*Discoveries, Rock, Pop, Soul

Records we’ve “discovered” with exceptional sound.

Seals & Crofts / Year of Sunday – A Masterpiece and Underrated Classic

Yet Another Record We’ve Discovered with (Potentially) Excellent Sound

More Personal Favorites

 

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.

Year of Sunday is the kind of record that not many audiophiles know well, but those who seek it out may be surprised to find out just how musically rewarding it can be. I’ve played the album hundreds of times and never tired of it once.

The best album by this duo – their strongest songwriting and arrangements. Nearly White Hot on side one, with vocals that are full-bodied, rich and solid.

A forgotten Classic from 1971, the album holds up very well forty plus years on.

Their commercial breakthrough would come with their next album, Year of Sunday, helped out by scores of session cats, but I much prefer the less commercial — although it’s far from uncommercial — sound of Year of Sunday. I am apparently not alone in my love for this album. Of the thirteen reviews on Amazon, every one gives it Five Stars(!).

The consistency of the songwriting is very strong here as well, with surprisingly powerful emotional currents. There’s not a dog in the bunch, and many of the better tracks are gems of popcraft. Some of the my favorites are When I Meet Them, Cause You Love, and Antoinette on side one, and Paper Airplanes, Irish Linen and Springfield Mill on side two.

Side One

Smooth and very rich, with big bass, this is without a doubt precisely the right sound for the album. Very few copies managed to pull off the rich tonal balance that this side has going for it.

Side Two

It’s big and clear, a bit thinner but still very good. (more…)

The Kinks – To The Bone

  • The Kinks’ 1994 live release makes its Hot Stamper debut with outstanding Double Plus (A++) sound from start to finish – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • The sound on this rare UK pressing is full-bodied and lively, with solid, present vocals, as well as excellent clarity all around
  • “… the bandmembers financed their acoustic greatest-hits record To the Bone themselves, releasing it on the U.K. independent label Grapevine. Naturally, Ray Davies’ songs work well in such a stripped-back setting… featuring a lovely version of “Waterloo Sunset,” possibly the most beautiful song of the rock & roll era.”

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The Lovin’ Spoonful / The Very Best of…

More Compilation Albums with the Potential for Very Good Sound

As Good As It Gets (AGAIG) White Hot Stamper sound for some of the biggest hits of The Lovin’ Spoonful, a band I wouldn’t expect to hear sound good on vinyl if I lived to be a hundred, and yet, here it is! This pressing changes EVERYTHING. 

This copy lets you hear versions of Younger Girl, Didn’t Want to Have to Do It, Daydream, You Didn’t Have to Be So Nice, Did You Ever Have to Make Up Your Mind?, and Do You Believe in Magic? with the kind of sonics never thought possible, not by us anyway. This copy is truly a revelation. And side two ain’t too shabby either.

Why does this stereo compilation sound so much better than others we’ve played in the past? Who the hell knows? We don’t pretend to have all the answers. What we have — that nobody else has, if that’s not too obvious — are the records that back up what we say about them. How they came to be is anyone’s guess. All we know for sure is that, judging by the best copies of this album somebody got hold of some awfully good tapes and somebody mastered them with uncanny skill to what sounds to these ears like near perfection.

That is, if you have this copy (which just happens to be on the original Pink Kama Sutra Label). This copy just could not be beat on side two. We tried, we had some very very good ones, but none that sounded like this.

Side Two

A+++, by far the best we played. So CLEAR and UNDISTORTED — Wow! There are always problem areas in ’60s pop recordings, but this side sounds so good you’re liable to forget there are any such things. This is a four track recording? Yes, in the way that Rubber Soul is a four track recording. It can be done.

This copy had the most extension high and low, the best clarity in the vocals and the most richness overall. I’m telling you, it is Hard To Fault! (more…)

Petula Clark / Greatest Hits, Vol. 1 – Surprisingly Good Sound on the Early WB Label

More Compilation Albums with the Potential for Very Good Sound

SURPRISINGLY GOOD SOUND! I didn’t expect this music to sound so smooth and sweet. The only versions I’ve ever heard were the 45 mixes on the radio.

Of course, the sound of those is quite suspect, but seeing as how these are mid-’60s pop recordings, one might assume that they’re the kind of midrangy artificial productions that were common in those days.

But one would be wrong — this material is actually quite well recorded. Stick to the early Green Label pressings. The reissues are godawful in exactly the way most reissues of albums from this era are.

This is an Older Review.

Most of the older reviews you see are for records that did not go through the shootout process, the revolutionary approach to finding better sounding pressings we developed in the early 2000s and have since turned into a fine art.

We found the records you see in these older listings by cleaning and playing a pressing or two of the album, which we then described and priced based on how good the sound and surfaces were. (For out Hot Stamper listings, the Sonic Grades and Vinyl Playgrades are listed separately.)

We were often wrong back in those days, something we have no reason to hide. Audio equipment and record cleaning technologies have come a long way since those darker days, a subject we discuss here.

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Ricky Nelson – Ricky Nelson on Sunset Vinyl

  • This killer copy of Ricky Nelson’s 1966 release for Liberty has stunning Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound or very close to it
  • We’ve had a devil of a time finding Ricky Nelson records with audiophile quality sound, but here’s one, and it won our shootout
  • Relaxed, rich and tubey, yet clear, this is the right sound for this music, and the vinyl is about as quiet as we can find
  • The sound has real resolution, clarity and transparency – this album may be a compilation, but it sure doesn’t sound like one

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Gino Vannelli / Storm At Sunup

More of the Music of Gino Vannelli

This White Hot Stamper side one was CLEARLY the best sound we heard in our ENTIRE shootout. No other copy had any side that sounded as BIG and BOLD as this. It’s richer and fuller, and that’s a big deal on Storm at Sunup, which is almost always pure midrange — no bottom, no top, just midrange.

Until we played this copy I wasn’t sure there was EVER going to be any bass or top end.

Thank goodness this side one came along, otherwise we would have been tempted to junk the whole project. (more…)

Jerry Jeff Walker – Driftin’ Way of Life

 

This copy, which has a variation of the maroon early Vanguard label, not sure exactly when it was pressed, or where, was the best copy we played in our shootout. So tubey and natural, why don’t more records sound like this? The recording itself is superb, with audiophile quality sound all the way. And the music is just as good, fully deserving the 4 1/2 Stars All Music Guide gave it.

Over the last few years you’ve seen rave reviews for many Vanguard recordings – Joan Baez, The Weavers, Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons, etc.

You can confidently add Jerry Jeff Walker’s Driftin’ Way of Life to that list. (more…)

Marty Robbins, Johnny Cash, et al. – Greatest C&W Hits Vol 4 – Reviewed in 2012

More Marty Robbins

More Country and Country Rock

WOW! (Or should that be OMG?) This Columbia 360 original pressing has AMAZING DEMO DISC sound on many of its twelve tracks, tracks by some of the biggest names in country at the time. To hear Jimmy Dean sing Big Bad John or Marty Robbins’ do Devil Woman with this kind of Tubey Magical, tonally correct, rich, sweet, spacious sound is nothing less than a THRILL. The Analog sound of this pressing makes a mockery of even the most advanced digital playback systems, including the ones that haven’t been invented yet. I’d love to play this for Neil Young so he can see what he’s up against! Good Luck, Neil, you’re going to need it.

The sound on both sides is White Hot, practically faultless I might even go so far as to say.

The first three tracks on side one are AGAIG — As Good As It Gets! After that I stopped playing side one; the next three may be as good, may not be, but what I heard on those first three was clearly WHITE HOT STAMPER SOUND! (more…)

Gino Vannelli / Brother to Brother – A Desert Island Disc

More of Our Favorite Titles from 1978

I love this album! It’s very pop, beautifully arranged, the kind of popular music they just don’t make anymore. Four stars in my book!

Gino doesn’t get a lot of respect, but he has plenty of talent and his music still holds up today.

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. Brother to Brother is a good example of a record many audiophiles may not know well but would be well advised to get to know better.

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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.