Favorites – Rock-Pop

If I still had a record collection, these 250 or so titles would be in it. That’s no longer in the cards because all of my records went into shootouts long ago, from whence they either went to good homes as Hot Stampers or got sold off or traded in.

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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Steely Dan – Aja

More of the Music of Steely Dan

  • Killer sound for Steely Dan’s magnificent Jazzy Pop breakthrough album, with both sides earning Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades or close to them
  • Punchy, full and smooth, with the kind of rhythmic energy that brings out the jazzy funk in the music
  • A Better Records Rock and Pop Top 100 album and a true Demo Disc on a pressing that sounds as good as this one does
  • If I were to make a list of my favorite rock and pop albums of 1977, this album would definitely be right at the top
  • Considering how dismal the releases by Cisco Music and Mobile Fidelity were, it seems that no one outside of Bernie Grundman has managed to get Aja sounding right on vinyl, and that was 47 years ago
  • The sound is as heavily processed, artificial and overly glossy as practically anything produced in the 70s, which means that its Mid-Fi appeal is all but assured
  • For those of you on the Higher Fidelity end of the spectrum, our best Hot Stampers get everything sounding as right, balanced and natural as Aja can possibly sound
  • Unfortunately for those of you who don’t like paying our prices or doing your own shootouts, Bernie’s new UHQR leaves a lot to be desired. With mediocre-to-bad sound on all four sides and a price tag of $150, what else can you call it but another Analogue Productions rip-off?
  • 4 1/2 stars: “With Aja, Walter Becker and Donald Fagen’s obsession with sonic detail and fascination with composition reached new heights. A coolly textured and immaculately produced collection of sophisticated jazz-rock, Aja has none of the overt cynicism or self-consciously challenging music that distinguished previous Steely Dan records … a shining example of jazz-rock at its finest. “

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Elton John – Self-Titled

More of the Music of Elton John

  • With two solid Double Plus (A++) or BETTER sides, this copy was giving us the sound we were looking for on Elton’s sophomore release – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • These sides are huge, and the music positively jumps out of the speakers – accept no substitutes!
  • A vintage British DJM pressing with sound this good is a Must Own for all right thinking music lovers of the audiophile persuasion – this is a very special recording, one that will reward countless plays for as long as you live
  • Some of the most remarkable string arrangements (and Tubey Magical string sound) ever recorded for a pop album
  • Top 100 and 4 1/2 stars: “Even with the strings and choirs that dominate the sound of the album, John manages to rock out on a fair share of the record. …Elton John remains one of his best records.”
  • A permanent resident of our Top 100 rock and pop list — this album is a Must Own from 1970
  • 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,” with an accent on the joy these amazing audiophile-quality recordings can bring to your life. Elton John is a good example of a record many audiophiles may not know well but would certainly benefit from getting to know better.

Folks, if you’re looking for classic popular music that still appeals to sophisticated adults fifty-plus years after it came out, this is the album for you. It’s one of the four classic Elton John records (five if you count GYBR) that belong in every right-thinking audiophile’s collection.

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Dave Mason – Alone Together (Marble Vinyl)

More of the Music of Dave Mason

  • Mason’s Masterpiece, here with solid Double Plus (A++) sound or BETTER on both sides of this vintage Blue Thumb pressing – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • Listen to how big and rich the dynamic chorus gets on the first track, “Only You Know and I Know” – what a thrill to hear it like that
  • A killer Bruce Botnick recording – Tubey Magical analog, smooth and natural, with the whole production sitting on a rock solid bottom-end foundation
  • 4 1/2 stars: “Alone Together represents Dave Mason at his peak… everything comes together perfectly.”

Before I get too far into the story of the sound, I want to say that this album appears to be criminally underrated as music nowadays, having fallen from favor with the passage of time.

It is a surely a Masterpiece that belongs in any rock collection worthy of the name. (Others that belong in that category can be found here.) Every track is good, and most are amazingly good. There’s no filler here.

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America – Self-Titled

More of the Music of America

  • Boasting a KILLER Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) side one mated to a solid Double Plus (A++) side two, this early Green Label pressing could not be beat – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • This was the only copy in our shootout to earn a 3+ grade on any side that did not have a sizable number of marks that played, which is disappointing considering how hard it is to find top quality sound on this title!
  • One of our favorite Hippie Folk Rock albums – the instruments and voices are so well recorded they will seem to be floating right in front of you
  • The Tubey Magical acoustic guitars on this record are a true test of stereo reproduction – thanks, Ken Scott
  • 4 stars: “America’s debut album is a folk-pop classic, a stellar collection of memorable songs that would prove influential on such acts as the Eagles and Dan Fogelberg…”

This is clearly America’s best album. You’ll find the kind of immediacy, richness and harmonic texture that not many records (and even fewer CDs) are capable of reproducing. The version we are offering here has the song “A Horse With No Name.” Some copies without that song can sound very good as well, but with grades this good, this copy is going to be very hard to beat.

Interestingly, “A Horse With No Name” never sounds quite as good as the rest of the album. It was recorded in 1971, after the album had already been released, and subsequently added to newer pressings starting in 1972. Unlike the rest of the album, it was not engineered by Ken Scott at Trident, but by a different engineer at Morgan Studios. The engineer of that song took a different approach to that which Scott had taken, and we leave it to you to decide how well it worked out.

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James Taylor – JT

More of the Music of James Taylor

  • A vintage copy of Taylor’s 1977 breakthrough album that was doing practically everything right, earning STUNNING Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades or close to them on both sides
  • It’s a superb recording – a member of our Top 100, in fact – but it takes a pressing like this to show you just how big and lively it can sound
  • The big hits “Your Smiling Face” and “Handy Man” both sound great here – thanks, Val Garay!
  • Don’t waste your money on any copy that doesn’t have TML stampers on both sides – they never sound any good
  • Interestingly, this time around even the worst side of any TML pressing earned a (1.5+) Hot Stamper grade
  • If you are using the Prelude Record Cleaning system on the right machines, you can’t go wrong with the early pressings of this title (although you can go much more right if you do a shootout and find a top copy like this one)
  • 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
  • 4 stars: “JT was James Taylor’s best album since Mud Slide Slim and the Blue Horizon because it acknowledged the darkness of his earlier work while explaining the deliberate lightness of his current viewpoint, and because it was his most consistent collection in years.”
  • If I were to compile a list of my favorite rock and pop albums from 1977, this album would definitely be on it

The good copies really rock on songs like Honey Don’t Leave L.A. or I Was Only Telling A Lie, yet have lovely, delicate vocals on ballads such as Another Grey Morning or There We Are (two of our favorite songs on the album).

Just turn up the volume and play the opening to Honey Don’t Leave L.A. — this is James Taylor and his super-tight studio band at the peak of their powers. Russ Kunkel hits the drum twice, then clicks his sticks together so quickly you can hardly notice it, then goes back to the drums for the rest of the intro.

On the best copies, the subtleties of his performance are clearly on display. Until the right copies came along, we had never even noticed that stick trick. Now it’s the high point of the whole intro.

Here are more of our favorite records with exceptionally punchy bass and here are more of our favorite records with exceptionally punchy drums.

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The Beatles – Magical Mystery Tour

More of the Music of The Beatles

  • A stunning True Stereo pressing with some of the best Beatles sound money can buy – superb work from Ken Scott here
  • Demo Disc quality sound for “I Am The Walrus,” “Strawberry Fields Forever,” “Baby You’re A Rich Man” and more
  • You won’t believe how powerful the sound is – it’s big, rich, open and lively beyond all expectation
  • A longtime Top 100 album and psych rock masterpiece that knocks us out every time we do the shootout
  • Any list of the best rock and pop albums of 1967 would have to have this record on it, along with its predecessor, Sgt. Pepper, released in May of the same year if you can believe it

Drop the needle on “Fool On The Hill” and you’ll see why we get so worked up over top copies that sound as good as this one does. This is a STUNNING recording, but you need a killer Hot Stamper pressing to appreciate just how well recorded the album is.

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The Eagles / On The Border – A Must Own Country Rock Classic

More of the Music of The Eagles

  • An original British SYL copy with STUNNING Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound throughout this criminally underrated California Country Rock classic – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • If you’ve never heard one of these early pressings, you have simply never heard this album sound the way it should, mastered with the correct polarity, for one thing
  • We’re huge fans of the album here at Better Records; it’s some of the most sophisticated, well-crafted, heartfelt music these guys ever made, and that’s saying a lot coming from us – we’ve been big fans for decades
  • 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 less accent on morbidity and more on the joy these amazing audiophile-quality recordings can bring to your life. On the Border is a good example of a record most audiophiles don’t know well but should.

Many of you have probably forgotten how good this album is (assuming you were ever familiar with it in the first place) probably because the typical domestic copy you would have played back in the day is fairly hard on the ears. Most pressings, even the British ones, barely hint at the kind of sound you’ll hear on this vintage UK pressing (the only kind we sell of course).

The LIFE and ENERGY of this pressing are going to knock you right out of your seat. Most copies leave you with a headache, but this one will have you begging to turn up the volume.

Tubey Magical acoustic guitar reproduction is superb on the better copies of this album. Simply phenomenal amounts of Tubey Magic can be heard on every strum, along with richness, body and harmonic coherency that have all but disappeared from modern recordings (and especially from modern remasterings). (more…)

The Pretenders – Learning To Crawl

More of the Music of The Pretenders

  • An excellent pressing of the band’s third studio album with solid Double Plus (A++) sound or close to it from start to finish – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • It takes years to get a shootout for this album going – three to five is my best guess, so get while the gettin’s good if you’re a fan of the most muscular rock album this band ever recorded
  • Side one of this (very specific) German pressing was richer, clearer and more energetic than most others we played, and side two was not far behind in all those areas
  • 5 stars: “Three albums into her recording career, Chrissie Hynde found herself having to put the past to bed and carve out a new beginning for herself with Learning to Crawl, but she pulled it off with a striking mixture of courage, strength, and great rock & roll; with the exception of the instant-classic debut album, it’s the Pretenders’ finest work.”

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David Bowie – David Live

More of the Music of David Bowie

  • A David Live like you’ve never heard, with INCREDIBLE Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound or close to it on all FOUR sides
  • One of our favorite live recordings – a great overview of Bowie’s career through 1974
  • “1984,” “Rebel Rebel,” “Sweet Thing” and “Rock and Roll With Me” come alive in performance like you have never heard before
  • A-List players of the day deliver sonic treats, including multiple horn players, multiple percussionists, all-male chorus background vocals, the searing fuzzed-out guitar leads of Earl Slick, piano and Mellotron by Mike Garson, and the amazing Herbie Flowers on bass
  • 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,” with an accent on the joy these amazing audiophile-quality recordings can bring to your life. David Live is a good example of a record audiophiles may not know well but we think might benefit from getting to know better
  • If I were to compile a list of Must Own rock and pop albums from 1974, this album would definitely be on it

When you listen to an outstanding copy of this Bowie classic, you will have no trouble picturing yourself in the audience with a front row center seat. And the great thing about a record like this is that you can be in the front row of this very concert whenever you want!

The other top live album is, of course, Waiting For Columbus, and the two have much in common. Most importantly, the songs played live on both albums are consistently better than their studio versions. (This is especially true on the Little Feat album. Little Feat was not a studio band and their live arrangements — with the Tower of Power horns — just murder the studio ones.)

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