Soul / RnB / Reggae, etc.

Whitney Houston – Self-Titled

More of the Music of Whitney Houston

  • Stunning sound for Whitney’s debut LP, with both sides earning Nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) grades – just shy of our Shootout Winner
  • This album has the kind of smooth, rich, tonally correct analog sound we thought they had forgotten how to record by 1985 – but here it is, thank goodness
  • Consistently strong material: “You Give Good Love,” “Saving All My Love for You,” “How Will I Know,” “All At Once,” and “Greatest Love Of All” (the last of seven (!) singles released from the album)
  • 5 stars: “…introduced the world to ‘The Voice,’ an octave-spanning, gravity-defying melismatic marvel.”

The copies that do well in our shootouts have qualities common to many of the other male and female Hot Stamper vocal pressings we offer. The better copies are big, rich, clear and transparent, with breathy, immediate vocals.

Hardness, thinness, shrillness and the like — the kind of sound you would expect from a 1985 recording — will be very costly for any copy we play. I’m sure that sound can be found on the CD, and for a lot less money.

Energy and enthusiasm are key as well. You want to get the feeling that Whitney is really putting her all into these songs, and the better copies let you do that.

Space and depth are nice to have; otherwise you might as well be listening to the radio.

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Stevie Wonder – Innervisions

More of the Music of Stevie Wonder

  • With STUNNING Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades or close to them throughout, this copy is guaranteed to blow the doors off any other Innervisions you’ve heard
  • A Stevie Wonder classic as well as a proud member of our Top 100, but you will need a copy like this one to prove that it belongs there
  • Richness, warmth, Tubey Magic, and clarity are important to the sound, and here you will find plenty of all four
  • 5 stars: “Stevie Wonder applied his tremendous songwriting talents to the unsettled social morass that was the early ’70s and produced one of his greatest, most important works, a rich panoply of songs addressing drugs, spirituality, political ethics, and what looked to be the failure of the ’60s dream – all set within a collection of charts as funky and catchy as any he’d written before.”
  • This is our pick for Free’s best sounding album. Roughly 150 other listings for the best recording by an artist or group can be found here on the blog.
  • If any record can be called a Must Own, Stevie Wonder’s masterpiece from 1973 is one, slotting in nicely right at the top of any list of the greatest soul albums of all time, if not THE greatest

Millions of these were made, but a whole lot of them sure weren’t made right.

Years ago we made some progress with regard to the various stampers and pressing plants we liked best, but trying to find clean copies with the right matrix numbers has proved challenging. Even when you do get the copies with good stampers, they often don’t sound all that amazing. I had practically given up on making this shootout happen until about ten years ago, when a friend dropped off a copy that had seriously good sound.

It didn’t turn out to be the ultimate copy — that’s why shootouts are crucially important to the discovery of the best pressings — but it was so enjoyable that we decided to give Innervisions another try, and since that time we’ve gotten better and better at finding, cleaning and playing Stevie Wonder’s Masterpiece, a record that should be played regularly and one that belongs in any right-thinking audiophile’s collection.

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Marvin Gaye – Midnight Love

More Soul, Blues, and R&B

  • Boasting two solid Double Plus (A++) or BETTER sides, we guarantee you’ve never heard Midnight Love sound this good – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • Drop the needle on “Sexual Healing” then sit back and relax as the rich, warm sound of analog sets the mood!
  • There’s good frequency extension up top and down low, with plenty of meaty bass and silky highs (check out those bells)
  • 4 stars: “Midnight Love is a classic Marvin Gaye effort. In addition to this project thriving with Gaye’s enthusiastic spirit, it has his harmonious background vocals, his stunning vocal arrangements and his creative penmanship, as he wrote all the selections.”

This copy has two qualities which are essential for this music to really work its soulful magic: silky vocals and a BIG meaty bottom end.

Check out all the texture to the synths on Turn On Some Music – this is a highly resolving pressing which takes Marvin Gaye’s music — the last he would make before his death — to another level.

Many copies of Midnight Love suffer from a phony hi-fi-ish quality, sacrificing much of the warmth that is the all-important hallmark of analog. Is that any way to listen to this great Soul Classic? (My sources say no.)

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Dr. John – Dr. John’s Gumbo

More Roots Rock

  • Dr. John’s Gumbo returns to the site for only the second time in years, here with solid Double Plus (A++) grades or BETTER on both sides of this original Atco pressing – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • Full, lively, and solid, this copy has just the right sound for this collection of quintessential New Orleans Rhythm and Blues tracks
  • The superbly talented Keith Olsen engineered – just one year later he would record Buckingham-Nicks, and two years after that Fleetwood Mac
  • 4 1/2 Stars: “Dr. John’s Gumbo bridged the gap between post-hippie rock and early rock & roll, blues, and R&B… that sly fusion of styles makes Dr. John’s Gumbo one of Dr. John’s finest albums.”

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Jimmy Witherspoon – Handbags and Gladrags

More Jimmy Witherspoon

More Soul, Blues, and R&B

  • With INSANELY GOOD Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound from start to finish, this vintage ABC pressing is certainly as good a copy as we have ever heard
  • These sides are doing everything right – they’re super big, rich and lively, with an abundance of extension at both ends
  • Spacious and transparent, this copy has the three-dimensional soundstaging and natural vocal reproduction that makes these kinds of records such a joy to play (and in the process a record this good makes a mockery of the veiled, lifeless, ambience-free sound of the modern Heavy Vinyl reissue)
  • Sorry about the ABC vinyl — it’s the rare copy that plays much quieter, one of the main reasons you never see this title on the site

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Bob Marley – Babylon By Bus

More Island Records

  • These vintage British pressings boast solid Hot Stamper grades or BETTER on all FOUR sides – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • As you can imagine, any Reggae Island UK import is very hard to come by – not to mention expensive – with audiophile playing surfaces, but here’s a very good one
  • It’s richer, fuller and with more presence than the average copy, and that’s especially true for whatever godawful Heavy Vinyl pressing is currently being foisted on an unsuspecting record buying public
  • 5 stars: “Arguably the most influential live reggae album ever, Babylon by Bus captures Bob Marley and the Wailers during the European leg of their Kaya tour in the spring of 1978. The success of this set was not entirely unexpected, however. If the universal and widespread acclaim of Live! – their first concert recording – was an indicator, all involved knew that a Bob Marley & the Wailers performance contained unique energies and a vibe all of its own … an integral component of any popular music collection.”

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Earth, Wind and Fire – Raise!

More Earth, Wind and Fire

  • With STUNNING Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound or close to it throughout, this vintage copy is guaranteed to blow the doors off any other Raise! you’ve heard – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • These sides are doing practically everything right – they’re big, full-bodied and remarkably present with an abundance of space around all of the players
  • “In such songs as the hit single “Let’s Groove” and the fast, cutting “Lady Sun,” the horn section screams like a car running a red light. This is city music, a welcome departure from the somewhere-over-the-galaxy mooniness that group leader Maurice White has too often succumbed to in the past. On Raise!, White’s romanticism is slinkier, more seductive. The lyrics of “My Love” may prattle, but the guitars that frame the tune are light and sexy. Even at his dizziest – e.g., “Evolution Orange,” a variation on seeing the world in a piece of fruit, White roots his music in the earth.” – Rolling Stone

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Roberta Flack – Featuring Donny Hathaway

More Roberta Flack

More Soul, Blues, and Rhythm and Blues

  • This vintage Atlantic pressing of two of the greatest voices in soul music earned STUNNING Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades or close to them on both sides
  • Here are just a few of the things we had to say about this incredible copy in our notes: “very full, rich, and punchy”…”breathy vox”…”fully extended from top to bottom”…”jumping out of the speakers”…”big and weighty”
  • The overall sound here is rich, full-bodied and lively, with solid and present vocals, as well as excellent clarity all around
  • “The combination of Donny Hathaway and Roberta Flack undeniably ranks atop the all-time great duet parings in the history of R&B. Any opportunity to have one guest on the other’s recordings brought out a sensual energy not to be denied… Flack’s distinct and beautiful voice brings a level of class to this outing that few of her contemporaries were able to achieve.” (more…)

Booker T & The M.G.’s – Melting Pot

More Booker T & The M.G.’s

  • This vintage Stax pressing (the first copy to hit the site in over two and a half years) boasts solid Double Plus (A++) grades or BETTER from start to finish – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • Side two was sonically very close to our Shootout Winner – you will be shocked at how big and powerful the sound is
  • Here you will find the Midrange Magic, richness, fullness and presence that’s surely missing from whatever 180g reissue has been made from the tapes (or, to be clear, a modern digital master copied from who-knows-what-tapes)
  • 4 1/2 stars: “Melting Pot could be the most well-realized of all the albums by Booker T. & the M.G.’s, a smooth and soulful, yet expansive 35 minutes of all originals…”

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Michael Jackson – Off The Wall

More Michael Jackson

Reviews and Commentaries for Off the Wall

  • A vintage pressing of this MJ classic with some of the most heartfelt, emotional and powerful music he ever recorded, here with solid Double Plus (A++) grades or close to them – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • Believe it or not, no copies in our most recent shootout, aside from the shootout winner and Nearly White Hot, had even Super Hot stampers on both sides, which was surprising since we know the right stampers and there were plenty of them in the shootout
  • If you need top quality sound, and assuming it takes as long to get our next shootout going as it did this last one, please check back with us in late 2025
  • The sound is lively, punchy, and powerful (particularly on side one) – with all due respect, it should murder whatever copies you may have
  • We’re constantly blown away by just how good the best copies of Off The Wall sound – what a recording!
  • 5 stars: “This was a visionary album … part of a colorful tapestry of lush ballads and strings, smooth soul and pop, soft rock, and alluring funk.”
  • This is our pick for MJ’s best sounding album. Roughly 150 other listings for the best recording by an artist or group can be found here on the blog

As consistently brilliant as Thriller may be musically — it is the biggest selling album of all time, after all [scratch that, the Eagles Greatest Hits took the top spot away from Thriller in 2018] — speaking strictly in terms of sonics, the sound of the better copies of Off The Wall are substantially sweeter, tubier, more natural, richer, and more analog than Thriller.

Thriller is clearly more aggressive and processed-sounding than Off The Wall. “The Girl Is Mine” or “Human Nature” from Thriller would fit just fine anywhere on Off The Wall, but could the same be said for “Beat It” or “Thriller”? Just thinking about them you can hear the artificiality of the sound of both those songs in your head. Think about the snare that opens “Beat It.” I’ve never heard a snare sound like that in my life. Practically no instrument on Off The Wall has that kind of overly processed EQ’d sound.

Normally when you have a copy with plenty of presence, it can be somewhat sibilant in places. Sibilance is hardly a problem here. For some reason this copy has all the highs, but it’s cut so clean it practically doesn’t spit at all. Even on the song “I Can’t Help It,” which normally has a problem in that respect. Since that’s my favorite song on this album, and probably my favorite MJ song of all time, hearing it sound so good was a revelation.

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