Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Bob Dylan Available Now
In 2024, Dylan’s landmark 1965 release returned to the site after a hiatus of almost two years.
In the same way Sgt. Pepper changed popular music less than two years later, Highway 61 Revisited left all of Dylan’s contemporaries behind, scrambling to keep up with the standard he set.
Our 3/3 copy was a knockout. It sold for an enormous amount of money directly to one of our best customers, never making it to the site, and was worth every penny in our estimation, and surely in the estimation of the fellow who now has it in his collection.
Dylan’s records are almost never awarded notes like these. It was an amazing find, the kind of record we live for here at Better Records. I hope you can read our writing.
Highway 61 Boilerplate
When looking for a top copy, in our shootouts we are paying special attention to the qualities listed below. We noted:
Here are some of the things we specifically listen for in an electric folk rock record from the sixties, even one as uniquely groundbreaking as Highway 61 Revisited.
This Hot Stamper copy is simply doing more of these things better than other copies we played in our shootout. The best copies have:
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- Greater immediacy in the vocals (most copies are veiled and distant to some degree)
- Natural tonal balance (many copies are at least slightly brighter or darker than ideal; those with the right balance are the exception, not the rule)
- Good solid weight (so the bass sounds full and powerful)
- Spaciousness (the best copies have wonderful studio ambience and space)
- Tubey Magic, without which you might as well be playing a CD
- And last but not least, transparency, the quality of being able to see into the studio, where there is plenty of musical information to be revealed in this sometimes simple, sometimes complex and sophisticated recording.
We should add to this list freedom from strain in the vocals. All early Dylan albums have strained vocals to some degree.
We mention strained vocals on both sides. On track one of side two, the notes read “mostly relaxed,” not “totally relaxed,” which simply means that some of that strained sound is going to creep in from time to time and track to track, but the less of it, all other things being equal, the better.
For more records that are good for testing strain in the vocals and choruses, please click here.
You know what’s unusual about these notes?
They’re the kind of notes we’ve never written for any Heavy Vinyl reissue, even for the one that won our shootout not long ago.
They are the kind of notes that make it clear to us what a sham the modern Heavy Vinyl pressing tends to be, even those that are done right.
No modern record we’ve ever played has ever had anything even approaching this kind of big as life sound, and we doubt one ever will.
Records like this vintage vinyl pressing are thrilling in a way that very, very few records ever are.
Surprisingly, many of the most thrilling records we’ve ever played came from the same decade this record came from: the 60s.
Once you hear sound like this, you are not likely to forget it.
It sets a standard that modern remastered records simply cannot meet.
Hey, want to find your own top quality copy?
Consider taking our moderately helpful advice concerning the pressings that consistently win our Hot Stamper shootouts.
This record has been sounding its best for many years, in shootout after shootout, this way: