The Rolling Stones – Valuable Lessons We Learned in 2011 and 2016

More of the Music of The Rolling Stones

More Lessons Learned from Record Experiments 

Presenting a classic case of Live and Learn.

We would agree with very little of what we had to say about Goat’s Head Soup as a recording when we wrote about it back in 2011 — and for the previous 35+ years since I first played a domestic original. (Turns out the imports are no good either.)

Having done a big shootout for the album in 2016, we now know that there most certainly are great sounding pressings to be found, because we found some. We broke through.

The data are in, and now we know just how wrong we were.

In our defense, let me just ask one question: Did anybody else know this record was well recorded? I can find no evidence to support anyone having ever taken such a contrarian position.

But we’re taking that position now. All it takes is one great sounding copy to show you the error of your ways, and we had more than one.

Here’s what we had to say back in 2011. After having played dozens of copies and never hearing the record sound more than passable, can you blame us?

This domestic Rolling Stones Records pressing has an A++ side one and an A+ side two. It was dramatically better than most of the copies we played it against, but I want to make it clear that the sound is still pretty rough. There just are not amazing sounding copies of this album out there, but this one was clearly a big step up from the average pressing. It gives you more energy, more presence, more weight down low and more extension up top than the typical copy. If you’re a die-hard Stones fan who wants a good copy of this one for your collection, you’ll have a tough time doing much better than this. Casual Stones fans looking for great sound would be better served waiting for a Hot Stamper copy of Let It Bleed, Beggars Banquet or Sticky Fingers.

Most copies of this record usually sound like compressed cardboard. This is one of a very small number of copies of GHS that I’ve ever heard sound good. This is not the kind of record you’re going to use to show off your stereo or impress your pals, but it should allow you to enjoy the music without terrible sound getting in the way. There are only a few Stones records that can sound amazing, and Goats Head Soup is never gonna be one of them I’m afraid.

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