Singer / Songwriter

Leonard Cohen Sure Sounds Better than He Used to

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Leonard Cohen Available Now

Insanely good Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound on both sides AND fairly quiet vinyl – the best copy to ever hit the site bar none.

Unbeatable richness and freedom from artificiality in the midrange allowed this one to tower over the rest of the field.

As you can see from the notes, both sides of our most recent White Hot stamper shootout winning copy were doing everything right. We marvelled at these specific qualities in the sound:

Side One

Track one

    • Rich vocals
    • Jumps out
    • Much bigger and fuller and more natural

Track two

    • Big and rich and breathy
    • Very open chorus

Side Two

Track three

    • Big, breathy and transparent and rich
    • Vocals are right up front and dynamic

Track one

    • Sweet and tubey
    • Big bass

Midrange presence is one of the most important qualities of any rock or pop recording we might be evaluating, and for a Leonard Cohen album it is absolutely essential.

You want Cohen to be front and center, neither recessed in space nor behind a veil.

The notes for track three on side two say it all:

Vocals are right up front and dynamic

That is what gets this music to sound the way it is supposed to. You can be very sure that no Heavy Vinyl remastered pressing is going to put Leonard Cohen front and center. They practically never do. (Here is an especially offensive remaster with a bad case of recessed vocals. Funny how none of the audiophile reviewers noticed. What does that say about the quality of their playback, or the standards to which they hold their records?)

DIY Advice

To aid you in doing your own evaluations, here is a list of records that we’ve found to be good for testing midrange presence.

This is exactly why we do shootouts. If you really want to be able to recognize subtle (and not so subtle!) differences between pressings, you must learn to do them too.

And make sure to take notes about what you are hearing, good and bad.

We love Cohen’s albums here at Better Records. No, they’re not audiophile spectaculars, but much like the best Dylan recordings, when they work the sound fits the music perfectly.

UPDATE 2025

In previous listings we had noted:

The vocals are right up front and fairly dry, throwing the words and phrasing into high relief.

But we would no longer agree with the vocals being dry. On the best copies they are rich, full-bodied and tubey.

What does that say about the quality of our playback? How about: It’s better now than it used to be!

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Leonard Cohen – Recent Songs

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  • Outstanding sound throughout this vintage copy (one of only a handful to hit the site in three and a half years), with both sides earning solid Double Plus (A++) grades or close to them
  • Richness and freedom from artificiality in the midrange placed this copy ahead of most others we played in our recent shootout (particularly on side one)
  • “… a return to Cohen’s acoustic folk music after the Phil Spector experimentation of Death of a Ladies’ Man, but now with many jazz and Oriental influences.”
  • 4 stars: “The first thing Leonard Cohen’s music fans noticed about his sixth new studio album, given the typically open-ended title Recent Songs, was that, musically, it marked a return to the gypsy folk sound of his early records…”

This 1979 album marks Cohen’s return to the simple folk arrangements of his early albums. As you might expect, the key elements here are going to be the man’s vocals, the acoustic guitars and Cohen’s trademark female backup singers, Jennifer Warnes among them.

We love Cohen’s albums here at Better Records. No, they’re not audiophile spectaculars, but much like the best Dylan recordings, when they work the sound fits the music perfectly. The vocals are right up front and fairly dry, throwing the words and phrasing into high relief.

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Gordon Lightfoot – If You Could Read My Mind (aka Sit Down Stranger)

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More Folk Rock

  • With INCREDIBLE Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound from start to finish, this original pressing of Sit Down Young Stranger could not be beat
  • Here are just a few of the things we had to say about this amazing copy in our notes: “tubey and spacious and 3D”…”huge bass”…”very big and rich and open”…”present and spacious”…”tons of space and detail”…”so wide and roomy”
  • Forget whatever dead-as-a-doornail Heavy Vinyl record they’re making these days – if you want to hear the Tubey Magic, intimacy, and freedom from audio coloration of this wonderful album from 1970, these early pressings are the only way to do it
  • An outstanding recording – Lightfoot’s best in our experience – with “Me and Bobby McGee” sounding as good as we have ever heard it on this superb pressing
  • Originally released in the summer of 1970 as Sit Down Young Stranger, it was reissued under its new title to capitalize on the success of the hit single “If You Could Read My Mind”
  • 4 1/2 stars: “The entire album is rich in the simple beauty of its folky melodies and personal lyrics… the music here is timeless, still feeling and sounding great many years after its release.”
  • This is an excellent title from 1970, which also happens to be a great year for rock and pop music, maybe the greatest of them all

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Tom Waits – The Heart of Saturday Night

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  • Excellent Double Plus (A++) sound brings Waits’s sophomore LP to life on this vintage Asylum pressing
  • Forget that critical listening stuff and just notice that these Hot Stamper copies are simply more relaxed, musical and involving than anything you’ve heard – guaranteed or your money back
  • This music ain’t for everyone, but when you find good sounding Tom Waits pressings like this one the sonics can be out of this world
  • Bones Howe brilliantly recorded this music — a copy that sounds as good as this one will surely let you appreciate his work in the clearest possible way: by hearing it
  • “Musically, the album contains the same mixture of folk, blues, and jazz as its predecessor, with producer Bones Howe occasionally bringing in an orchestra to underscore the loping melodies… ‘(Looking For) The Heart of Saturday Night’ and ‘Semi Suite’ are the equal of anything on Closing”

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John Prine – Sweet Revenge

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More Singer-Songwriter Albums

  • With solid grades from top to bottom, this vintage copy of Prine’s third studio LP (only the second to ever hit the site) is doing just about everything right – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • This side one is big and rich, with remarkable clarity and three-dimensional space, the kind of sound that most other pressings only hint at, and side two is not far behind in all those areas
  • 4 1/2 stars: “…Prine’s irreverence is consistently thrilling, making this one of his best.”

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Cat Stevens – Numbers

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More Singer-Songwriter Albums

  • A vintage copy of Cat Stevens’s 1975 concept album (only the second to ever hit the site), here with two incredible Nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) sides – just shy of our Shootout Winner
  • The sound here is rich and Tubey Magical, two qualities the CD made from these tapes surely lacks and two qualities which are crucial if this music is to sound the way Cat Stevens intended
  • This music is definitely not for everyone, but if you’re a fan, you might find this an interesting look into the man’s musical ideas in the mid-70s
  • Forget that critical listening stuff and just notice that these Hot Stamper copies are simply more relaxed, musical and involving than anything you’ve heard – guaranteed or your money back

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Carly Simon / Another Passenger

More of the Music of Carly Simon

Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of Carly Simon

  • An original Elektra pressing of Simon’s underrated release from 1976 with solid Double Plus (A++) grades from start to finish
  • Both of these sides are rich, full-bodied and warm, with real immediacy to Carly’s wonderfully present and breathy vocals
  • You get lovely extension up top, good weight down low, as well as exceptional transparency in the midrange, all qualities that were much less evident on the average copy we played
  • “Another Passenger is Carly Simon’s best record. The sniffs of ‘So what?’ that that assertion may provoke are exactly what Simon is confronting with this album.” – Rolling Stone
  • 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. Another Passenger is a good example of a record audiophiles may not know well but we think might benefit from getting to know better

This is my personal favorite of all of Carly’s albums. It’s her most consistent work in terms of her singing and songwriting. Nothing too heavy, just well crafted and enjoyable Singer Songwriter pop. If you like the kind of albums Paul Simon used to make before Graceland, or middle period James Taylor, you should like this.

Some of her albums can be badly overproduced, with big echoey drum thwacks; thankfully this is not one of them, so we think most listeners will find that the album wears very well. I can personally attest to that fact because I have a tape of this album in my car and I’ll bet you I’ve played it two hundred times or more.

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Tom Waits – Blue Valentine

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More Singer-Songwriter Albums

  • Blue Valentine returns to the site for the first time in years, here with killer Nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) grades from start to finish – just shy of our Shootout Winner
  • Both of these sides are remarkably rich, full, sweet and warm
  • The strings have wonderful texture, the voice is exceptionally present and breathy – you’d be hard pressed to find a better sounding copy
  • “Two welcome changes in style made Blue Valentine a fresh listening experience for Tom Waits fans. First, Waits alters the instrumentation, bringing in electric guitar and keyboards and largely dispensing with the strings for a more blues-oriented, hard-edged sound. Second … he expands beyond the musings of the barstool philosopher who previously had acted as the first-person character of most of his songs. These are not radical reinventions, but Waits had followed such a rigidly stylized approach on his previous albums that for anyone who had followed him so far, the course correction was big news.”

Both sides have a wonderful bottom end — check out all the weight to that rich, meaty bass. Many copies we played had a tendency to sound somewhat dull, but this one has all the extension up top you need.

Drop the needle on “Romeo Is Bleeding” for some of the best music on here. When you’ve got the kind of bass definition that this copy offers, the sound for that song can be killer, as it is here.

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Cat Stevens – Tea For The Tillerman on the Island Pink Rim Label

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More Reviews and Commentaries for Tea for the Tillerman

 

  • This early Pink Rim Island UK pressing of TFTT, an album we consider the Pinnacle of British Folk Rock, boasts two excellent Double Plus (A++) sides
  • The emotional power of the songs is communicated completely on a pressing that sounds like this one – the experience will be like hearing the album for the first time, and how can you put a price on that?
  • Here’s your chance to relive the experience of hearing this groundbreaking album for the first time, but with much better sound than you ever thought possible
  • 5 stars on Allmusic, a stunning Demo Disc, and a permanent member of the Better Records Top 100

Hearing this Hot Stamper is a privilege that affords the listener insight into Cat Stevens’ music that is simply not possible any other way.

This album, I hope it goes without saying, is one of the greatest Folk Rock recordings of all time, the kind of music that belongs in any collection. I’ve been playing this album for 40+ years and I can honestly say I’ve never once tired of hearing it. I do get tired of hearing bad copies.

Cat’s mixes are full of subtle elements that may require many listening sessions over the course of years, even decades, to recognize and appreciate. Consider them an extra reward for having played the record so many times. I’ve played hundreds of copies over the last thirty-plus years and never tired of it once. As every music lover knows, the best albums only get better with time.

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Leonard Cohen – Songs From A Room

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More Singer-Songwriter Albums

  • Boasting two INCREDIBLE Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sides, this Stereo 360 pressing is guaranteed to blow the doors off any other Songs from a Room you’ve heard
  • Cohen is front and center, his breathy vocals conveying the honesty that is the hallmark of the man, possibly the most confessional of all the singer songwriters from this era
  • This is a lot of money for a slightly noisy copy, but the sound is so awesome and quiet pressings of the album so hard to come by that we hope someone will take a chance on it and get the thrill we did from hearing it sound the way very few copies in our experience can sound
  • 4 stars: “Songs from a Room’s strongest moments convey a naked intimacy and fearless emotional honesty that’s every bit as powerful as the debut, and it left no doubt that Cohen was a major creative force in contemporary songwriting.”
  • This is a Must Own Classic from 1969 that belongs in every right-thinking audiophile’s collection

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