More Music on Island Records
For those who wish to find their own Hot Stamper pressings of the album, we say more power to you. Our helpful advice can be found at the bottom of the listing,
- This original Pink Label Island pressing was doing just about everything right, with both sides earning solid Double Plus (A++) grades or BETTER
- Side one was sonically very close to our Shootout Winner – you will be shocked at how big and powerful the sound is
- Here are the full-bodied mids, punchy lows and clear, open, extended highs that let this 1969 release come alive
- This amazing compilation boasts superb sound, often dramatically better than the very same tracks on many of the original British releases
- Problems in the vinyl are sometimes the nature of the beast with these vintage LPs – there simply is no way around them if the superior sound of vintage analog is important to you
- Top 100 and 4 stars: “The entire second side of the LP, comprising ‘Medicated Goo,’ ‘Forty Thousand Headmen,’ ‘Feelin’ Alright,’ ‘Shanghai Noodle Factory,’ and ‘Dear Mr. Fantasy,’ was the kind of progressive rock that would define Traffic and give it its place in the rock pantheon.”
- For our current take on the sound of the various labels and stampers for Mr. Fantasy and The Best of Traffic, please click here.
This British Pink Label Island pressing has some of the best Traffic sound you’ll ever hear! We’ve been flipping out over Hot Stamper copies of this greatest hits comp for ages for a very simple, yet likely shocking, reason — the sound on the best copies can be better than the best original pressings! How can that be you ask, dumbfounded by the sheer ridiculousness of such a statement? Well, dear reader, I’ll tell you. Follow me over the jump to find out.
It’s a dirty little secret in the record biz that sometimes the master for the anticipated “hit single” (or singles) is pulled from the album’s final two-track master and used to make the 45, the thinking being that the 45 is what people are going to buy, or, having heard it sound so good on the radio, cause them to buy the album. One way or another, it’s the single that will do the selling of Traffic’s music.
A dub is then made of the master tape that was used to cut the 45 and spliced back onto the album master, so that the single (or singles) is one generation down from the master for the other songs on the side.
This explains why the “hit single” from so many albums is often the worst-sounding song on the album — most likely to suffer from bad radio EQ and distorted, smeary, sub-gen sound. And it also explains another anomaly those of us who play tons of records run into from time to time: songs on greatest hits albums sounding better than their counterparts on the original albums from which they are taken. That’s crazy talk, but this Traffic record is all the evidence you need to demonstrate that as it crazy as it seems, every once in a while it turns out to be true. This is one of those times.
Heaven Is In Your Mind
Best proof: “Heaven Is In Your Mind,” the second track on side one. It is amazing sounding here and such a disappointment on every Pink Label Island original (and some reissues) we’ve played. Once you know how good that song can sound — by playing a Hot Stamper copy of Best of Traffic like this one — going back to the original version of the song found on the album is not just a letdown, it’s positively painful.
Where’s the analog magic? The weight to the piano? The startling clarity and super-spaciousness of the soundfield? The life and energy of the performance?
They’re gone, brother. Not entirely gone, mind you, more a shadow of what they should be. But once you’ve heard the real thing, it’s no fun listening to a shadow. It’s just a drag.
What The Best Sides Of Best of Traffic 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 1969
- 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 Best of Traffic
- 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 Record
Best of Traffic is a recording that belongs in any serious Rock Collection. Others that belong in that category can be found here.
Side One
Paper Sun
Heaven Is in Your Mind
No Face, No Name, No Number
Coloured Rain
Smiling Phases
Hole in My Shoe
Side Two
Medicated Goo Quite Good!
Forty Thousand Headmen
Feelin’ Alright
Shanghai Noodle Factory
Dear Mr. Fantasy
AMG 4 Star Review
Though Traffic broke up at the start of 1969, the band was on a commercial ascent, which led Island Records to assemble a posthumous album, Last Exit, released in April 1969.
Meanwhile, former band member Steve Winwood formed Blind Faith, which produced a debut album that topped the charts on both sides of the Atlantic. No wonder Island determined that the fall of 1969 was a good time for a Traffic compilation. The release was especially needed in Britain, where the singles sides “Paper Sun,” “Hole in My Shoe,” and “Smiling Phases” had not yet appeared on an LP.
Since Traffic had moved away from being a singles band after its first year, the album was not dubbed a hits collection, though all its tracks had been released on one side or the other of a single on one side or the other of the Atlantic.
As a selection of the best and most popular material from the group’s first three albums, the result is hard to fault…
The entire second side of the LP, comprising “Medicated Goo,” “Forty Thousand Headmen,” “Feelin’ Alright,” “Shanghai Noodle Factory,” and “Dear Mr. Fantasy,” was the kind of progressive rock that would define Traffic and give it its place in the rock pantheon. Who could have known when this disc was first released that the band’s story was far from over?
Want to find your own killer copy?
Consider taking our moderately helpful advice concerning the pressings that tend to win our shootouts.
As of 2024, shootouts for this album should be carried out:
How else can you expect to hear this record at its best?
Based on our experience, The Best of Traffic sounds better: