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.

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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Black Sabbath / Self-Titled

More of the Music of Black Sabbath

  • Boasting two STUNNING Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sides or close to them, this copy of Sabbath’s debut LP rocks like nothing you’ve heard – remarkably quiet vinyl too for any record pressed in this era
  • Massive, powerful and spacious throughout – this original Green Label pressing is big, rich and solid like you won’t believe
  • The better copies are stunning Demo Discs – crank it up good and loud and if you have the right system for it you can be sure your audiophile friends will never forget it
  • 4 1/2 stars on AllMusic and one of the best sounding hard rock recordings from the era, or, to be honest, from any era
  • 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 of an accent on morbidity and more on the joy these amazing audiophile-quality recordings can bring to your life.
  • We think this is the band’s best sounding album. Roughly 150 other listings for the Best Sounding Album by an Artist or Group can be found here.

Top 100

Back in 2018 we wrote:

This title will surely make the cut next time we update our Top 100 Rock and Pop List. I would go so far as to say that the best copies of this album have sound as good or better than anything I’ve heard all year, and that’s an awful lot of great sounding records, hundreds and hundreds of them.

It did in fact make the Top 100 a while back. The album is hard to find in audiophile playing condition, but we make the effort and this killer Hot Stamper is the result.

Sabbath recorded their set list more or less live in the studio. This give the recording an unprocessed quality that really stands out on the best copies. The best Green Label pressings sound raw and real, with sound that is a perfect match for the band’s powerfully dark music.

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Jethro Tull – Aqualung

More of the Music of Jethro Tull

  • Incredible sound for Jethro Tull’s fourth studio album, with a Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) side one mated to a solid Double Plus (A++) side two
  • The sonics are outstanding from start to finish – big, punchy, present, tubey and bursting with rock and roll energy
  • A Better Records Top 100 title that still floors us on the best copies, with sound that will jump right out of your speakers
  • Marks in the vinyl are sometimes the nature of the beast with these vintage LPs – those on “My God” are especially bad – but if you can tough those out, this copy is going to blow your mind
  • 4 1/2 stars: “… one of the most astonishing progressions in rock history… the degree to which Tull upped the ante here is remarkable… Varied but cohesive, Aqualung is widely regarded as Tull’s finest hour.”
  • We think Stand Up is musically an even better album, but it’s hard to argue with the big, bold sound of Aqualung

Folks, for hard-rockin’, Tubey Magical, 70s Arty Proggy Rock in ANALOG, it just does not get much better than Aqualung. You need the right pressing to bring it to life though, and this one is certainly up to the task.

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The Beatles – The White Album

More of the Music of The Beatles

  • You’ll find solid Double Plus (A+++) sound or BETTER on all FOUR sides of these vintage British reissue pressings
  • This copy of the Beatles’ Masterpiece (my personal favorite of all their albums) is going to thrill and delight the lucky person who snags it
  • If you’ve heard the Half-Speed and Heavy Vinyl versions of The White Album, then you know how riddled they are with unacceptable flaws
  • They are simply not enjoyable on high-quality equipment, unlike this copy, which is guaranteed to be an unalloyed joy to play
  • Problems in the vinyl are sometimes the nature of the beast with these Classic Rock records, but once you hear how superb sounding this copy is, you might be inclined, as we were, to stop counting stitches and just be swept away by the music
  • “If there is still any doubt that Lennon and McCartney are the greatest song writers since Schubert, then next Friday – with the publication of the new Beatles double LP – should surely see the last vestiges of cultural snobbery and bourgeois prejudice swept away in a deluge of joyful music making…” Right On!
  • Our customers often write us to tell us how much they like their Hot Stamper pressings of The Beatles, and they have been especially enthusiastic when it comes to The White Album

Our White Album Hot Stampers have always been a big hit with the folks who’ve been lucky enough to snare them. If you’re ready for a high-quality copy of The White Album that’s sure to massacre all the pressings you’ve heard up until now, you should jump right on this bad boy.

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Genesis / A Trick Of The Tail – A Must Own Prog Masterpiece

More of the Music of Genesis

  • This early UK Charisma import boasts solid Double Plus (A++) grades from top to bottom
  • Here’s an outstanding Trick of the Tail that blows the typical pressing out of the water!
  • The sound is big, bold and open, breaking free from the compressed and cloudy sound the average copy offers
  • Here is the deep, note-like, well-articulated bass that the MoFi and 95% of all the other pressings don’t have
  • 4 1/2 stars: “[The] album returns the group to the fanciful fairy tale nature of its earlier records…this is about the sound of the band playing, not individual songs, and it succeeds on that level quite wildly…”
  • This is our pick for the band’s best sounding album. Roughly 150 other listings for the best recording by an artist or group can be found here on the blog.

It was a thrill to finally hear this album sound great after all these years. The cymbals are clean and silky, the vocals are present, the bass has real weight and the overall sound is balanced and natural! You’ve got to clean and play a TON of copies to have any hope of finding one that’d come anywhere near this one.

At the end of the second track on side one, Entangled, there is a wonderful sounding choral effect which Alan Parsons liked so much he decided to use it liberally on his own recordings. He’s famous for having admitted to analyzing classic rock records, then taking the best bits and pieces, cobbling them together and producing the “music” that he is known for. I prefer the original bits and pieces myself. (more…)

Joni Mitchell – Blue

More of the Music of Joni Mitchell

  • Boasting two solid Double Plus (A++) sides, this copy of Joni’s 1971 masterpiece is doing just about everything right – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • Full-bodied and balanced with the kind of smooth musicality that’s not always easy to find for Blue
  • We lucked into this quiet copy during our most recent shootout, but in our experience that is something we would not expect to happen very often, but we’re glad it did in the case of this wonderful pressing
  • A Better Records Top 100 title that belongs in any audiophile music collection worthy of the name
  • 5 stars: “Sad, spare, and beautiful, Blue is the quintessential confessional singer/songwriter album. Forthright and poetic, Joni Mitchell’s songs are raw nerves, tales of love and loss (two words with relative meaning here) etched with stunning complexity…”
  • Everything changed for us in 2007 with the release of the Hoffman/Gray Rhino pressing of Blue, a record that made us ask ourselves, “Why are we selling records that we would not want to listen to ourselves?”
  • It was a kicked-by-a-mule moment for all of us here at Better Records, and I am glad to say one kick was all it took to loosen the rocks that had embedded themselves in my head

The best copies bring out the breathy quality to Joni’s voice, and she never sounds strained. They are sweet and open, with good bass foundation and transparency throughout the frequency range.

The best pressings (and our better playback equipment) have revealed nuances to this recording — and of course the performances of all the players along with it — that made us fall in love with the music all over again. Of all the tough nuts to crack, this was the toughest, yet somehow copies emerged from our shootouts that made it easy to appreciate the sonic merits of Blue and ignore its shortcomings.

Hot Stampers have a way of doing that. You forget it’s a record; it’s now just Music. The right record and the right playback will bring this music to life in a way that you cannot imagine until you hear it. That is our guarantee on Blue — better than you ever thought possible or your money back.

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