Hot Stamper Classical and Orchestral Imports on Decca & London
Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of Mozart (1756-1791)
One of the better Speakers Corner Deccas.
Years ago we wrote the following:
“One of the best of the Decca reissues! EXCELLENT SOUND for these pieces, written for violin, viola and orchestra.”
Can’t be sure we would still feel that way but I’m guessing this is a good record at the price.
Reviews and Commentaries for Tommy
Sonic Grade: B
One of the BEST titles on Simply Vinyl! Better than the Classic version, that’s for sure. This one has the bass that’s all but missing from the new 200 gram pressing.
The Classic Tommy Has No Bass
It could have had amazing bass, like their Who’s Next, but it doesn’t. Why I have no idea. The overall sound is thin, so thin that we immediately knew there was no point in carrying it. (The only Classic Who record we ever carried was Who’s Next; the rest of them are dreadful, some of the worst sounding reissues out there.) Not when there’s a very fine Heavy Vinyl pressing already around. You guessed it: the Simply Vinyl pressing, the one from that label that some reviewer thinks is “screwing up the market.”
Who’s Screwing Whom?
We invite all our readers and listeners to do the shootout for themselves. Both versions of Tommy are in print and widely available. [Woops, not any more, both are long out of print.]
If you do find the Classic to be more to your liking, we simply ask that you send us your copy with a note as to the tracks you compared and what you found, so that we can hear it for ourselves. As you know from reading about Nirvana Nevermind, no two records, not even new audiophile ones, sound the same, so if you managed to get hold of a hot copy of the Classic, we want to hear it too!
After we have picked our jaws up off the floor we will happily send it back to you.
Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Freddie Hubbard Available Now
This is a very old review, probably from the 90s, and one we would likely not agree with now. It’s been a long time since we played any Speakers Corner record and liked it.
An outstanding Freddie Hubbard straight ahead jazz album on Speakers Corner vinyl that belongs in any jazz lover’s collection.
Further Reading
Here are some of our reviews and commentaries concerning the many Heavy Vinyl pressings we’ve played over the years, well over 200 at this stage of the game.
Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Richard Thompson Available Now
Sonic Grade: B
Hey, this is a surprisingly good sounding pressing! Our Hot Stampers are clearly bigger and more lively, but for a Heavy Vinyl reissue this pressing is quite respectable.
You won’t get the effect we describe below on the Heavy Vinyl pressing that we heard on our best Hot Stamper original pressings, but you will get a very good sounding record.
With constant improvements to the system Shoot Out is now so powerful a recording that we had no choice but to add it to our Top 100 list in 2014, but we would go even further than that and say that it would belong on a list of the Top Ten Best Sounding Rock Records of All Time.
The guitars are HUGE — they positively leap out of the speakers on the title cut, freeing themselves from a studio that seems already to be the size of a house. (more…)
Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of Sarah Vaughan
Hot Stamper Pressings of Outstanding Pop and Jazz Vocal Albums
Sonic Grade: B
A TOP TITLE from Speakers Corner on 180 gram. This is an outstanding Sarah Vaughan album with very good sound and top players like Clifford Brown on trumpet, Paul Quinichette on tenor sax and Herbie Mann on flute.
We haven’t played a copy of this record in years, but back in the day we liked it, so let’s call it a “B” with the caveat that the older the review, the more likely we are to have changed our minds. (more…)
More of the Music of Crowded House
Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of Crowded House
Sonic Grade: B (or better!)
Woodface easily meets the definition of a Desert Island Disc. I’ve played it hundreds of times and enjoy it more with each play, which insures that on my desert island I’ll never get sick of it.
To my way of thinking it contains some of the most original, melodic, hook-laden, sophisticated popular music recorded in the last twenty years.
Astonishingly (to me, anyway) it didn’t even chart here in the states, a sad commentary about the state of the music biz, a state that only seems to worsen as the decades roll on.
More of the Music of Fleetwood Mac
Reviews and Commentaries for Fleetwood Mac
Sonic Grade: B
This 160 gram Simply Vinyl pressing has EXCELLENT sound. This is the early, BLUESY Mac, about as far from Rumours as you can get. The sound here dark and smooth like a good British Blues album should be. Simply Vinyl did a superb job here.
Correction: an unnamed mastering engineer at the label that owns the tape did a superb job. Simply Vinyl isn’t in the business of mastering or remastering ANYTHING. They leave that up to the pros at the record labels.
Sometimes those guys screw it up and sometimes they get it right.
More of the Music of Richard Thompson
Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of Richard (and Linda) Thompson
Sonic Grade: B
One of the better Simply Vinyl recuts. We haven’t played a copy of it in years, but back in the day we liked it, so let’s call it a “B” with the caveat that the older the review, the more likely we are to have changed our minds.
Not sure if we would still agree with what we wrote back in the ’90s when this record came out, but here it is anyway.
This 180 gram LP comes recommended, with very good English sound (smooth, rich) for this early Richard Thompson folk music, with the wonderful Sandy Denny on vocals. Happily, not your standard audiophile fare.
A 5 Star Rave Review in the All Music Guide!
Unhalfbricking was, if only in retrospect, a transitional album for the young Fairport Convention, in which the group shed its closest ties to its American folk-rock influences and started to edge toward a more traditional British folk-slanted sound. That shift wouldn’t be definitive until their next album, Liege & Lief. But the strongest link to the American folk-rock harmony approach left with the departure of Ian Matthews, who left shortly after the sessions for Unhalfbricking began. The mixture of obscure American folk-rock songs, original material, and traditional interpretations that had fallen into place with What We Did on Our Holidays earlier in the year was actually still intact, if not as balanced.
Sandy Denny’s two compositions, her famous “Who Knows Where the Time Goes?” and the far less celebrated but magnetically brooding “Autopsy,” were among the record’s highlights. So too were the goofball French Cajun cover of Bob Dylan’s “If You Gotta Go, Go Now” (here retitled “Si Tu Dois Partir,” and a British hit) and the magnificent reading of Dylan’s “Percy’s Song.
