More Records We Only Sell on Import Vinyl

• An Orange Label British pressing of Mott (only the second to hit the site in close to five years) with solid Double Plus (A++) grades or BETTER from top to bottom
• As so often happens with original British pressings of Classic Rock albums that got played good and hard, our highest graded copy was too noisy to sell
• Forget the dubby domestic pressings and whatever crappy Heavy Vinyl record they’re making these days – the UK LPs are the only way to fly on Mott
• More advice: The early reissues without the die-cut cover can be good, not great, and the Dutch pressings are passable at best, falling short of our lowest Hot Stamper grade
• Bill Price engineered in 1973 – he’s the man behind The Clash’s best sounding album, London Calling
• 5 stars: “This sounds better, looser, than All the Young Dudes, as the band jives through ‘All the Way From Memphis’ and ‘Honaloochie Boogie,’ beats the living hell outta ‘Violence,’ swaggers on ‘Whizz Kid,’ and simply drives it home on ‘Drivin’ Sister.'”

This CBS Orange Label early British LP has the big British Rock Sound we love here at Better Records. Phenomenally rich and sweet, with meaty bass and a smooth top, it’s the kind of sound you find on the best Ken Scott recordings from the early ’70s.

Bill Price engineered this one as he did for many of Mott’s albums. His claim to fame in these parts is London Calling, but his credits run into the hundreds for classic rock records starting in the ’60s right through to the ’80s.

We were surprised (although we shouldn’t be by now) that so many copies were slightly thin and dry. The first track on side one, the big hit All the Way From Memphis, tends to have a problem in that area more than the tracks that follow.

What The Best Sides Of Mott 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 1973
• 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 Mott

• 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

All the Way From Memphis
Whizz Kid
Hymn for the Dudes
Honaloochie Boogie
Violence

Side Two

Drivin’ Sister
Ballad of Mott the Hoople
I’m a Cadillac/El Camino Dolo Roso
I Wish I Was Your Mother

AMG  Review

This sounds better, looser, than All the Young Dudes, as the band jives through “All the Way From Memphis” and “Honaloochie Boogie,” beats the living hell outta “Violence,” swaggers on “Whizz Kid,” and simply drives it home on “Drivin’ Sister.” Apart from the New York Dolls (who, after all, were in a league of their own), glam never sounds as rock as it does here. To top it all off, Hunter writes the best lament for rock ever with “Ballad of Mott the Hoople,” a song that conveys just how heartbreaking rock & roll is for the average band. If that wasn’t enough, he trumps that song with the closer “I Wish I Was Your Mother,” a peerless breakup song that still surprises, even after it’s familiar. It’s a graceful, unexpected way to close a record.