Hot Stamper Pressings of Elvis’s Albums Available Now
Note that the bulk of this commentary was written many years ago. I still feel the same way about Elvis’s albums and play them regularly to this day.
Trust is one of my three favorite Elvis Costello albums, along with his first and third, My Aim Is True and Armed Forces.
All three are Must Owns in my book.
I remember loving the sound of my old Brit copy from twenty years back [now 30], even to the point of agreeing with Michael Fremer when he put it on his top 40 rock album list. Now I know better: that most of them leave something to be desired, especially in the lower frequencies.
Did I have good one? Did he? Who can say? Everything is different, and revisiting old sonic favorites can sometimes be a bit of a shock.
Elvis: Still The King
By the way, we played a domestic copy of this album, just for fun you might say, and sure enough it was a real mess.
Boosted highs (Columbia had a habit of doing that for records mastered from dub tapes), poor bass definition and copious amounts of grit and grain — 70s Columbia at their best. What else is new?
The first album and Spike (far from the best but tolerable) are the only Elvis records I know of that work on domestic vinyl. Forget the rest.
If you love Elvis Costello as much as we do around here, we suggest you do yourself a favor and trash your domestic LPs — you need a British copy to even get in the ballpark on most of his albums, and even that’s far from a guarantee of good sound. Elvis is “Still the King,” but you will never know it without the right pressing.
Trust, along with Armed Forces, is one of the records that helped me make real progress in audio.
DISCOGRAPHY
1977 My Aim Is True
1978 This Year’s Model
1979 Armed Forces
1980 Get Happy!!
1981 Trust
1981 Almost Blue
1982 Imperial Bedroom
1983 Punch the Clock
1984 Goodbye Cruel World
1986 King of America
1986 Blood & Chocolate
1989 Spike
1991 Mighty Like a Rose
Obsessed? You Better Believe It
Many of the Elvis Costello albums you see listed above are records we admit to being obsessed with.
Currently we have identified about 150 that fit that description, so if you have some spare time, check them out.
Further Reading