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- Everybody’s In Showbiz makes its Hot Stamper debut with solid Double Plus (A++) grades or close to them on all FOUR sides of these vintage RCA pressings
- It’s lively and rich, with plenty of deep punchy bass, a nicely extended top and a huge three-dimensional soundfield (particularly on sides one and two)
- The sound on sides one and two is remarkably full-bodied, with solid, present vocals, as well as excellent clarity all around, and sides three and four are not far behind in all those areas
- “…they were in full bloom at this point in their career. Infectious, sly, brazen, and solidly awesome, this is that pre-Arista Kinks stuff you should be hip to.”
These vintage RCA 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 Everybody’s In Showbiz 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 1972
- 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 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 these two do.
Shootout Criteria
What are sonic qualities by which a record — any record — should be judged? Pretty much the ones we discuss in most of our Hot Stamper listings: energy, vocal presence, frequency extension (on both ends), transparency, spaciousness, harmonic textures (freedom from smear is key), rhythmic drive, tonal correctness, fullness, richness, three-dimensionality, and on and on down the list.
When we can get a number of these qualities to come together on the side we’re playing, we provisionally give it a ballpark Hot Stamper grade, a grade that is often revised during the shootout as we hear what the other copies are doing, both good and bad.
Once we’ve been through all the side ones, we play the best of the best against each other and arrive at a winner for that side. Other copies from earlier in the shootout will frequently have their grades raised or lowered based on how they sounded compared to the eventual shootout winner. If we’re not sure about any pressing, perhaps because we played it early on in the shootout before we had learned what to listen for, we take the time to play it again.
Repeat the process for side two and the shootout is officially over. All that’s left is to see how the sides of each pressing match up.
It may not be rocket science, but it’s a science of a kind, one with strict protocols that we’ve developed over the course of many years to insure that the results we arrive at are as accurate as we can make them.
The result of all our work speaks for itself, on this very record in fact. We guarantee you have never heard this music sound better than it does on our Hot Stamper pressing — or your money back.
What We’re Listening For On Everybody’s In Showbiz
- 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
Here Comes Yet Another Day
Maximum Consumption
Unreal Reality
Hot Potatoes
Sitting In My Hotel
Side Two
Motorway
You Don’t Know My Name
Supersonic Rocket Ship
Look A Little On The Sunny Side
Celluloid Heroes
Side Three
Top Of The Pops
Brainwashed
Mr. Wonderful
Acute Schizophrenia Paranoia Blues
Holiday
Side Four
Muswell Hillbilly
Alcohol
Banana Boat Song
Skin And Bone
Baby Face
Lola
Pitchfork Rave Review
1972’s Everybody’s In Showbiz kicks off with ten new songs, most of which were inspired by RCA’s whirlwind press junket after the release of Muswell Hillbillies … It’s about the dreams of the have-nots and the downfall of the haves. “Celluloid Heroes,” the standout studio cut, is a six-plus minute number about movie stars and the Walk of Fame. It’s simple, it’s catchy, and I bet the Wallflowers will end up covering it sometime soon. Hear it while you can still associate it with Team Good Music.
The second half of Showbiz is a live show recorded at Carnegie Hall. Along with a whole buncha Kinks songs (most pulled from Muswell Hillbillies, they plow through playful covers of “The Banana Boat Song” and “Baby Face.” Shows like this only helped lend creedence to the rumors that these guys loved the sauce (witness Ray’s tipsy cabaret take on “Alcohol”). But drunk or not, they were in full bloom at this point in their career. Infectious, sly, brazen, and solidly awesome, this is that pre- Arista Kinks stuff you should be hip to.
-Jason Josephes