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- Vitalogy appears on the site for only the second time ever, here with incredible Nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) sound throughout this original Epic pressing, just shy of our Shootout Winner – remarkably quiet vinyl too
- Both of these sides are tonally balanced from top to bottom, with more vocal presence and rock and roll energy than practically any other copy we played in our shootout
- This is not a hard title to find on vinyl, but it is hard to find without pressing defects, which caused us to return a high percentage of the copies we bought, even some sealed ones!
- 4 1/2 stars: “Thanks to its stripped-down, lean production, Vitalogy stands as Pearl Jam’s most original and uncompromising album.”
This vintage Epic pressing has 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, this is the record 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 Vitalogy 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 even as late as 1994
- 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.
Moving Product
Classic Rock is the heart and soul of our business. Finding quiet, good sounding pressings of Classic Rock albums is what we devote the bulk of our resources (time and money) to, and if we can be indulged a self-compliment, it’s what we do best.
No one is even bothering to attempt the kind of shootouts we immerse ourselves in every day. And who can blame them? It’s hard to assemble all the resources it takes to pull it off. There are a huge number of steps a record must go through before it finds itself for sale on our site, which means there are about twenty records in the backroom for every one that can be found on the site.
If the goal is to move product this is a very bad way to go about it. Then again, we don’t care about moving product for the sake of moving product. Our focus must be on finding, cleaning and critically evaluating the best sounding pressings, of the best music, we can get our hands on.
What We’re Listening For On Vitalogy
- 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.
Side One
Last Exit
Spin The Black Circle
Not For You
Tremor Christ
Nothingman
Whipping
Side Two
Pry, To
Corduroy
Bugs
Satan’s Bed
Better Man
Aye Davanita
Immortality
Stupid Mop
AMG 4 1/2 Star Review
Thanks to its stripped-down, lean production, Vitalogy stands as Pearl Jam’s most original and uncompromising album. While it isn’t a concept album, Vitalogy sounds like one. Death and despair shroud the album, rendering even the explosive celebration of vinyl “Spin the Black Circle” somewhat muted. But that black cloud works to Pearl Jam’s advantage, injecting a nervous tension to brittle rockers like “Last Exit” and “Not for You,” and especially introspective ballads like “Corduroy” and “Better Man.”
In between the straight rock numbers and the searching slow songs, Pearl Jam contribute their strangest music — the mantrafunk of “Aye Davanita,” the sub-Tom Waits accordion romp of “Bugs,” and the chilling sonic collage “Hey Foxymophandlemama, That’s Me.” Pearl Jam are at their best when they’re fighting, whether it’s Ticketmaster, fame, or their own personal demons.