Soundtracks

Soundtracks & Soundtrack Music

Herbie Hancock – Blow-Up (The Original Sound Track Album)

More Jazz Recordings of Interest

  • You’ll find solid Double Plus (A++) grades on both sides of this early MGM pressing
  • Full-bodied, warm and natural with plenty of space around all of the players, this is the sound of vintage analog – accept no substitutes
  • If you want a jazz primer that introduces you to the different ways jazz groups are arranged, we can hardly think of a better record
  • 4 1/2 stars: “A young Herbie Hancock contributed the bulk of the score to Michelangelo Antonioni’s 1966 screen classic, evoking the ambience of swinging London with grooves that create effective bluesy moods on the slow pieces, and funky ones on the up-tempo tracks.”

Herbie Hancock manages to get a lot of different jazz artists to play some of the most interesting jazz I’ve ever heard. I have no idea who all is playing but each of the different songs involved different players playing in different groupings: sometimes it’s guitar and organ, sometimes it’s saxophone-led quartet; it pretty much runs the gamut of jazz. And the amazing thing is every track is great. And the sound is great.

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Isaac Hayes – Shaft

More Soul, Blues, and R&B

  • Superb Double Plus (A++) grades or close to them bring Hayes’s 2-LP soundtrack album to life on these vintage pressings – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • It took us close to two years to find enough copies with good sound and decent vinyl to do a shootout, and these outstanding pressings are the result of all that digging, cleaning and evaluating
  • 4 1/2 stars: “Isaac Hayes was undoubtedly one of the era’s most accomplished soul artists, having helped elevate Stax to its esteemed status… And with ‘Theme from Shaft,’ he delivered an anthem just as ambitious and revered as the film itself, a song that has only grown more treasured over the years, after having been an enormously popular hit at the time of its release.”

This copy of the Shaft Soundtrack has wonderful sound throughout, and that ain’t no jive talkin’! We collected a bunch of these and after putting them through the shootout process we were delighted to find out that some of the material on here can sound amazingly good on the best pressings. What earned these four sides such good grades? They’re simply richer, fuller and livelier than most. They’re also more open and transparent, with notably improved clarity, much less smear, and tighter, more note-like bass.

Find your favorite song on here, drop the needle, and see if the dramatically improved sound doesn’t bring back some special memories, and maybe even inspire you to bust a move. (more…)

Henry Mancini – Music from “Mr. Lucky”

More Living Stereo Recordings

  • Music from “Mr. Lucky” appears on the site for only the second time ever, here with excellent Double Plus (A++) Living Stereo sound or BETTER throughout this original RCA pressing
  • This copy is super spacious, sweet and positively dripping with ambience — talk about Tubey Magic, the liquidity of the sound here is positively uncanny
  • If you’re looking to demonstrate just how good 1960 All Tube Analog sound can be, this superb copy may be just the record for you
  • Marks in the vinyl are sometimes the nature of the beast with these early pressings – there simply is no way around them if the superior sound of vintage analog is important to you

Al Schmitt

Al Schmitt recorded and mixed Music from Mr. Lucky and on the best copies it should be clear to all that he knocked it out of the park.

We know his work well; he happens to have been at the controls for many albums with audiophile quality sound: Aja, Hatari, Breezin’, Late for the Sky, Toto IV, as well as some we can’t stand (the entire Diana Krall digital-echo-drenched catalog comes to mind).

The guy’s won 13 Grammy Awards, that ought to count for something.

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Herrmann – Citizen Kane (The Classic Film Scores of Bernard Herrmann)

More of the Music of Bernard Herrman 

  • An original RCA Red Seal pressing with solid Double Plus (A++) grades or BETTER on both of these TAS-approved sides
  • On this outstanding copy you will hear deep bass notes; incredible dynamics from every area of the stage; masses of strings playing at the top of their registers with abandon; huge drums; powerful brass effects, and more
  • Every sound an orchestra can produce is found on this record, and then some – it’s the very definition of Demo Disc sound
  • These wonderful works, undoubtedly some of the greatest Bernard Herrmann composed, should be part of any serious orchestral collection
  • 5 stars: “… the best of the entire series by conductor Charles Gerhardt and the National Philharmonic Orchestra… every track is worthwhile and memorably played.”
  • If you’re a Bernard Herrmann fan, and what audiophile wouldn’t be?, this title from 1974 is clearly one of his best

The ‘Citizen Kane’ Suite on this album is to die for — big, bold, dynamic sound like few records you own. It’s a real Desert Island Disc for me. (The CD, by the way, is actually quite good. I have it in the car and play it often.)

The Concerto Macabre for Piano and Orchestra (from “Hangover Square”) is superbly well-recorded and a brilliant piece of music as well.

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Herrmann – The Mysterious Film World of Bernard Herrmann

More of the Music of Bernard Herrmann

  • This vintage pressing of the National Phil’s performance of selections from three of Herrmann’s classic “phantasmagorical” film scores boasts solid Double Plus (A++) grades from first note to last
  • A superb recording with a huge three-dimensional stage, open, clear, extended up top and down low — the sound on this pressing is nothing short of amazing
  • 4 stars: “The sound glitters, some of the brightest and richest audio of its period (attested to by the album’s being part of Decca/London Phase 4 Stereo), and the performances have a dignity and intensity that makes the music — drawn from the key parts of Herrmann’s scores for the Ray Harryhausen-created fantasy films The Three Worlds of Gulliver, Mysterious Island, and Jason and the Argonauts — seem even more serious and profound than it originally did.”
  • If like us you’re a fan of blockbuster orchestral recordings, this is a killer album from 1975 that belongs in your collection.

Side one boasts some wonderful material from Mysterious Island and Jason and the Argonauts. Who else but Herrmann could have orchestrated such phantasmagorical goings on?

The Three Worlds Of Gulliver Suite takes up all of side two. The complete score from which the suite is taken can be found on the original Herrmann album The Three Worlds of Gulliver, a long-time and extremely rare member of the TAS Super Disc List.

This vintage London Phase 4 Stereo pressing has the kind of Tubey Magical Midrange that modern records can barely BEGIN to reproduce. Folks, that sound is gone and it sure isn’t showing signs of coming back. If you love hearing INTO a recording, actually being able to “see” the performers, and feeling as if you are sitting in the studio with the band, this is the record for you. It’s what vintage all analog recordings are known for —this sound.

If you exclusively play modern repressings of vintage recordings, I can say without fear of contradiction that you have never heard this kind of sound on vinyl. Old records have it — not often, and certainly not always — but maybe one out of a hundred new records do, and those are some pretty long odds. (more…)

Henry Mancini / Hatari!

More Soundtrack Recordings of Interest

  • An original Living Stereo pressing with solid Double Plus (A++) grades or close to them on both of these TAS-approved sides
  • This side two is wonderfully relaxed, natural, and musical, with a remarkably sweet top end, and side one is not far behind in all those areas
  • The brass is breathy with a nice bite, avoiding most of the blare-y quality we heard on so many other pressings (particularly on side two)
  • And you’re not going to believe all the ambience surrounding this room full of musicians, especially on the drums (also particularly on side two) – we love that sound

“Baby Elephant Walk” is of course the track everyone knows, and just wait until you hear how breathy the calliope is here. When the piccolos come in watch out! There is more high frequency information on this album from the woodwinds alone than from all the instruments on 99 out of 100 other records. (A tough tracking test if ever there was one!)

High Fidelity

What do we love about these Living Stereo Hot Stamper pressings? The timbre of every instrument is “Hi-Fi” in the best sense of the word. The instruments here are reproduced with remarkable fidelity. Now that’s what I call Hi-Fi, not the kind of audiophile phony BS sound that passes for Hi-Fidelity these days. There’s no boosted top, there’s no bloated bottom, there’s no sucked-out midrange. There’s no added digital reverb (Patricia Barber, Diana Krall, et al.). The microphones are not fifty feet away from the musicians (Water Lily) nor are they inches away (Three Blind Mice).

This is Hi-Fidelity for those who recognize the real thing when they hear it. I’m pretty sure our customers do, and any of you out there who pick this one up should get a real kick out of it!

Hard to Find?

Not really; they made loads of these back in the day. But so many just don’t sound good. As we so often say about famous TAS list records like this, playing the average copy would make you think that Harry must have been smoking something when he nominated Hatari to be a Super Disc.

And we have to defend him when a copy like this comes along that really is a Super Disc. (Well, sort of. It’s a great sounding record. Super Disc I’m not so sure about.)

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Pink Floyd / Obscured By Clouds

More Pink Floyd

  • Obscured by Clouds is finally back on the site for the first time in years, here with KILLER Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades on both sides of this vintage British Harvest import
  • These are just a few of the things we had to say about this amazing copy in our notes: “huge and fully extended from top to bottom”…”tubey and lots of bass”…”jumping out of the speakers”…”spacious and detailed”…”vox are sweet and rich and breathy”
  • 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 the competition
  • Don’t expect a fully realized album a la Dark Side, because this ain’t that – it’s a nice collection of songs and instrumentals that should provide a nice thrill to Floyd fans who really dig the Prog-Psych aspect of the band
  • Those of you who enjoy Meddle will certainly get a lot out of this one
  • “Obscured by Clouds is the soundtrack to the Barbet Schroeder film La Vallée… Here, the instrumentals float pleasantly, filled with interesting textures… Often, they seem quite tied to their time, either in their spaciness or in the pastoral folkiness, two qualities that are better brought out on the full-fledged songs interspersed throughout the record…”

Incredible sound and some seriously strange music! This obviously isn’t Floyd’s greatest album, but we still found a lot to like about this record and specifically this copy.

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Herrmann – The Fantasy Film World of Bernard Herrmann

More of the Music of Bernard Herrmann

  • This early British London pressing gives you plenty of blockbuster sound for those who can play a record like this good and loud, here with incredible Nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) sonics on both TAS-approved sides – just shy of our Shootout Winner
  • On the better copies, you will hear the power of the orchestra come to life right in your very own listening room
  • The soundfield is big, open and transparent, with the kind of wall to wall and floor to ceiling spaciousness that may just leave you in awe
  • A superb Phase 4 recording by Arthur Lilley, taking advantage of the legendary acoustics of Kingsway Hall
  • If like us you’re a fan of blockbuster orchestral recordings, this is a killer album from 1974 that belongs in your collection.

The soundfield is big, open and transparent, with the kind of three-dimensionality most orchestral recordings simply fail to reproduce. The brass here is weighty and powerful, and you can really hear the pluck of the strings on the harp.

Taxing the Limits

An orchestral dreadnought such as this requires mastering and pressing of the highest quality. It taxes the limits of LP playback itself, with deep organ notes (listen for the famous Decca rumble accompanying the organ if you have the deep bass reproduction to hear it); incredible dynamics from every area of the stage; masses of strings playing at the top of their registers with abandon; huge drums; powerful brass effects everywhere — every sound an orchestra can produce is found on this record, and then some. (You will hear plenty of sounds that defy description, that’s for sure. Some of the time I can’t even imagine what instrument could possibly make such a sound!)

Harry Pearson put the Decca pressing of this title on his TAS List of Super Discs. (We take issue with that choice below.)

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Ry Cooder – Paris, Texas

More of the Music of Ry Cooder

  • This excellent copy of Ry Cooder’s soundrack LP (one of only a handful to hit the site in close to a three and a half years) boasts solid Double Plus (A++) grades from start to finish
  • The sound on these TAS-approved sides is bigger and livelier than most others we played – above all it’s balanced, avoiding the tonality issues we heard on so many other pressings
  • 4 stars: “Suggestive of both the imagery of Wim Wenders’ movie Paris, Texas and the desert itself, Ry Cooder’s score is a peaceful, poetic journey into the soul of an acoustic guitar… a powerful and immensely evocative journey for those whose experience with the material is the album alone. “
  • If you’re a fan of Ry Cooder’s, this classic from 1985 belongs in your collection.
  • The complete list of titles from 1985 that we’ve reviewed to date can be found here.

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Burt Bacharach – Casino Royale

More Soundtrack Recordings of Interest

  • Casino Royale finally returns to the site after a two and a half year hiatus, here with solid Double Plus (A++) sound throughout this original Stereo Colgems pressing
  • A record that has its share of problems, but if you’ve got the system for it (huge, heavily tweaked, fast, undistorted, highly resolving and free from obvious colorations), this pressing is guaranteed to handily beat anything else you’ve heard
  • A TAS list favorite – “The Look of Love” with warmth, richness and immediacy? Here is the sound you never thought you’d hear
  • 4 1/2 stars: “The more recognizable and certainly more straightforward side of Bacharach is here, too, on the Dusty Springfield smash ‘The Look of Love.’ This is one of Bacharach’s best soundtracks…”

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