and Louis Bellson are just as interesting as Basie, high praise.

Recorded by the legendary engineer Ed Greene (Stan Getz/Charlie Byrd – Jazz Samba) — that accounts for the exceptional sound.

Naturally we pick up all the Pablo Basie titles we can get our hands on these days, having had very good luck with a great many of them. When we dropped the needle on a copy of this one a few years back we were amazed at the sound. My post-it, still on the record, reads “SUPERB DEMO DISC.” It certainly is.

This album was part of a series of smaller ensemble recordings under the heading of Kansas City that Pablo undertook with Basie later in his career. Basie had recorded a piano trio record with the same gents the year before For the First Time and must have enjoyed himself enough to give it another go.

The best copies are big and rich, and present you with a solid, weight, clear piano like few piano trio recordings you have ever heard.

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London Orchestral Records from the 70s and the Problem of Opacity

Decca and London Hot Stamper Pressings Available Now

The average copy of this 1976 recording has that dry, multi-miked modern sound that the 70s ushered in for many of the major labels, notably London and RCA.

How many Solti records are not ridiculously thick and opaque? One out of ten? If that. We’re extremely wary of records produced in the 70s; we’ve been burned too many times.

And to tell you the truth, we are not all that thrilled with most of what passes for good sound on Mehta‘s London output either, especially those recorded in Royce Hall. If you have a high-resolution system, these recordings, like those on Classic Records Heavy Vinyl that we constantly criticize, leave a lot to be desired.

Opacity is a real dealbreaker for us. Most of the classical records we play from later eras simply do not have the transparency essential to transporting us from our listening room into the concert hall.

One thing you can say about live classical music, it is never opaque. (It can be dry though. Some concert halls have that sound.)

No recording in our experience — our experience having been informed by playing thousands upon thousand of them — can ever be remotely as transparent as live music.

If you have any doubts, next time you come home from the concert hall, take a moment to put on a favorite recording of the same music. You may be in for quite a shock.

Other Deccas and Londons that we’d cleaned and played and found to be disappointing can be seen here.

For more on the subject of opacity on record, click here.

Here are some of the other records we’ve discovered that are good for testing string tone and texture.

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Mendelssohn / Scotch Symphony / Maag

More of the Music of Felix Mendelssohn

  • This vintage London STS pressing of Mendelssohn’s famed concert overture and orchestral symphony earned outstanding Double Plus (A++) grades from first note to last
  • A truly superb recording with huge, spacious, dynamic, lively sound – Tubey Magical richness is a big plus too
  • There is a rosiny texture to the strings that no record made in the last 30 years can capture, and if you don’t believe me, we offer this pressing as proof

Audiophiles have known of this record’s sublime sonic qualities for decades. As our stereos get better, so do amazingly powerful recordings such as this one.

Both sides of this record have that classic Decca rich, sweet sound. It’s not for everybody, it’s probably not the sound one would hear in a concert hall, but we love it and so do many audiophiles.

The performance here by Peter Maag and London Symphony Orchestra is legendary and definitive. The sound is perfectly suited for this music, with massed strings to die for. This is classic Tubey Magical Decca orchestral sound.

If you want immediacy, buy a Mercury. If you want luscious, rich string tone, this vintage STS reissue should be right up your alley. This is a sweetheart of a record, full of the Tubey Magic for which Decca recordings are justly famous.

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Traveling Back in Time with Cat Stevens on Mobile Fidelity

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Cat Stevens Available Now

Our good customer Roger wrote us a letter years ago about his Tea for the Tillerman on Mobile Fidelity, in which he remarked, “Sometimes I wish I kept my old crappy stereo to see if I could now tell what it was that made these audiophile pressings so attractive then.”

It got me to thinking. Yes, that would be fun, and better yet, it could be done. There are actually plenty of those old school audio systems of the 60s and 70s still around. Just look at what many of the forum posters — god bless ’em — are running. They’ve got some awesome ’70s Japanese turntables, some Monster Cable and some vintage tube gear and speakers designed in the ’50s.

With this stuff you could virtually travel back in time, in effect erasing all the audio progress made possible by the new technologies adopted by some of us over the last 30 years or so.

Then you could hear your Mobile Fidelity Tea for the Tillerman sound the way it used to when you could actually stand to be in the same room with it.

My question to Roger was “What on earth were we hearing that made us want to play these awful half-speed mastered records? What was our stereo doing that made these awful records sound good to us at the time?”

In Search of a Bad Stereo

I know how you can find out. You go to someone’s house who has a large collection of audiophile pressings and have him play you some of them. Chances are that his stereo will do pretty much what your old stereo and my old stereo used to do — be so wrong that really wrong records actually start to sound right! It seems crazy but it just might be true.

Think about it. If your stereo has no real top end extension, then a boosted top end like the kind found on practically every record MoFi ever made is a positive boon.

Down low, if you don’t have good bass reproduction, the bad bass that pretty much all half-speeds evince won’t bother you, it’ll sound bad the way the bass on all your records sounds: bad. And the boosted bass you get on so many MoFi pressings works to your benefit too.

How about those sparkling guitars? For systems that are incredibly opaque and low-resolution, the kind we all used to have, the kind that sound like we added three or four grilles to the front of the speaker, the MoFi guitars actually might start to cut through the veils and may sound — gulp! — right.

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