Folk Rock, Hippie – Reviews and Commentaries

Music Does the Driving

More Crosby / More Stills / More Nash / More Young

As a budding audiophile I went out of my way to acquire any piece of equipment that could make these records from the ’70s (the decade of my formative music-buying years) sound better than the gear I was using. It’s the challenging recordings by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, as well as scores of other pop and rock artists from the era, that drove my pursuit of higher quality audio, starting all the way back in high school.

And here I am — here we are — still at it, forty years later, because the music still sounds fresh and original, and the pressings that we find get better and better with each passing year.

That kind of progress is proof that we’re doing it right. It’s a good test for any audiophile. If you are actively and seriously pursuing this hobby, perhaps as many as nine out of ten non-audiophile pressings in your collection should sound better with each passing year.

As your stereo improves, not to mention your critical listening skills, the shortcomings of some of them will no doubt become more apparent. For the most part, however, with continual refinements and improvements to your system and room, as well as cleaning techniques, vintage pressings will continue to sound better the longer you stay active in the hobby.

That’s what makes it fun to play old records: They just keep getting better!

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Our “Hard” Work in 2005 Continues to Pay Dividends

More of the Music of Neil Young

Below you will find our first Hot Stamper listing for Neil’s masterpiece from 1970.

This is an album we admit to being obsessed with. We love the album and we hope you do too. If you have some time on your hands — maybe a bit too much time on your hands — please feel free to check out our commentaries.

Folks, your Hot Stamper collection is just not complete without a knockout copy of After The Gold Rush; that’s why we’ve named it a Better Records All Time Top 100 title. We built our reputation on finding records that sound like this, because who else can find a copy of this album that delivers so much magic? When you drop the needle on any track on side two, you’ll know exactly why we are able to charge these kind of prices for a record like this — because on the right system, it’ll sound like a million bucks! (more…)

It Only Took Us Six Years to Find Our Recent Killer Copy of Down In L.A.

Hot Stamper Pressings of Hippie Folk Rock Albums Available Now

Our comments about our Hot Stamper winner from 2019 appear below.

Note that we could not even find a White Hot side on either side, and side two, at 1+, would not even qualify as a Hot Stamper these days.

This was a tough shootout!

We had a lot more research and development to do, and six years later we had the killer copy to prove that it could be done. In 2025, we found a pressing that made it all worthwhile.

This is one of the BEST copies we’ve played in many years, close to five I would guess. Brewer and Shipley’s first and only release for A&M has long been a Desert Island disc in my world. I consider it one of the top debuts of all time, although it’s doubtful many will agree with me about that since I have yet to meet anyone who has ever even heard of this album, let alone felt as passionate as I do about it.

To me this is a classic of Hippie Folk Rock, along the lines of The Grateful Dead circa American Beauty, surely a touchstone for the genre. It’s overflowing with carefully-crafted (B and S apparently were obsessive perfectionists in the studio) inspired material and beautifully harmonized voices backed by (mostly) acoustic guitars. The Beatles pulled it off masterfully on Help and Rubber Soul. (more…)

The Red Labels on Fifth Dimension Can Rock (Well, Some of Them Can)

Hot Stamper Pressings of Sixties Pop Recordings Available Now

[UPDATE 2024: This commentary was written many years ago. In our most recent shootout, no Red Label pressing could compete with our best 360 Label Columbia originals.]

There was not another Red Label that could hold a candle to this copy in our recent shootout, and no 360 label copy could either. It’s the exception that proves the rule.

Does it have 100% of the Tubey Magic of the best 360 Label copies? Maybe not, but it has quite a healthy dose, and it does so many things so much better than any of the tube-mastered originals we played that it was simply no contest. There was nothing that communicated the music remotely as well as this Red Label copy did.

Last time around we wrote that the 360 Label original pressings were the only ones that could win our shootouts.

If you want to hear the real sound of The Byrds in early ’66, only the authentic original tube mastering chain seems to be able to get the job done. The Red Label reissues on Columbia can be decent, even good in their way, but they sure don’t sound like this record.

Needless to say this copy proved us wrong.

We also said this about our best 360 Label pressing at the time:

These old Byrds records tend to be seriously lacking in the frequency extremes, with not much deep bass or extension on the top end. This pressing has SOME extension on both ends, which is a lot more than most.

Aha, now it makes sense. Most of the better 360 pressings we’ve played did not have especially good extension on either end, but this record sure does. (more…)

Younger Than Yesterday in 2019

More David Crosby

More Hippie Folk Rock

Having just played a killer sounding copy of the album in August of 2024, we now see that in 2019, at the time of our last shootout, we had a lot to learn about Younger than Yesterday.

Our top copy received rave reviews on side one:

  • Here are just a few of of the things we had to say about this amazing Triple Plus side one in our notes: “big and tubey vox & bass”…”great size and energy”…”jumping out [of the speakers]”…”crazy good”
  • The sound is Tubey Magical, lively and dynamic, with exceptional transparency and immediacy
  • We’re always blown away at just how much further the better copies are able to take the music – what a difference the right pressing makes

But in 2019 we were much less enthusiastic:

It ain’t easy to find great sounding copies of this album on decent vinyl, but we managed to get a hold of a hot one here. White Hot in fact. Not only that, but the vinyl’s pretty darn quiet! The sound is very tubey with excellent transparency and serious immediacy.

Most Byrds’ records are far from audiophile demo discs. However, what the best originals and ’70s reissues give you is relatively good sound.

This album will never sound as good as Abbey Road. Keeping that rather obvious point in mind, as I listened to this copy the thought that went through my mind is that this tape had been mastered about as well as it could be.

It’s tonally correct from top to bottom; the frequency extremes are there; and the vocals have a silky, sweet quality to them (when they haven’t been bounced down too many times of course).

A classic case of us rather foolishly blaming the recording.

In our experience, no red label reissue is even worth the trouble of cleaning and playing it. Some Byrds records have the potential to sound good on the red label, but this is not one of them.

Recommended Tracks

For the best sound on side one, try tracks four, “Renaissance Fair,” and five, “Time Between.”

For the best sound on side two, try track three, “My Back Pages.” It’s great to hear this classic Dylan tune sound good for a change.

Want to find your own killer copy?

Consider taking our moderately helpful advice concerning the pressings that tend to win our shootouts.

Based on our experience, Younger than Yesterday sounds better:

The Byrds in Mono

None of the monos we’ve played over the years in our shootouts have ever impressed us much.

Congested and compressed, with no real top, who in his right mind could possibly tolerate that kind of sound on modern equipment?

Although, to be fair, we’ve stopped buying them, so there may actually be a good copy or two out there in used record land that we haven’t heard. In our defense, who really has the time to play records with so little potential for good sound?

Side One

So You Want to Be a Rock ‘N’Roll Star 
Have You Seen Her Face 
C.T.A. – 102 
Renaissance Fair 
Time Between 
Everybody’s Been Burned

Side Two

Thoughts and Words 
Mind Gardens 
My Back Pages 
The Girl with No Name 
Why

Younger Than Yesterday – Sundazed Mono Reviewed

More of the Music of The Byrds

Sonic Grade: D

We can’t recommend this title. It’s thin, flat as a pancake and dead as a doornail, like most of the Sundazed records we played back when we were selling Heavy Vinyl.

I don’t think we carried this title but we might have, and, obviously, we shouldn’t have. Nobody should have. It’s terrible.

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Mr. Tambourine Man – A Sundazed Heavy Vinyl Winner

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of The Byrds Available Now

Sonic Grade: B

We haven’t played a copy of Mr. Tambourine Man on Sundazed in years, but back in the day we liked it, so let’s call it a “B” with the caveat that the older the review, the more likely we are to have changed our minds. Not sure if we would still agree with what we wrote back in the ’90s when this record came out, but here it is anyway.

This is probably the best of all the new [1999] Sundazed mono reissues. I never thought I would hear a Sundazed record with this kind of richness and sweetness. It reminds me of a good 360 pressing, and that has virtually never happened before. Side one is a tad better than side two, which is slightly brighter than it should be. But both sides are exceptionally good considering the modern mastering. 

This album also has my favorite Byrds song of all time: I’ll Feel A Whole Lot Better. (Notice that Gene Clark’s vocals all sound better than Roger McGuinn’s. For some reason they tend to brighten up McGuinn’s vocals, and the last thing you ever want to do with a Byrds recording is make it brighter. But having said that, almost all the reissues are too bright compared to the good originals.)

Brewer & Shipley – Our Four Plus Shootout Winner from 2012

Hot Stamper Pressings of Hippie Folk Rock Albums Available Now

Our lengthy commentary entitled Outliers & Out-of-This-World Sound talks about how rare these kinds of pressings are and how to go about finding them.

We no longer give Four Pluses out as a matter of policy, but that doesn’t mean we don’t come across records that deserve them from time to time.

Here is our review from 2012 for this amazing sounding breakthrough pressing.

It’s records like these that aer the payoff for all the money, time and effort you’ve put into your system.

This White Hot Stamper side one of our beloved Tarkio, Brewer and Shipley’s Folk Rock Masterpiece, is without a doubt the BEST SOUND we have ever heard on any pressing bar none. This side sets a standard that no other copy on any side could touch. True, we awarded a Triple Plus grade to an amazing side two copy, but this side one is still the better of the two. We could easily have called it Four Pluses but chose to go with the simpler A+++ and this explanation.

However you frame it, this side is OFF THE CHARTS in a big way. It’s amazingly rich, yet clear and transparent as any we played — what a combination!

This, like Dark Side and so many other White Hot Stamper records we offer to the discriminating audiophile, is ANALOG at its finest. To our knowledge there hasn’t been a single record mastered in the last thirty years with this kind of sound, and we know whereof we speak: we’ve played them by the hundreds.

A Desert Island Disc for me with wonderfully NATURAL sound. This copy had the ULTIMATE Side One (A+++) and a very competitive Side Two (A++), making it the King of our Shootout. If you love this record as much as you should, this is the copy to own. I would love to keep it for my desert island, but we know there is surely a deserving soul out there who will treasure it as much as I do, and probably play it a lot more often, so if you know the album at all this is your chance at greatness. (And I still haven’t found a desert island I’m all that partial to anyway.)

Not Really One Toke Over the Line

Please don’t assume that this album has much in the way of uptempo country rockers like One Toke Over the Line, Flying Burrito Brothers style. Nothing could be further from the truth. Practically every other song on the album is better, almost all of them are taken at a slower pace, with none of them having the “poppy” arrangement of that carefully calculated Top Forty hit. The rest of the music on the album, the music you probably don’t know, is much better than the music that you do know if what you know is that song.

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Listening in Depth to Down In L.A.

Hot Stamper Pressings of Hippie Folk Rock Albums Available Now

This has long been one of our favorite Hippie Folk Rock albums here at Better Records.

If you like Crosby, Stills and Nash’s first album or Rubber Soul — and who doesn’t love those two albums — you should much to like on Down in L.A.

Side One

Truly Right

The drumming on this first track is out of this world — it relentlessly propels this track forward, and you can thank top studio drummers for bringing this kind of energy to the song. Also the fuzzed out guitar that comes in toward the end is pure ’60s pop, exactly the kind of thing we love.

She Thinks She’s A Woman

I love the studio chatter at the opening of this song. The transparency should be striking. When the vocals come in they should be smooth and sweet, better than the first track by a wide margin. And I love this song — it’s one of the strongest on the album.

Time And Changes

Another one of the better sounding songs. This one has exceptionally nice bass. (more…)