More of The Beatles
More Records We Only Sell on Import Vinyl
- This vintage import 2-LP compilation set boasts STUNNING Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound or close to it on all FOUR sides – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
- These pressings are rich, smooth and sweet, with plenty of Tubey Magic and little of the grain and grunge of most Brits (and don’t get us started on the domestics)
- You get clean, clear, full-bodied, lively and musical ANALOG sound from first note to last
- Twenty-seven (!) incredible songs, including “Penny Lane,” “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” “Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds,” “All You Need Is Love” – and that’s just side one
This is a wonderful sounding early import 2-LP set — pressed on exceptionally quiet vinyl to boot.
We are on record as finding the British pressings of 1967-1970 too bright; certainly most of them are anyway.
The original domestic pressings, as anyone who has ever played one can attest, mastered at Sterling no less, are absolutely godawful.
Like most compilations, some songs sound better than others, but “Don’t Let Me Down” and “Come Together” are two that really stand out here. For those of you out there who have never tried one of our Hot Stamper Beatles records, this may be the best sound you’ve ever heard from them. The CDs — even the new ones — sure don’t sound like this!
These vintage import pressings have the kind of Tubey Magical Midrange that modern records can barely 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 as if you are sitting in the studio with the band, these are the records for you. It’s what vintage all analog recordings are known for — this sound.
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 maybe one out of a hundred new records do, and those are some pretty long odds.
What The Best Sides Of Blue Album (1967-1970) 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 beginning in 1967
- 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 these records are 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 are the only way to find pressings that sound as good as these two do.
What We’re Listening For On Blue Album (1967-1970)
- 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.
TRACK LISTING
Side One
Strawberry Fields Forever
Penny Lane
Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
With A Little Help From My Friends
Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds
A Day In The Life
All You Need Is Love
Side Two
I Am The Walrus
Hello Goodbye
The Fool On The Hill
Magical Mystery Tour
Lady Madonna
Hey Jude
Revolution
Side Three
Back In The U.S.S.R.
While My Guitar Gently Weeps
Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da
Get Back
Don’t Let Me Down
The Ballad Of John & Yoko
Old Brown Shoe
Side Four
Here Comes The Sun
Come Together
Something
Octopus’s Garden
Let It Be
Across The Universe
The Long And Winding Road
1967-1970 Review by Bruce Eder
Picking up where 1962-1966 left off, the double-album compilation 1967-1970, commonly called The Blue Album, covers the Beatles’ later records, from Sgt. Pepper’s through Let It Be. Like The Red Album, The Blue Album was released in the wake of a pair of widely advertised quadruple-LP bootlegs, Alpha Omega, Vols. 1-2: The Story of the Beatles, which had appeared early in 1973. And like its companion volume, this set contains a mixture of hits, including singles like “Lady Madonna,” “Hey Jude,” and “Revolution” — which had originally appeared only as 45s — plus important album tracks like “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,” “A Day in the Life,” “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” and “Come Together,” as well as orphaned tracks such as the single versions of “Let It Be” and “Get Back,” which had never been on any LP before. The first two sides of the original double-LP edition carry listeners through the highlights of the psychedelic era, starting with “Strawberry Fields Forever” and “Penny Lane” and up through “Magical Mystery Tour,” before returning to rock & roll territory on “Lady Madonna,” “Hey Jude,” and “Revolution.” The second LP skims three of the more popular tracks off of the sprawling White Album (aka The Beatles) and moves into the late singles (“The Ballad of John and Yoko,” “Old Brown Shoe,” “Let It Be”), plus single and album highlights from Abbey Road and Let It Be. As a précis of the group’s final 36 months, it’s all mightily impressive, even if 1967-1970 misses several great songs. But like its predecessor, this set does capture the essence (if not the full range) of the Beatles’ later recordings.