Overview of the Greats – Rock, Jazz, etc.

Peter Gabriel’s So – An Overview

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Peter Gabriel Available Now

We wrote this about a killer copy that came our way years ago:

Here is a copy of So with the big and bold Peter Gabriel sound we love.

If you want your art rock to actually rock as well as be arty, this is the copy for you.

It’s not a perfect recording by any means, but when it sounds this good you can just forget its shortcomings and marvel at how consistently good the material and the production are.

No Mean Feat

It’s exceptionally hard to find good sounding copies of this album. With a digital recording such as this, the margin for mastering error is very slim. Most copies just aren’t worth the vinyl they’re pressed on. More often than not they will sound harsh, gritty, grainy, edgy, and thin.

We did a shootout many years ago that taught us a few things. The most surprising finding? The Brit copy I had in my own collection sucked — how about that! As a rule, I like the Brit pressings best for PG, but that rule got broken after playing all these domestic copies, some of which really sound good, clearly better than the Brits we had on hand.

Are rules made to be broken?

Yes they are.

This is a digital recording, and most of the time it is BRIGHT, SPITTY and GRAINY the way digital recordings tend to be, which plays right into the prejudices of most audiophiles for the “100% analog” approach they favor.

After hearing a bad copy, what audiophile wouldn’t conclude that all copies will have these bad qualities?

After all, it’s digital. It can’t be fixed simply by putting it on vinyl.

Ah, but that’s where logic breaks down. Proper mastering can ameliorate many if not most of a recording’s shortcomings. When we say Hot Stampers, we are talking about high-quality mastering doing exactly that.

Mass Produced Plastic Problems

But of course the mastering is only one part of the puzzle. I have multiple copies with the same stampers. Some of them are terrible, some of them are wonderful — you just can’t rely on the numbers to guide you with a piece of mass-produced plastic like this. You have no choice but to play the record to know what it sounds like. (And that’s a good thing. Keeps you honest. There’s no “cheating” when you have nothing to go by but the sound.)

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Famous Blue Raincoat – How Do the Various Vinyl Versions Sound?

More of the Music of Jennifer Warnes

More of the Music of Leonard Cohen

What’s interesting about the Cypress LPs is that they come two very different ways. Most of them are ridiculously thin, bright, grainy and digital sounding. This explains why some audiophiles in the past have preferred the Canadian pressings: they are smoother and fuller.

However, compared to the good stamper domestic versions they are dull and lifeless.

The Classic 180 gram reissue that came out a number of years ago was somewhere in between the good stamper originals and the bad stamper originals. The better sounding Cypress pressings absolutely MURDER it.

As far as the new Cisco 45 RPM pressings are concerned, we’ve never bothered to crack one open and play it. It’s been quite a while since Bernie cut any record that we thought sounded good, and some of his recent work has been unbelievably bad (the Doors box comes readily to mind), so we’ve never felt motivated enough to make the effort.

He cut many versions of this record as you probably know, some of which have turned out to be Hot Stampers, but that was a long time ago.

Does the Audio World really need another Heavy Vinyl Debunking entry from us? If Heavy Vinyl pressings are giving you the sound you want, you sure don’t need to be wasting your time on our site.

Those sacred cows get slaughtered pretty regularly around here.

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Better Sound than the Master Tape?

More of the Music of Bonnie Raitt

This original WB Palm Tree label LP has THE BEST SIDE ONE we have ever heard here at Better Records. “A+++” sound means you’re probably hearing the album better than they did when they played back the master tape in the control room, studio monitors being what they are. 

Since this is one of my three favorite Bonnie Raitt albums — the others being Sweet Forgiveness and Nine Lives — and quite possibly the best sounding album she ever made, it goes without saying that this is THE Must Own Bonnie Raitt Hot Stamper Pressing of All Time.

What about the Capitol albums she recorded with Don Was?

Man, they sure don’t sound like this! That stuff is way too digitally-processed and modern sounding for my taste.

The first two she did for Capitol are fine albums in their own right, but she was already out of gas by the time she got accepted by the record buying public and the Grammy Award committee. That was 1989; this album is from 1975 when she still had her groove on. You may gain a lot of wisdom as you age from thirty-six to fifty, but you don’t gain a lot of rock and roll energy (or any other kind, for that matter).

Her Best Material

What sets this album apart from others made around this period is the strength of the material. Every song on side one would fit nicely on a greatest hits album, they’re that good. The reason side one has always been a personal favorite is the last on the side, the lovely ballad My First Night Alone Without You. If this one doesn’t hit you hard, something ain’t workin’ right.

Side two has five more top tracks, and perhaps this is the mark of quality that her other WB albums can’t match: consistency. Everything works on this album.

The Big Sound

This a big production, with horns and strings and lots of wonderful sounding instruments thrown into the mix such as tubas, mandolins and autoharps to name just a few.

Getting all these sounds onto the vinyl of the day is a tough challenge, but some copies had the goods, and this is one of them.