Must Own Rock & Pop Titles

These titles should make up the core of any serious collection of rock and pop music. Drawing on our shootout expertise, the emphasis here is on the highest quality recordings.

Tears For Fears – Songs From The Big Chair

More of the Music of Tears For Fears

  • An incredible vintage UK pressing with Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound on the first side and solid Double Plus (A++) sound on the second side
  • Rich, spacious and lively, with an open, extended top end – this is the sound you’ve been waiting for from Tears for Fears
  • More great songs than practically any other record made in the ’80s – “Shout,” “Everybody Wants To Rule The World” and “Head Over Heels” are just a few of the better known hits from this, their breakthrough third album
  • 4 1/2 stars: “It is not only a commercial triumph, it is an artistic tour de force. And in the loping, percolating “Everybody Wants to Rule the World,” Tears for Fears perfectly captured the zeitgeist of the mid-’80s while impossibly managing to also create a dreamy, timeless pop classic. Songs From the Big Chair is one of the finest statements of the decade.”

This is a classic in the Tears for Fears canon, probably the album most people regard as their best. I myself prefer Seeds of Love, which should take nothing away from Big Chair — both are exceptional productions from the ’80s no matter how you look at them.

SFTBC went to Number One on the charts for a reason. There’s really not a bad song on either side and mostly absolutely brilliant ones.

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Neil Young – Zuma

More of the Music of Neil Young

  • Boasting two outstanding Double Plus (A++) sides, this copy of Neil’s amazingly well recorded 1975 masterpiece is guaranteed to floor audiophiles and Neil Young fans alike – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • Zuma captures a kind of garage band purity that makes practically any other studio album you own sound processed and desiccated in comparison
  • For a hard-rockin’ Neil Young album with Demo Disc quality sound, you’ll have a hard time finding a better choice than a Hot Stamper pressing of Zuma
  • A Must Own Top 100 Title – just drop the needle on “Danger Bird” or “Cortez the Killer” to have your mind blown!

Can any one artist lay claim to two of the best sounding rock albums ever made? Neil Young can!

After the Gold Rush and Zuma are Demo Discs and super discs of the highest order, right up there with Tea for the Tillerman and Teaser and the Firecat, the other two albums by a single artist that deserve to be placed on that rarified plane.

Part of Zuma’s attraction is that it has exceptionally unprocessed sound that seems to have been recorded “live in the studio.”

The fact that Gold Rush and Zuma both involve Neil Young is doubtless not an accident. I would be very surprised to learn that he was not intimately involved with every aspect of the recording of both Masterpieces, from the miking to the final mix and every step in between.

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Queen – A Day At the Races

More of the Music of Queen


  • Boasting INCREDIBLE Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades or close to them from top to bottom, you’ll have a hard time finding a copy that sounds remotely as good as this vintage UK pressing
  • We shot out a number of other imports and the midrange presence, bass, and dynamics on this outstanding copy placed it head and shoulders above most other pressings we played
  • You may be interested in reading about a copy very much like this one that fell short in one aspect of sound important to us (and we hope you as well)
  • Forget the domestic pressings – they may be cut at Sterling, but they never sound like these shockingly good British LPs
  • “A Day at the Races is a bit tighter than its predecessor… its sleek, streamlined finish is the biggest indication that Queen has entered a new phase, where they’re globe-conquering titans instead of underdogs on the make.”
  • If you’re a Queen fan, their 1976 followup to A Night at the Opera is surely a Must Own
  • The complete list of titles from 1976 that we’ve reviewed to date — more than one hundred as of 2026 — can be found here

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.

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The Beatles – Help

More of the Music of The Beatles

  • With two outstanding Double Plus (A++) sides, this copy will be very hard to beat – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • Everything that’s great about Help is here on this UK pressing – jangly 12-string guitars, Tubey Magical electric pianos, harmonically rich tambourines and claves, and, the sine qua non of any Beatles album, breathy, present vocals
  • If you’re like us and think the new Beatles Heavy Vinyl reissues are boosted in the bass and way too smooth in the midrange, whether mono or stereo, take comfort in the fact that this pressing is neither of those things, because it sounds right
  • Side one alone boasts 7 classics: “Help!,” “The Night Before,” “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away,” “I Need You,” “Another Girl,” “You’re Gonna Lose That Girl” and “Ticket to Ride” – whew!

Want to hear The Beatles at their Tubey Magical best? Just play “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away” on this very copy.

One of the reasons this song stands out in a crowd of great tracks is that there are only acoustic instruments being played. There’s not an electric guitar to be found anywhere in the mix, one of the few tracks on side one for which that is true.

We flip out over the Tubey Magical acoustic guitars and harmony vocals found on early Beatles albums, and this song can be an exceptionally good example of both when you’re fortunate enough to have the right pressing playing.

Those of you with Hot Stamper pressings of the album can count themselves among the fortunate.

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The Byrds – Mr. Tambourine Man (Red Label)

More of the Music of The Byrds

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  • With very good Hot Stamper sound from start to finish, this Columbia Red Label pressing will be hard to beat, especially for those looking for quiet vinyl
  • The 360 Label pressings in stereo will always win our shootouts, but there are Red Label pressings like this one that can sound very good, just not as good
  • It’s richer and fuller than the average copy, with notably more presence, and that will be especially true when you compare it to whatever godawful Heavy Vinyl pressing may be currently available
  • This is true of even our lowest-priced, lowest-graded copies – they are guaranteed to sound much better than any pressing you can find on the market today, as well as any pressing you may already own
  • 5 stars: “One of the greatest debuts in the history of rock … nothing less than a significant step in the evolution of rock & roll itself, demonstrating that intelligent lyrical content could be wedded to compelling electric guitar riffs and a solid backbeat.”
  • If you’re a fan of the Byrds, this is a Classic from 1965 that belongs in your collection.

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Elvis Costello / Armed Forces – A Phenomenal Demo Disc from 1979

More of the Music of Elvis Costello

  • This vintage UK pressing will show you just how good sounding Elvis’s best recording can be, with KILLER Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades or close to them on both sides
  • It’s some of the biggest, boldest rock sound ever recorded
  • A Top 100 Demo Disc, and just amazing here – every track is Elvis at his best
  • 5 stars: “In contrast to the stripped-down pop and rock of his first two albums, Armed Forces boasted a detailed and textured pop production… However, the more spacious arrangements – complete with ringing pianos, echoing reverb, layered guitars, and harmonies – accent Costello’s melodies… It’s a dense but accessible pop record and ranks as his third masterpiece in a row.”
  • There are about 100 records we think deserve to be more popular with audiophiles, and Armed Forces is one of them.

This album checks off a number of our most-prized boxes:

Armed Forces is one of the best-sounding rock records ever made, and a copy like this is proof enough to back up that claim. The best copies are extremely transparent and silky sounding, but with unbelievably punchy, rock-solid bass and drums.

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Sergio Mendes and Brasil ’66 – Equinox

More of the Music of Sergio Mendes

  • An Equinox like you’ve never heard, with solid Double Plus (A++) sound throughout this wonderful copy, along with remarkably quiet vinyl for an original pressing
  • The breathy intimacy of the two wonderful female leads – Lani Hall and Janis Hansen – were brilliantly captured by the engineering team of Bruce Botnick and Larry Levine at A&M
  • It’s humble records like this one that blew my mind when I first discovered them back in the 80s, with their dynamic, energetic, spacious sound, as well as shockingly good music that at the time I had no idea existed
  • “Watch What Happens,” “Night and Day,” “Wave” – Mendes brings his innovative Bossa Nova arranging skills to these timeless classics
  • 4 1/2 stars: “Equinox continues the scrumptiously winning sound that Sergio Mendes cooked up in the mid-60s… Again, the mix of American pop tunes old and new and Brazilian standards and sleepers is impeccable, and the treatments are smooth, swinging, and very much to the point.”
  • 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 the accent on the joy these amazing audiophile-quality recordings can bring to your life
  • Equinox (along with their first release) is also one of those albums that helped us dramatically improve our playback quality

These Sergio Mendes records can be surprisingly dynamic, but only the better copies (such as this one) will allow those dynamics to explode naturally, with the kind of ease that only analog is capable of reproducing correctly in our experience.

As you’ve no doubt noticed, we’re the world’s biggest fans of Sergio Mendes here at Better Records. Brasil ’66, Stillness, and this album are all Desert Island Discs for us, and we even enjoy the hell out of some of the later albums. You can search all you want, but outside of The Beatles you are going to have a very tough time finding the diverse thrills that this group offers. We go crazy for the breathy, multi-part female vocals, their unusually voiced multi-tracked harmonies, the brilliant percussion, and, let us not forget, Mendes’ superb keyboard work anchoring as well as jazzing up the whole production.

His stuff never sounds dated to us, and we’ve never heard another artist do anything in the ’60s samba idiom nearly as well. We love Astrud Gilberto’s albums from the period, which no doubt served as a template for the style Sergio wanted to create with his new ensemble, but Brazil 66 is clearly a step up in every way: songwriting, arranging, production, and quality of musicianship.

Just play the group’s amazing versions of “Watch What Happens,” “Night and Day,” or “Jobim’s Wave” to hear the kind of Mendes Magic that makes us swoon. For we audiophiles, it just doesn’t get any better. (Well, almost. Stillness is still the Ultimate, on the level of a Dark Side of the Moon or Tea for the Tillerman, but Equinox is right up there with it.)

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The Doobie Brothers – The Captain and Me

More of the Music of The Doobie Brothers

  • A vintage Green Label pressing with KILLER Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound from start to finish
  • Our last shootout was many years ago – since that time we have been pursuing every Green Label early pressing we could find, but the vinyl from that era has been fighting us every step of the way as you can see from the condition grades
  • So this is it folks – if you want the best sound, your only option is to put up with some surface noise
  • “Natural Thing,” “China Grove” and “Long Train Runnin'” all sound amazing – smooth, rich and full of energy
  • Credit Donn Landee with the full-bodied, rich, smooth, oh-so-analog sound of these Hot Stamper pressings
  • Problems in the vinyl are sometimes the nature of the beast with these Classic Rock records, but once you hear just how incredible sounding this copy is, you might be inclined, as we were, to stop counting ticks and pops and just be swept away by the music
  • 4 1/2 stars: “The Doobie Brothers’ third long-player was the charm, their most substantial and consistent album to date, and one that rode the charts for a year.”

There are some great songs on this album, songs that still get plenty of play on the radio: China Grove, Long Train Running and South City Midnight Lady all come to mind. It’s tough to find great sounding copies, but it’s worth all the trouble when you get one with this kind of rich, full tonality, punchy bottom end and real space and ambiance. (more…)

Dick Schory – Music for Bang, Baaroom and Harp

Living Stereo Titles Available Now

  • Stunning Living Stereo sound through this original pressing, with both sides earning Nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) grades, just shy of our Shootout Winner – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • It’s a real treat to hear such a crazy assortment of percussion instruments with this kind of amazingly clear, high-resolution sound!
  • This copy was just plain bigger, richer and clearer than practically all others in our recent shootout
  • It also helps that both of these sides are in correct polarity, a subject you can read about on the blog if you would like to know more
  • If you’re a fan of percussion extravaganzas, this Living Stereo from 1958 is about as good as it gets

The hottest stamper pressings of this album are Demo Discs for three important qualities we listen for in our record auditions. Each of the links below will take you to other recordings we have found to be potentially superior in these areas of reproduction.

  1. Size and space,
  2. Correct timbre and
  3. Tubey Magic.

Harry Pearson put this record on his TAS List of Super Discs, and rightfully so. It certainly can be a Super Disc, but only when you have the right pressing. This is one of the Demo Discs on the TAS List which truly deserves its status when, and only when, you have the right copy. (The typical copy is quite good, but it sure doesn’t sound like this.) Nothing else in our shootout could touch it. And it’s IN PHASE. Many copies are not.

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Supertramp – Breakfast In America

More of the Music of Supertramp

  • Both sides of this vintage copy have stunning sound for the band’s Must Own 1979 release, earning Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades or close to them
  • An excellent recording with huge, powerful, dynamic sound – the Tubey Magical richness of these sides will have your jaw on the floor
  • Turn it up good and loud and you will be amazed at how dynamic some of the guitar solos are.
  • As is sometimes the nature of the beast with these vintage LPs, there are some bad marks that play (most notably on “Take the Long Way Home” and “Casual Conversations”) but once you hear just how incredible sounding this copy is, you might be inclined, as we were, to stop counting ticks and just be swept away by the music
  • 4 1/2 stars: “The majority of the album consisted of tightly written, catchy, well-constructed pop songs, like the hits ‘The Logical Song,’ ‘Take the Long Way Home,’ and ‘Goodbye Stranger.'”

We’re always amazed by just how good the better copies of this album can sound — huge, spacious, punchy sound we can never get enough of around here. If you have big speakers, a great copy will blow your mind…and it will probably blow your mind even if you don’t!

We are not the least bit ashamed to say that we love this album here at Better Records, and a copy like this will certainly help to show you why. Drop the needle on “Gone Hollywood,” “The Logical Song” or “Take The Long Way Home” to hear how powerful this music can sound when you have a great pressing.

Most copies of this record are grainy, thin, shrill and aggressive. When you get a Hot Stamper like this one, the highs are sweet and silky. This recording has plenty of top end, so if the highs aren’t correct it pretty much ruins the sound of the record.

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