Masterpieces of Rock & Pop

Rock and Pop Masterpieces

Richard & Linda Thompson – Shoot Out The Lights

More Richard Thompson

  • A seriously good copy of The Thompsons’ final (and their best) album with big, bold, energetic Double Plus (A++) sound on both sides
  • Dynamic, huge, lively, powerful and musical – a real Demo Disc
  • Was sound at the level of a Led Zeppelin II still possible in 1982? The best pressings of this album proves it was
  • A Top 100 album, and clearly Thompson’s Masterpiece of Grungy Guitar Rock
  • 5 stars: “Shoot Out The Lights found them rallying their strengths to the bitter end; it’s often been cited as Richard Thompson’s greatest work, and it’s difficult for anyone who has heard his body of work to argue the point.”
  • As is sometimes the case, there is one and only one set of stampers that consistently wins our shootouts for this album.  Click on this link to see other titles with one set of stamper numbers that always come out on top

Without a doubt, this is the best record Richard and Linda Thompson ever made together, possibly the best record Thompson was ever involved with, but it also holds one other important distinction, one of great interest to us audiophiles: it’s the BEST SOUNDING record he (they) ever made as well.

Turn it up good and loud and you will be amazed at how dynamic the guitar solos are.

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Crosby, Stills and Nash – Self-Titled

More of the Music of Crosby, Stills, Nash

  • A vintage copy of CS&N’s self-titled debut LP that was doing just about everything right, with both sides earning superb grades
  • The sound is big and rich, the vocals breathy and immediate, and you will not believe all the space and ambience
  • We love the album, but it is a cryin’ shame, as well as a fact, that few were mastered and pressed well, and that includes none of the originals in our experience
  • The reason you don’t see this title on the site more frequently is simply that it has become nearly impossible to find copies in audiophile playing condition with the right stampers
  • The right stampers for this album are at least ten times more rare than those for Zep II, but for some reason everybody thinks that record is rare!
  • We’ve discovered a hundred or more titles in which one stamper always wins, some of which we’ve identified, and no, we have no intention of giving out that information, sorry
  • The fact that only one specific later pressing ever wins our shootouts is proof that freeing your mind from unscientific thinking is the only way to find the highest quality pressings
  • 5 stars: “A definitive document of its era.”
  • This is a Must Own Hippie Folk Rock Masterpiece from 1969 that belongs in every right-thinking audiophile’s collection

Although millions of copies of this album were sold, so few were mastered and pressed well, and so many mastered seemingly with no regard to sound quality, that only a vanishingly small number of copies have ever made it to the site with Hot Stampers.

We consider this album a Masterpiece. It’s a recording that should be part of any serious Popular Music Collection.

Others that belong in that category can be found here.

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Harry Nilsson / Nilsson Schmilsson – The Robed Man’s Masterpiece

More of the Music of Harry Nilsson

  • Solid Double Plus (A++) sound or BETTER brings Harry Nilsson’s indisputable Masterpiece of Bent Rock to life on this vintage copy
  • Both sides are remarkably good sounding, thanks to the brilliant engineering skills of Phill (That’s Two L’s) Brown
  • A Better Records favorite (we give it Five Stars) that really comes to life on a superb pressing such as this one
  • Problems in the vinyl are sometimes the nature of the beast with these vintage LPs – there simply is no way around them if the superior sound of vintage analog is important to you
  • 4 1/2 stars: “…it’s a near-perfect summary of everything Nilsson could do; he could be craftier and stranger, but never did he achieve the perfect balance as he did here.”
  • If I were to compile a list of my favorite rock and pop albums from 1971, this album would definitely be on it

Big production pop like this is hard to pull off. Harry did an amazing job, but the recording is not perfect judging by the dozen or so copies we played during our most recent shootout, and the scores w’ve suffered through before. Let’s face it: “Jump Into The Fire” will never be smooth and sweet; neither will “Down” on side one. But other tracks on this album have Demo Disc sound.

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Fleetwood Mac / Mystery To Me

More of the Music of Fleetwood Mac

  • Boasting two STUNNING Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sides or close to them, we guarantee you’ve never heard the band’s 1973 release sound remotely as good as it does on the vintage Reprise pressing
  • This copy is super open and spacious with an abundance of energy and incredible presence
  • The bottom end is just killer and there’s dramatically more richness and fullness than what we heard on practically all other copies in our most recent shootout
  • “Throughout Mystery to Me, the amazing and almost telepathic drums and bass of Mick Fleetwood and John McVie give this effort more panache and muscle than was represented on this effort’s predecessor, Bare Trees. The best Bob Welch offering, ‘Keep on Going,’ has a strong, soulful string arrangement and Christine McVie’s customary sensual and poised vocals … This effort is custom-made for those who like thoughtful offerings and is a valuable set in the scheme of the band.”

Mystery To Me is my All Time Favorite Fleetwood Mac album, and this copy has the sound that I always dreamed this album could have, but didn’t — until now. This is just the third Hot Stamper shootout that we’ve been able to do, since clean copies with the right stampers are ridiculously hard to come by. I’m not kidding. We must have spent the last ten years and more trying to find the right stampers for this record. I can tell you we were dead wrong so many times in the past that we had almost given up. Time and time again, just when I thought we had it figured out, we would go back and play our so-called “hot” copy, to find ourselves miserably disappointed all over again.

Half the copies you find of this record are mud and the other half have no bass. If my math is correct, that leaves zero copies that aren’t muddy and actually have bass. That comports rather well with what I was finding: under test conditions zero of the copies we played sounded any good. We were sorely vexed. Sorely, sorely vexed.

Then the skies opened up and the sun began to shine.

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Joan Jett & The Blackhearts / I Love Rock ‘n Roll – A Surprisingly Well Recorded Album for 1981

More Women Who Rock

  • This stunning copy of Joan Jett’s iconic 1981 release boasts Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades or close to them on both sides – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • A surprisingly well-recorded album for 1981 – rich and full-bodied down low, smooth up top, present and natural in the midrange, this audiophile sound quality really took us by surprise
  • And as you can see from the above description, when a pressing sounds like this, you can play it good and loud – the louder you play it, the better it sounds
  • 4 stars: “That dynamic, hard rock crunch is what made the title track into an international hit, but it also gives the album dimension — not only can Jett & the Blackhearts tear up heavy glam rockers, but they also pull off the mock psychedelia of Tommy James & the Shondells’ ‘Crimson and Clover’ with aplomb.”

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The Moody Blues – Days of Future Passed

More of the Music of The Moody Blues

  • With two INCREDIBLE Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sides or close to them, you’ll have a hard time finding a copy that sounds remotely as good as this vintage UK import
  • According to my notes, the last White Hot stamper copy went up in 2022 (!)
  • The sonics are huge, rich and lively throughout – you need this kind of space for the orchestral parts to work their Moody Magic
  • An album experience beyond practically anything that had come before (Sgt. Pepper excluded)
  • 4 1/2 stars: “Days of Future Passed became one of the defining documents of the blossoming psychedelic era, and one of the most enduringly popular albums of its era.”
  • If you’re a fan of the Moodies, this vintage UK pressing from 1967 surely belongs in your collection
  • We’ve recently compiled a list of records we think every audiophile should get to know better, along the lines of “the 1001 records you need to hear before you die,” but with the accent on the joy these amazing audiophile-quality recordings can bring to your life

This album is more than 50 years old, for god’s sake! In those 50+ years I’d forgotten how good it is.

“Tuesday Afternoon” is the Perfect Pop Song, with the whole of side two flowing effortlessly from it as each song (each day) is linked by means of the surrounding orchestrations until it reaches its zenith with the climax of “Nights in White Satin.”

The sound is very much a part of the entire experience. The strings of the orchestra sound as sweet as any Decca, the soundstage wide and deep as a symphony. For those of you who still think Mobile Fidelity is the king on this one, here’s a record that demonstrates what a real orchestra sounds like.

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Bee Gees et al. – Saturday Night Fever

More 5 Star Albums

  • KILLER Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound or close to it brings this 70s classic to life on these vintage pressings
  • There’s real Bee Gees vocal magic here – “Stayin’ Alive,” “How Deep Is Your Love,” “More Than a Woman,” “Jive Talkin’,” and more
  • One of the most underrated tracks that holds up surprisingly well after all these years is “A Fifth of Beethoven,” and it sounds stunning here on this Nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) side two – just shy of our Shootout Winner
  • It’s no walk in the park to find a copy with sonics this good, but here it is
  • Marks in the vinyl are sometimes the nature of the beast with these vintage LPs – there simply is no way around them if the superior sound of vintage analog is important to you
  • 5 stars: “Saturday Night Fever is virtually indispensable as a Bee Gees album, not just for the presence of an array of songs that were hits in their own right but because it offered the Gibb brothers as composers as well as artists…”
  • If you’re a Bee Gees fan, this title from 1977 is surely a Must Own

This copy of the Saturday Night Fever Soundtrack has truly killer sound throughout, and that ain’t no jive talkin’! We collected a bunch of these and put them through the shootout process and were delighted to find out that some of the material on here can sound wonderful on the best pressings.

Like any compilation, some songs are going to sound better than others. The good news here is that most of the tracks you’d hope to be impressive actually are: “Stayin’ Alive,” “How Deep Is Your Love” and “Disco Inferno” are among the better-sounding songs here.

Find your favorite song on here, drop the needle, and see if the dramatically improved sound doesn’t bring back some special memories, and maybe even inspire you to bust a move!

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Dixie Dregs – Dregs of the Earth

More Jazz Rock Fusion

  • This wild amalgamation of rock, jazz, country, prog and classical music delivers the sound we always dreamed it could with INCREDIBLE Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades or close to them from first note to last
  • Both sides are rich and smooth like good analog should be, with plenty of energy and rock and roll drive
  • This is the kind of music you may have trouble describing, but one thing’s for sure – it’s really good
  • We’re apparently not the only one who noticed how good the album is: it received a 1980 Grammy nomination for Best Rock Instrumental Performance.
  • “If you were a Dixie Dregs fan in 1980, by this time you knew just what to expect from a new album of theirs. Beautiful, majestic ballads, southern flavored rockers, a blazing bluegrass romp, at least one smokin’ prog tune, and maybe a little classical thrown in. This one does not disappoint.” – ProgArchives.com

If you want to hear what happens when five virtuoso instrumentalists manage to combine their talent for Jazz, Rock, Classical and Country (thank god there aren’t any vocals) into a potent mix that defies classification and breaks all the rules, this is the one. It reminds me of Ellington’s famous line that there are only two kinds of music: good music and bad music. This is the kind of music you may have trouble describing, but one thing’s for sure — it’s good. In fact it’s really good.

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Roxy Music / Self-Titled

More of the Music of Roxy Music

  • A vintage UK pressing of Roxy’s amazing debut LP with two solid Double Plus (A++) sides – this is some of the most dynamic sound the band achieved
  • Andy Hendriksen’s engineering (over the course of a week!) is superb in all respects – we think the best pressings of this first album reveal a recording that is superior to any other by the band
  • A Top 100 album, Roxy’s Masterpiece, and a Must Own Desert Island Disc of glamorous Arty Rock
  • 4 1/2 stars: “Falling halfway between musical primitivism and art rock ambition, Roxy Music’s eponymous debut remains a startling redefinition of rock’s boundaries. Simultaneously embracing kitschy glamour and avant-pop, Roxy Music shimmers with seductive style and pulsates with disturbing synthetic textures.”
  • When it comes to rock and pop music in 1972, our picks for the best of the best, numbering at the moment a mere 21 titles, can be found here
  • This link will take you to the Hot Stamper pressings of our hardest rockin’ albums currently available

Folks, this is a true Demo Disc in the world of Rock. It’s rare to find a recording of popular music with dynamics like these. The guitar solo at the end of “Ladytron” rocks like you will not believe.

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Bob and Ray / Throw a Stereo Spectacular

More Living Stereo Recordings

  • With STUNNING Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades or close to them from start to finish, this TAS-approved Living Stereo pressing could not be beat
  • Originally produced as a sampler record for the Living Stereo line, it is an absolute Must Own for serious audiophiles looking to take their system to the next level
  • Our reference copy here at Better Records is so vital to our operation that it would not be for sale at any (well, almost any) price!
  • It has long been my personal favorite test disc, as well as one of our three best cartridge tweaking and turntable setup discs
  • 4 stars: “The gleefully cacophonous Guckenheimer Sour Kraut Band takes the prize for providing the most unusual musical selection, but the overall program is extremely diverse [and] the comedy and music are enjoyable.”

Bob and Ray Throw A Stereo Spectacular just happens to be our favorite Test Disc, eclipsing all others in the areas of naturalness and difficulty of reproduction. Any tweak or new room treatment — we seem to do them almost weekly these days — has to pass one test and one test only: The Bob and Ray Test.

This record has the power to help you get to the next level in audio like no other.

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