Radio-Friendly Pop

A lot of great music got played on the radio, and we don’t hold that against them.

The Everly Brothers – The Golden Hits of The Everly Brothers on the Gold Label

More Sixties Pop

  • A killer sounding Gold Label WB Stereo LP with a Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) side one mated to a solid Double Plus (A++) side two
  • Our early pressing here showed us a wonderfully Tubey Magical midrange for the Everlys that we’re pretty sure most audiophiles have never heard
  • So much good material here – “Cathy’s Clown,” “Crying In The Rain,” “So Sad,” “That’s Old Fashioned,” “Lucille,” etc.
  • “There are few sounds in American popular music more thrilling and sublimely satisfying than the harmonies of Don and Phil Everly…”

It took us a long time to find enough records to do this shootout. How many extremely popular 60+ year old records survived into the present era in such clean condition? We can’t be sure when the next shootout will be, but we can be pretty sure it won’t be any time soon.

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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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Linda Ronstadt – Simple Dreams

More of the Music of Linda Ronstadt

  • An original Asylum pressing with seriously good Double Plus (A++) sound from first note to last
  • Linda’s best sounding recording and a proud member of our Top 100 – this is the album that showed us she could do it all
  • Val Garay does it again, filling the grooves with his trademark super-punchy, jump-out-the-speakers, rich and smooth ANALOG sound
  • 4 1/2 stars: “…reconfirms [Rondstadt’s] substantial talents as an interpretive singer…and [her] powerful performance makes the record rival Heart Like a Wheel in sheer overall quality.”
  • If you’re a Linda Ronstadt fan, this undeniable classic from 1977 is surely a Must Own
  • Simple Dreams is our pick for Linda’s best sounding album. Roughly 150 other listings for the Best Recording by an Artist or Group can be found here.

This is clearly one of Linda’s best albums and I would have to say, based on my fairly extensive experience with her recorded output, that it is in fact the best sounding record she ever made. I love Heart Like a Wheel, but it sure doesn’t sound like this, not even on the Triple Plus copies that win our shootouts. (It is her best album, though.)

I confess to having never taken the album seriously, dismissing it as a commercial collection of pop hits with about as much depth as the L.A. River — but I was wrong, wrong, wrong.

This is a great sounding album on the right pressing, not the compressed piece of grainy cardboard we’ve all been playing for years, unaware of the tremendous sound quality lurking in the grooves of other copies; the ones that were blessed with the right stampers, the right vinyl and a healthy amount of fairy dust wafting over the press that day.

That’s what Hot Stamper shootouts are all about — finding those copies, the ones no one knows exist. (No one but us it seems; who else would think to put this album in their Top 100?)

This Is a Real Band

Until a Hot Stamper found its way onto our turntable, we had absolutely no idea the album could sound like this, or that the music was so good.

The first thing that came to mind when I looked inside the fold open cover and saw all the guys who back Linda up on the album is that this is a real rock band. These are not a bunch of studio cats punching a time card. These guys know how to rock; just listen to the way they come blasting out of the gate on “It’s So Easy.” Linda is with them all the way, giving one of the best performances of her career.

Song after song, this super-tight band with the hot female lead (!) show that they can rock with the best of them. And do beautiful ballads (“Blue Bayou”) too.

Folks, I hereby testify that a Hot Stamper copy of this very album gave me a newfound respect for Linda beyond her work on Heart Like a Wheel. This is the album that shows she can do it all, as the All Music Guide points out, and I’m a believer.

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Herb Alpert – Herb Alpert’s Ninth

More Sixties Pop

  • A vintage pressing with seriously good Double Plus (A++) sound from first note to last
  • It’s big, lively, clear and present, with the kind of Tubey Magical richness we flip out for here at Better Records
  • You get lovely extension up top, good weight down low, as well as remarkable transparency in the midrange, all qualities that were much less evident on the average copy we played
  • “[Alpert] gives the Supremes’ ‘The Happening’ a bouncy workout. There is also a touching memorial to the late Ervan Coleman (‘Bud’) and another underrated contribution from the Alpert songwriting team, Sol Lake’s swinging ‘Cowboys and Indians.'”

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Eric Carmen – Self-Titled

More Rock and Pop

  • Boasting two superb Double Plus (A++) sides, we guarantee you’ve never heard Carmen’s 1975 solo debut sound remotely as good as it does on this early Arista pressing – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • Surprisingly rich and smooth, with excellent bass and the kind of breathy immediacy to the vocals that only vintage vinyl can offer
  • 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
  • Marks in the vinyl are sometimes the nature of the beast with these vintage LPs – those on “My Girl” are especially bad – but if you can tough those out, this copy is going to blow your mind

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Duran Duran – Rio

More Duran Duran

  • Here is a superb British EMI import pressing (one of only a handful of copies to hit the site in sixteen months) with two solid Double Plus (A++) sides
  • Forget the dubby domestic LPs with their boosted mids – this is the way the album is supposed to sound, and the difference is not a small one
  • This kind of record often shows up from overseas in beat-to-death shape – few survived, and that reality is compounded by the fact that even fewer record dealers know how to properly grade their records (hence our prices)
  • 4 1/2 stars: “The original Duran Duran’s high point, and just as likely the band’s as a whole, its fusion of style and substance ensures that even two decades after its release it remains as listenable and danceable as ever… From start to finish, a great album that has outlasted its era.”

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The Beach Boys – Little Deuce Coupe

More of The Beach Boys

  • This original Capitol Stereo pressing boasts excellent Double Plus (A++) grades from first note to last
  • Both of these sides are surprisingly rich and smooth, with excellent bass and the kind of breathy immediacy to the vocals that only vintage vinyl can offer
  • The sound is big, open, full-bodied and spacious, and the boys’ voices are as clear and sweet as you could ever wish for

What’s magical about The Beach Boys? Their voices of course, what else could it be? It’s not a trick question. They revolutionized the popular music of their day with their genius for harmony. Any good pressing must sound correct on their voices or it has no practical value whatsoever. A Beach Boys record with bad sound in the midrange — like most of them — is to us a worthless record.

When you drop the needle on a copy with gritty, spitty, harsh, shrill vocals, give up and move on. You have a bad pressing and no amount of cleaning or adjusting of the table can ever fix it.

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Brewer & Shipley / Down In L.A.

More Brewer and Shipley

  • Brewer & Shipley’s debut LP is back on the site for only the second time in years, here with solid Double Plus (A++) grades or close to them throughout this vintage A&M pressing
  • Fairly quiet vinyl too – we can hardly believe that we found one that plays like a normal rock and pop record after finding one stitchy, ticky, groove-damaged pressing after another for the last ten years
  • Side one has the smooth sweet analog sound we were listening for – it’s rich and tubey, with clarity and freedom from smear that make it the best of both worlds, and side two is not far behind in all those areas
  • “Of all the many folkys to make a transition to electric folk-rock in the 1960s, Brewer & Shipley retained more of the wholesome qualities of early-60s folk revival harmonizing than almost anyone.”

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.

All three are built on the same folk pop sensibilities. Tarkio, album number three, is clearly the duo’s masterpiece, but this record comes next in my book, followed by Weeds, their second album and first for Kama Sutra. After Tarkio it’s all downhill.

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Paul McCartney & Wings – Venus and Mars

More Paul McCartney

  • This vintage British pressing is doing practically everything right, with incredible Nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) grades from start to finish, just shy of our Shootout Winner – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • We shot out a number of other imports and this one had better midrange presence, bass, and dynamics than practically any other copy we played
  • These sides have real depth to the soundfield, full-bodied, present vocals, plenty of bottom end weight, and lovely analog warmth
  • “Venus and Mars is an interesting mix of musical styles, punctuated by Paul McCartney’s unerring sense of melody and hooky songs.” – Oldies.com
  • These are the stampers that always win our shootouts, and when you hear them you will know why – the sound is big, rich and clear like no other
  • We’ve discovered a number of titles in which one stamper always wins, and here are some others

This original UK Capitol 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. (more…)

America – Hat Trick

More America

  • Hat Trick is back on the site for only the second time in twenty months, here with INCREDIBLE Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound or close to it from start to finish
  • Both sides here are wonderfully rich, full-bodied and spacious, with sweet and breathy vocals
  • Marks and problems in the vinyl are sometimes the nature of the beast with these vintage LPs – there simply is no way around them if the superior sound of vintage analog is important to you
  • “Hat Trick, the trio’s third effort in as many years, is an admirable and ultimately successful attempt at fleshing out a sound that at one time consisted almost entirely of crisp acoustic guitar interplay, two-fingered elementary piano progressions and saccharin-sweet three-part harmonies… [it] should hopefully dispel America’s once notorious reputation as a ‘pubescent Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young.'” – Cameron Crowe, L.A. Times
  • If you’re an America fan, this self-produced title from 1973 has much to recommend it

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