More of the Music of Rod Stewart
- This vintage pressing was giving us the sound we were looking for on Stewart’s 1971 Rock Masterpiece, with both sides earning outstanding Double Plus (A++) grades or close to them
- If you’re a fan of BIG DRUMS in a BIG ROOM, with jump-out-of-the-speakers sound, this is the album for you
- The drum solo in “(I Know) I’m Losing You” is one of the best reasons any red-blooded audiophile should have big dynamic speakers, a big room, and enough power to drive them to very loud levels
- A Top 100 album, and Rod’s best music and his best recording by far – nothing can touch it
- 5 stars: “It’s a beautiful album, one that has the timeless qualities of the best folk, yet one that rocks harder than most pop music — few rock albums are quite this powerful or this rich.”
- On big speakers at loud levels, this is a Demo Disc of the highest order
This is a superb recording, and on a pressing like this, it is a Demo Disc with little competition (if you have the kind of system designed to play these sorts of records).
Not too many of our Hot Stamper titles are going to ROCK the way this one can. We put it in a class with Zep II, Sticky Fingers, Nevermind, and Back In Black — elite company to say the least. In other words, none rocks harder.
The opening track on side one has drums that put to shame 99% of the rock drum kits ever recorded. The same is true of I Know I’m Losing You on side two. It just doesn’t get any better for rock drumming, musically or sonically. Micky Waller is brilliant throughout. Kenney Jones, who only plays on the show-stopping “(I Know) I’m Losing You”, is clearly out of his mind.
Some of the best rock bass ever recorded can be found here too — punchy, note-like and solid as a rock. If you have the system for it you are going to have a great time playing this one for your friends, audiophiles or otherwise.
What The Best Sides of Every Picture Tells A Story 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 in 1971
- 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 studio space
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 Every Picture Tells A Story
- Energy for starters. What could be more important than the life of the music?
- Then: presence and immediacy. The vocals aren’t “back there” somewhere, lost in the mix. They’re front and center where any recording engineer worth his salt would put them.
- 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 so common to these LPs.
- Tight punchy bass — which ties in with good transient information, also 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 instruments.
- Extend the top and bottom and voila, you have The Real Thing — an honest to goodness Hot Stamper.
A Must Own Rock Record
We consider this album a Masterpiece.
It’s a recording that belongs in any serious Rock Music Collection.
Side One
Every Picture Tells a Story
Seems Like a Long Time
That’s All Right
Tomorrow Is a Long Time
Side Two
Maggie May
Mandolin Wind
(I Know) I”m Losing You
Reason to Believe
AMG 5 Star Rave Review
Without greatly altering his approach, Rod Stewart perfected his blend of hard rock, folk, and blues on his masterpiece, Every Picture Tells a Story.
Marginally a harder-rocking album than Gasoline Alley — the Faces blister on the Temptations cover “(I Know I’m) Losing You,” and the acoustic title track goes into hyper-drive with Mick Waller’s primitive drumming — the great triumph of Every Picture Tells a Story lies in its content. Every song on the album, whether it’s a cover or original, is a gem, combining to form a romantic, earthy portrait of a young man joyously celebrating his young life…
It’s a beautiful album, one that has the timeless qualities of the best folk, yet one that rocks harder than most pop music — few rock albums are quite this powerful or this rich.