More Rolling Stones
- Excellent Tubey Magical 60s British sound throughout this vintage UK Decca pressing, with both sides earning solid Double Plus (A++) grades or close to them – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
- “Lady Jane,” “Under My Thumb” and “Mother’s Little Helper” are three of the best sounding tracks – all are lively and solid here on this outstanding Double Plus side one
- 5 stars: “… the group began incorporating the influences of psychedelia and Dylan into their material with classics like ‘Paint It Black,’ an eerily insistent number one hit graced by some of the best use of sitar (played by Brian Jones) on a rock record. Other classics included the jazzy ‘Under My Thumb,’ where Jones added exotic accents with his vibes, and the delicate Elizabethan ballad ‘Lady Jane,’ where dulcimer can be heard…”
The sound of this pressing is going to be very hard to beat. Until just recently it had been ages since we’d found a copy of Aftermath with sound quality of this caliber to list on the site. It’s surprisingly clean, clear and smooth, with prodigious amounts of Tubey Magic, which is the kind of sound that lets you play the album at the appropriate volume — LOUD.
Although some songs sound amazing, not every track is well recorded. We just have to accept that the Stones are not The Beatles when it comes consistent quality for their earliest recordings. However, a strong copy like this one paired with the great music on the album will certainly deliver a lot of pleasure to audiophile Stones fans.
Finally! Top Sound for the Stones
This is our favorite of the early Stones records. You can’t argue with “Lady Jane” and “Under My Thumb,” two of the best tracks this band ever put down on tape.
“Lady Jane,” “Under My Thumb” and “Mother’s Little Helper” are three of the best sounding tracks on side one. On side two, “Out of Time” and “I Am Waiting” are especially well recorded
Credit must go to the engineering talents of Dave Hassinger.
What The Best Sides Of Aftermath 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 1966
- 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 Listen For on Aftermath
- 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 — Dave Hassinger in this case — 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.
Side One
Mothers Little Helper
Superb! On the best copies this track is so transparent you can feel the cool air of the studio.
Stupid Girl
Somewhat dark and compressed as a rule.
Lady Jane
Wow! On the best pressings this one is killer. You won’t hear too many better sounding Stones songs from this period.
Under My Thumb
On the best copies this song has amazing bass. It’s what makes the song work, check it out.
Doncha Bother Me
Goin’ Home
Very nice sound as a rule.
Side Two
Flight 505
High and Dry
Out Of Time
Wow — on the best copies the intro to this song is Demo Disc Quality (all things considered) but it gets compressed and harmonically distorted as they keep adding layers of tape.
It’s Not Easy
Listen to that tape hiss — if it’s correct all the highs will be there.
I Am Waiting
This track can have especially sweet guitars.
Take It Or Leave It
Think
What To Do
AMG Review
The Rolling Stones finally delivered a set of all-original material with this LP, which also did much to define the group as the bad boys of rock & roll with their sneering attitude toward the world in general and the female sex in particular.
Dave Hassinger – Engineer
As a staff engineer at RCA’s Hollywood studios in the 1960s, David Hassinger worked on a number of important and classic recordings. The most famous of these, perhaps, are mid-’60s tracks that the Rolling Stones recorded in Hollywood, including the entirety of their 1966 album, Aftermath. They also include, however, the first two Jefferson Airplane albums, along with efforts by Sam Cooke, Love, the Monkees, the Byrds (their first attempt at “Eight Miles High,” re-recorded later for official release), Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, and others. Hassinger also attempted to establish himself as a producer in the late ’60s, with limited success, most notably with the Electric Prunes and the first Grateful Dead album.
Hassinger’s work with the Rolling Stones was probably pivotal in expanding his musical and professional horizons. The Stones liked working in American studios, and during their mid-’60s tours in the States, they would often record in that country, including sessions at RCA in Hollywood. Hassinger first worked with them at the end of 1964, and did engineering on tracks that appeared on Out of Our Heads and December’s Children. He did all of Aftermath, even writing the liner notes. The palette of sounds and instruments on the record — marimbas, dulcimer, sitar, harpsichord, and fuzz bass — was a challenge for both the Stones and the producer (Andrew Oldham) and engineer.
Allmusic
(RCA) wasn’t as funky as Chess obviously but it was more commercial. And (Dave Hassinger) really… he had a good ear, he’d get good sounds, and we experimented with more instruments… And he’d always get good sounds so we’d always get a good take at 3 or 4 shots at a song.
Bill Wyman