Warner – Green Label Winners

These titles sound their best on the Warner Bros. Green Label. We know that because the best Green Label pressings always win the shootouts for these titles.

Ry Cooder – Into the Purple Valley

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  • A vintage Reprise pressing of Ry Cooder’s 1972 release boasting KILLER Tubey Magical Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) Master Tape sound or close to it on both sides – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • Side two was Tonally Right On The Money from top to bottom and from start to finish – it’s got the kind of presence and energy needed to bring these old songs to life
  • All of the elements you could ask for from this kind of music are here: superb clarity; amazing richness and warmth; serious energy and immediacy; texture to the vocals and so on
  • It’s pretty cool to hear these old Dust Bowl-era numbers by greats like Woody Guthrie and Leadbelly performed by top musicians and recorded on quality equipment by one of the All Time Great engineers, Lee Herschberg
  • 4 1/2 stars: “‘Phenomenal’ is the descriptive word to describe his playing, whether it is on guitar, Hawaiian ‘slack key’ guitar, mandolin, or the more arcane instruments he has found. This is a must for those who love instrumental virtuosity, authentic reworkings of an era, or just plain good music.”
  • If you’re a Ry Cooder fan, and what audiophile wouldn’t be?, this title from 1972 is clearly one of his best, and one of his best sounding

We’ve become pretty big Ry Cooder fans here at Better Records, and an amazing pressing like this one will show you exactly why. We played a big stack of these this week, and you’re going to have a very difficult time finding a copy that can keep up with this one!

Most of the copies we played were overly clean sounding, lacking in the richness and warmth that are critical to the enjoyment of top quality analog. Not this one though — it’s got plenty of Tubey Magic, with the kind of sound that keeps guys like you and me digging in bins and spinning dusty old records instead of going digital.

There’s A Good Reason Audiophiles Love Ry

Ry’s music holds special appeal to us audiophiles, as he’s always throwing instruments into the mix that you hardly ever hear on your standard rock album. I wish I could tell you everything he plays on this album, but I’d just be guessing if I tried. (Wikipedia credits him for guitar, bass, and mandolin, but I’d bet my bottom dollar there’s more to it than that.)

This I can tell you — when the man picks up an instrument, he can sure play the heck out of it, and it’s an audiophile’s treat to hear how naturally he incorporates these sounds into his songs.

I’m not personally familiar with Fitz Maclean’s original version of “F.D.R. In Trinidad,” but I can’t imagine there’s a recording of it that sounds nearly as good as Ry’s version here.

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Black Sabbath / Self-Titled

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Reviews and Commentaries for Black Sabbath

  • With solid Double Plus (A++) sound throughout, this excellent copy ROCKS like nothing you’ve heard
  • MASSIVE, powerful and spacious throughout – this original pressing is big, rich and solid like you won’t believe
  • This is one of the few copies we’ve found in a long time that has no bad repeating marks – many of the copies we buy are close to unlistenable on a modern audiophile turntable
  • The best copies are stunning Demo Discs – crank it up good and loud and if you have the right system for it you can be sure your audiophile friends will never forget it
  • 4 1/2 stars on Allmusic and one of the best sounding hard rock recordings from the era, or, to be honest, from any era
  • 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,” but with less of an accent on morbidity and more on the joy these amazing audiophile-quality recordings can bring to your life.
  • If you’re a Sludgy Rock fan, this debut album from 1970 is surely a Must Own
  • We think this is the band’s best sounding album. Roughly 150 other listings for the Best Sounding Album by an Artist or Group can be found here.

Top 100

Back in 2018 we wrote:

This title will surely make the cut next time we update our Top 100 Rock and Pop List. I would go so far as to say that the best copies of this album have sound as good or better than anything I’ve heard all year, and that’s an awful lot of great sounding records, hundreds and hundreds of them.

It did in fact make the Top 100 a while back. The album is hard to find in audiophile playing condition, but we make the effort and this killer Hot Stamper is the result.

Sabbath recorded their set list more or less live in the studio. This give the recording an unprocessed quality that really stands out on the best copies. The best Green Label pressings sound raw and real, with sound that is a perfect match for the band’s powerfully dark music.

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Van Morrison – Tupelo Honey

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  • This original WB Green Label pressing is chock full of that vintage Tubey Magic we prize so highly here at Better Records, earning seriously good Double Plus (A++) grades on both sides
  • “Wild Night” and the title track sound wonderfully rich and full-bodied, with the warmth and naturalness that distinguishes a merely good sounding LP from a truly Super Hot Stamper
  • 4 1/2 stars on Allmusic and featuring some of Stephen Barncard‘s best engineering – this is Analog Sound at its best
  • Marks 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
  • “Tupelo Honey is in one sense but another example of the artist making increased use of the album as the unit of communication as opposed to merely the song or the cut. Everything on it is perfectly integrated.”

There are actually real dynamics on this recording, which really helps kick up the life force of the music. Just listen to the energetic build-up during “Wild Night” — that’s how it would happen in a live setting, and that’s the way we want to hear it at home as well.

If you’ve been stuck with the average copy of any of the classic albums Van put out in the ’70s you would have no way of knowing just how well-recorded some of them are.

Our favorite Morrison record for sound is still His Band And The Street Choir, but after finishing this shootout we now know that the best copies of Tupelo Honey are in that same league. The title track (just to take one example) can sound exceptionally sweet, delicate, and Tubey Magical. For that, you can thank Stephen Barncard. If you know his work, it’s easy to spot his sound.

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Alice Cooper – Billion Dollar Babies

More of the Music of Alice Cooper

  • A vintage Warner Bros. Palm Trees pressing with outstanding Double Plus (A++) sound from start to finish
  • It’s the impossibly rare copy that’s this lively, solid and rich… drop the needle on the title track and you’ll see what we mean
  • This copy is proof that finding the right balance of fullness and clarity on this album may not be easy but it can be done
  • Marks in the vinyl are sometimes the nature of the beast with these Classic Rock records – there simply is no way around them if the superior sound of vintage analog is important to you
  • 4 1/2 stars: “Song for song, Billion Dollar Babies is probably the original Alice Cooper group’s finest and strongest… It remains one of rock’s all-time, quintessential classics.”

Billion Dollar Babies can sound big and powerful, but not many copies bring the sound to life the way this one does. For once you can hear a big room around the instruments; the bass is tight and well-defined, and there’s plenty of tubey richness.

This was also one of the copies that managed to get real three-dimensional space in the soundfield, bringing Alice up front, with the rest of the band arrayed behind him from wall to wall.

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Randy Newman – 12 Songs

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More Singer-Songwriter Albums

  • With two nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) sides, this copy of what some consider Randy Newman’s strongest album is close to the BEST we have ever heard, right up there with our Shootout Winner – relatively quiet vinyl too
  • An excellent pressing, with a very strong bottom end, lovely richness and warmth, real space and separation between the instruments and wonderful immediacy throughout
  • The clarity of the piano and guitar perfectly support and complement Randy’s heartfelt vocals
  • 5 stars: “While much of Randy Newman [his first album] was heavily orchestrated, 12 Songs was cut with a small combo (Ry Cooder and Clarence White take turns on guitar), leaving a lot more room for Newman’s Fats Domino-gone-cynical piano and the bluesier side of his vocal style, and Randy sounds far more confident and comfortable in this context.”

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Seals & Crofts – Summer Breeze

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More Folk Rock


  • An outstanding pressing of Summer Breeze with Double Plus (A++) sound or close to it from start to finish, and exceptionally quiet vinyl too – some of the quietest we have ever found
  • With tons of Tubey Magical richness in the midrange (particularly on side two) – the kind that was still abundant on analog tape in 1972 – this is a wonderful sounding album of folk pop
  • 4 1/2 stars: “Summer Breeze offered an unusually ambitious array of music within a soft rock context – most artists tried to avoid weighty subjects in such surroundings… the most highly regarded of all of Seals & Crofts’ albums.” (more…)

Black Sabbath – Paranoid

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More Rock Classics

  • Black Sabbath’s killer second album returns to the site with excellent Double Plus (A++) sound on both sides – remarkably quiet vinyl too
  • This copy has the kind of energy, presence, and fullness needed to bring the best out of this Heavy Metal classic
  • This copy is on the second label, which is not a problem for this album because it’s still got the right mastering house mark in the dead wax, which is the main reason it would qualify to be put in a shootout
  • Drop the needle on a good copy and you’ll quickly hear how correct it sounds — it’s got a HUGE bottom end, excellent presence, a good amount of tubey magic and TONS of energy
  • 5 stars: “Paranoid refined Black Sabbath’s signature sound — crushingly loud, minor-key dirges loosely based on heavy blues-rock — and applied it to a newly consistent set of songs with utterly memorable riffs, most of which now rank as all-time metal classics.”

It’s taken us ages to find good pressings of this album, probably because just about every copy we see has been beat to death by the crazy muthas who originally bought ’em! Let’s face it — this wasn’t an album bought and treasured by people who know how to take care of their records; this was a record bought by kids who probably played it after getting wasted with their buddies. (No shame in that, of course!)

The music is freakin’ great, by the way. Since Ozzy has basically become a cartoon version of himself (as charming as that is) it’s easy to forget that these guys were a serious classic rock band that was duking it out with Zep for the hearts and minds of young hard rock fans in the late ’60s and early ’70s.

This album set the foundation for heavy metal, and I’m not sure anyone ever topped it. Play this album back to back with Zep II and it’s pretty clear the two bands were fueling each other, pushing both bands into creating bigger, bolder, better riff-based rockers.

Allmusic calls this “one of the greatest and most influential heavy metal albums of all time” and when it sounds this good, I’m guessing you’ll agree! “War Pigs,” “Fairies Wear Boots,” “Electric Funeral,” “Rat Salad” (drummer Bill Ward’s answer to Bonham’s “Moby Dick”) and the title track are some of the classic tracks on this album.

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The Doobie Brothers – Toulouse Street

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  • Two of our favorite engineers – Stephen Barncard & Donn Landee – worked their magic here, and they really knocked it out of the park
  • Back in the ’70s I had no idea that any pressing could be this punchy in the bass, this dynamic in the choruses, yet still have smooth, sweet vocals (partly because I heard it on crap equipment at Pacific Stereo)
  • 4 stars: “…it all still sounds astonishingly bracing 30 years later; it’s still a keeper, and one of the most inviting and alluring albums of its era.”
  • If you’re a Doobies fan, this is a Must Own Classic from 1972 that belongs in your collection. The complete list of titles from 1972 that we’ve reviewed to date can be found here.

To be clear, as a budding audiophile back in the day, I had no idea that any pressing could be this good sounding because I had only ever heard the album on the crap equipment at Pacific Stereo. They used the album as a demo disc in their High End room, but their High End room wasn’t very high end, just high end for Pacific Stereo in the early ’70s. Anybody remember Quadraflex speakers?

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The Grateful Dead – Aoxomoxoa

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  • This original Green Label Warner Brothers LP has STUNNING Triple Plus (A+++) sound or close to it from start to finish
  • These sides were doing everything right — big, full-bodied and present with tons of energy and a nice extended top end
  • “When the LP hit the racks in the early summer of 1969, Deadheads were greeted by some of the freshest and most innovative sounds to develop from the thriving Bay Area music scene.” – All Music 

NOTE: This is the later remixed version from 1971. We found it far better sounding than the original 1969 mix. If you’re interested in the original mix, we have some of those copies with lower grades but if you want the best sound, this copy is definitely the way to go. (more…)

Alice Cooper – Killer

More Alice Cooper

  • Cooper’s fourth studio album finally arrives on the site with Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound on side one mated to an outstanding Double Plus (A++) sound on side one
  • Bigger and bolder, with more bass, more energy, and more of the “you-are-there-immediacy” of ANALOG that sets the best vintage pressings apart from reissues, CDs, and whatever else you care to name
  • 4 1/2 stars: “With Killer, they became one of the world’s top rock bands and concert attractions; it rewarded them as being among the most notorious and misunderstood entertainers, thoroughly despised by grownups.”

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