Soul / RnB / Reggae, etc.

Dionne Warwick / Very Dionne

More Pop and Jazz Vocal Recordings

More Recordings Engineered by Phil Ramone

  • You’ll find solid Double Plus (A++) sound or close to it throughout this vintage Scepter pressing (one of only a handful of copies to hit the site in years)
  • This side one is superb – the bass is tight and punchy, the strings have lots of texture, and the background vocals are clean and clear, and side two is not far behind in all those areas
  • The midrange is full of that old analog Tubey Magic (particularly on side one), courtesy of Larry Levine and Phil Ramone, the kind that has completely disappeared from the modern record (even the modern reissue of a vintage record)
  • Note that the first track on side one simply does not sound good for some reason – we’re not sure what happened there but a screwup in the studio is our guess
  • “The album’s wide variety of styles summed up much of what made Warwick’s back catalog so universally appealing. In addition to a handful of new Burt Bacharach and Hal David sides, the platter boasts tasteful reworkings of pop music staples. One unmitigated zenith is ‘I Got Love’ from the Ossie Davis Broadway production Purlie. Once again, Warwick — under [Marty] Paich’s direction — equals if not surpasses Melba Moore’s stage presentation.”

Folks, don’t expect to see records like this coming to the site too often. We can’t find them anymore in this kind of clean condition, so if you like the lovely Ms Warwick, consider taking this one home and giving her (the record, not Dionne) a spin on your table.

Notice how the limiter on Dionne’s microphone is working overtime. She is practically shouting into it but it never seems to get much louder. Still the energy and the passion come through clearly. That’s the sign of a well-recorded vocal track.

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Sade – Diamond Life

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More Titles We Only Offer on Import LP

  • Both sides of this original UK import have stunning sound for Sade’s debut LP, earning Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades or close to them – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • Here are just a few of the things we had to say about this killer copy in our notes: “big and rich and breathy”…”silky and focused vox”…”really solid and weighty drums”…”natural and roomy”…”HTF! [hard to fault] (side two)”
  • The key to the best copies is Tubey Magical richness and sweetness, and this vintage analog import has plenty of both
  • 4 1/2 stars: “[Sade] projects a wised-up sensuality, and the record neither creaks with the revivalism of Harry Connick nor the sterility of Simply Red, to name but two of Sade’s neo-cocktail rivals.”

This copy gives you the kind of present, breathy vocals absolutely critical to this music. There’s no denying the power of Sade’s sultry voice when you can actually hear it. All it takes is a top copy such as this to make her talents — and those of her bandmates — abundantly clear. (more…)

Anita Baker – Giving You The Best That I Got

  • Outstanding sonics throughout this vintage Elektra pressing, with both sides earning solid Double Plus (A++) grades
  • Key to the sound is richness and Tubey Magic, along with strong midrange presence, and on this pressing you get all three
  • We remembered this as a good recording and were still surprised with how good the better copies sounded
  • 4 stars: “…far superior to most of 1988’s uninspired R&B releases. Instead of tampering with Rapture’s consistently romantic and mellow soul/pop approach, Elektra brought back that album’s producer, Michael J. Powell, and kept [Baker] at the top of the charts with such sleek yet earthy fare as ‘Just Because,’ ‘Priceless,’ the haunting ‘Good Love,’ and the title song.”

We had a ton of copies for our recent shootout and can report that the typical pressings tend to be veiled, grainy, and lifeless. Most of them lacked richness, but a few of them had surprising analog qualities that gave the music a smoother, fuller sound.

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Whitney Houston – Whitney

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  • A vintage Arista pressing (one of only a handful of copies to hit the site in close to three years) with surprisingly natural sound for an 80s release, earning solid Double Plus (A++) grades from first note to last – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • Full-bodied, big, rich and solid, this album has the kind of analog sound we did not expect to find, but were pleasantly surprised, thank goodness
  • Lot of hits here: “I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)”, “Didn’t We Almost Have It All,” “So Emotional” and “Where Do Broken Hearts Go”
  • 4 stars: “Whitney Houston became an international star with this album. It sold more than ten million copies around the world, yielded a string of number one hit singles across the board…”

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Ray Charles / All Time Great Country and Western Hits – Better Sound than the Originals? Can It Really Be True?

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More Soul, Blues and R&B

  • These vintage ABC pressings boast superb Double Plus (A++) sound or close to it on all FOUR sides
  • If you could only have one Ray Charles album, it would have to be this one – you’ll have a hard time doing better than this very copy
  • What was especially shocking about this shootout is that in some ways the better sounding copies of the reissue not just the equal of, but actually best their original album counterparts
  • 22 classic songs on two LPs, including huge hits like “I Can’t Stop Loving You,” “You Don’t Know Me,” “Oh Lonesome Me,” “Bye Bye Love,” and much more – no wonder AMG gave both discs 5 stars
  • This is some big, bold, absolutely glorious Tubey Magical analog (particularly on sides one, two and four) – the tape to disc transfer is hard to fault, making a mockery of the audiophile remasters to come
  • There are some bad marks (as is sometimes the nature of the beast with these vintage LPs) on “You Win Again” and “Some Day,” but once you hear just how excellent sounding this copy is, you might be inclined, as we were, to stop counting ticks and just be swept away by the music

The music is wonderful. Just listen to that swingin’ horn section behind Ray on Hey, Good Lookin’. They are hot! And Bye Bye Love just plain ROCKS.

Both these LPs have the kind of Tubey Magical Midrange that modern pressings cannot BEGIN to reproduce. Folks, that sound is gone and it sure isn’t showing any sign of coming back. (more…)

War / Why Can’t We Be Friends? – Amazing Demo Disc Sound

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This Well Recorded Album Should Be More Popular with Audiophiles

  • A vintage copy (only the second to hit the site in over two and a half years) that was doing just about everything right, earning solid Double Plus (A++) grades from top to bottom
  • The best song this band ever recorded, “Don’t Let No One Get You Down,” is on side one we guarantee you’ve never heard it sound better
  • WCWBF is one of our favorite albums here at Better Records and clearly the band’s masterpiece – the bass and dynamics on the better pressings make this a Demo Disc on a big system
  • 4 stars [but we give it 5]: “Cut from the same cloth as the band’s 1973 Deliver the Word LP, War’s 1975 Why Can’t We Be Friends? is a masterpiece in its scope and breadth. [It] remains one of War’s truly outstanding efforts, and has become an integral part of the funk genre’s landscape. It also remains the nightcap of their finest hour.”
  • This is a Must Own title from 1975, a great year for popular music of all kinds
  • 1975 was an exceptionally good year for music — here are some other excellent pressings of well-recorded albums available now

Engineered by the brilliant Chris Huston, this recording displays all his trademark gifts. His mixes feature lots of bass; huge, room-filling choruses that get loud without straining or becoming congested; and rhythmic energy that few pop recordings could lay claim to in 1975.

“Low Rider” sounds awesome on this one. This is the kind of record you can take to any stereo store or audiophile friend’s house and bring their stereos to their knees. Audiophile systems are rarely designed to play this kind of music at the levels it demands, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be. Records like this are the challenge we audiophiles need to make our stereos even better. When the music is this good, it’s worth the effort.

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Stevie Wonder – Hotter Than July

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More Soul, Blues and R&B

  • With STUNNING Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades or close them on both sides, this copy is one of the BEST we have ever heard
  • Forget whatever dead-as-a-doornail Heavy Vinyl record they’re making these days – if you want to hear the Tubey Magic, size and energy of this wonderful album, a vintage pressing like this one is the way to go
  • 4 1/2 stars: “Wonder naysayed the trends and continues to do what he did best. Solid songwriting, musicianship, and production are evident in the majority of Hotter Than July… It is the portrait of an artist who still had the Midas touch…”

Most copies lack the presence, energy and bottom end weight to let these funky songs work their magic, but a copy like this will let you appreciate the music without the mediocre sonics of the average pressing getting in the way.

This album was recorded right at the beginning of the digital era (1980) and most pressings won’t let you forget that. So many copies we played were just too sterile to get into — clean and clear bit lacking richness and fullness. We’re huge Stevie Wonder fans around here and we’ve fallen in love with Innervisions and Songs In The Key Of Life over and over again because of their lush, analog sound on the best pressings. It took a ton of work (and a whole lot of copies) to find a Hotter Than July that we could get excited about. I don’t think there’s a copy out there that can compete with his earlier recordings sonically but at least the Hot Stamper pressings present the music in a way that audiophiles can enjoy.

Bottom line? Digital recordings are tough, but after playing a ton of copies of this album we’ve managed to find a few that were musical and enjoyable instead of fatiguing. If you haven’t played this album in years I can understand why — the typical pressings are just too clean and too dry to demand any time on your table. At least that was our experience until the top copies such as this one had us nodding our heads and rockin’ out with these great tunes. Check out a Hot Stamper pressing to remember just what a musical magician Stevie is — you’ll be jammin’ too!

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The Brothers Johnson – Look Out For #1

More Soul, Blues, and R&B

More Recordings Produced by Quincy Jones

  • Look Out For #1 makes its Hot Stamper debut with stunning Nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) grades from first start to finish – just shy of our Shootout Winner
  • The sound is huge – big, wide, deep, and open, with a punchy bottom end and rhythmic energy to spare, as well as cleaner, smoother, sweeter upper mids and a more extended top
  • 4 stars: “The Brothers Johnson first earned national recognition as recording artists by singing the sensuously funky mid-tempo number “Is It Love That We’re Missin’,” featured on Quincy Jones’ album Mellow Madness. The dynamic duo maintains that same groove on this, its debut release for A&M Records.”

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Michael Jackson – Bad

More Michael Jackson

More Soul, Blues, and R&B

  • A vintage copy that was giving us the big and bold sound we were looking for, with both sides earning outstanding Double Plus (A++) grades – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • The sound here is huge, full-bodied, punchy and relatively smooth throughout, with real space and ambience around the vocals and instruments
  • Includes some of Jackson’s biggest 80s hits, “Man in the Mirror,” “Dirty Diana,” “Smooth Criminal,” and of course, the title track
  • 4 1/2 stars: “… essentially taking each portion of Thriller to an extreme, while increasing the quotient of immaculate studiocraft. He wound up with a sleeker, slicker Thriller, which isn’t a bad thing…”

Michael Jackson’s records always make for tough shootouts. His everything-but-the-kitchen-sink approach to recording make it difficult to translate so much sound to disc, vinyl or otherwise. Everything has to be tuned up and on the money before we can even hope to get the record sounding right. (Careful VTA adjustment could not be more critical in this respect.)

If we’re not hearing the sound we want, we keep messing with the adjustments until we do. There is no getting around sweating the details when sitting down to test a complex recording such as this. If you can’t stand the tweaking tedium, get out of the kitchen (or listening room, as the case may be).

Obsessing over every aspect of a record’s reproduction is what we do for a living. This kind of Big Rock Recording requires us to be at the top of our game, both in terms of reproducing the albums themselves as well as evaluating the merits of individual pressings.

When you love it, it’s not work, it’s fun. Tedious, occasionally exasperating fun, but still fun. And the louder you play a record like this the better it sounds.

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Listening in Depth to The Best of Earth Wind & Fire

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Earth, Wind and Fire Available Now

Not many compilation albums offer top quality sound, but this one does, and here are some of the others we’ve discovered.

The best pressings sound amazing, with big-as-life Demo Disc Quality sound.

Luckily for us, EWF was always an audiophile-oriented band. They produced some of the best ’70s multi-track recordings around. With a big speaker system turned up good and loud, the first track is simply mind-boggling. It’s some of the best sound we have heard around here in weeks, and we play a lot of good sounding records.

When the vocals are thin and pinched, as they often are, the edge and overall harshness take all the fun out of the music. Every track has group vocals and choruses, and the best copies make all the singers sound like they are standing in a big room, shoulder to shoulder, belting it out live and in living color.

The good copies capture that energy and bring it into the mix with the full-bodied sound it no doubt had live in the studio. When the EQ or the vinyl goes awry and their voices (and brass) start to take on a lean or gritty quality, the party’s over.

But the richness and fullness must be balanced with TRANSPARENCY. Of course this has to be a multi-miked, multi-tracked, overdubbed pop record — they don’t make them any other way — but it doesn’t have to FEEL like one.

When you get a good copy, it feels like all these guys are live in the studio. You see them clearly. They may have their own mics, and are certainly being placed artificially in the soundfield to suit the needs of the track (kick drum here, hand-claps over there), but the transparency of the killer pressings makes them sound like they are all in the same big room playing together.

Side One

Got to Get You into My Life 

On the best pressings of this album, the groove is so heavy and lively in this song that the typical copy sounds just plain cheap. It may be an original but the sound is pure bargain-bin reissue.

Fantasy
Can’t Hide Love 

This is our favorite EW&F song here at Better Records, a beautiful ballad that is truly a perfect representation of the band’s capability to change pace from blowing doors down to tugging heart-strings. They do both as well as any soul band ever could. This song is a MASTERPIECE.

Love Music
Getaway

Side Two

That’s the Way of the World
September 

EW&F’s biggest hit, but only the best pressings brought out the magic in the powerful horns and layered vocals without being smeary or spitty. Our best copies soared higher than we had ever heard for this song; the sound just leapt out of the speakers. What a great track.

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