Favorites – Rock-Pop

If I still had a record collection, these 250 or so titles would be in it. That’s no longer in the cards because all of my records went into shootouts long ago, from whence they either went to good homes as Hot Stampers or got sold off or traded in.

David Bowie – Low

More of the Music of David Bowie

  • Boasting killer Nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) grades on both sides, this vintage pressing of Bowie’s rock Masterpiece is practically as good a copy as we have ever heard, right up there with our Shootout Winner – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • Huge amounts of studio space can be heard on this copy, along with the Tubey Magical richness only the better UK pressings can offer
  • 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
  • 5 stars: “Though a handful of the vocal pieces on Low are accessible – ‘Sound and Vision’ has a shimmering guitar hook, and ‘Be My Wife’ subverts soul structure in a surprisingly catchy fashion – the record is defiantly experimental and dense with detail, providing a new direction for the avant-garde in rock & roll.”
  • If you’re a fan of the man, this is a Top Title from 1977 that belongs in your collection

As I’ve mentioned on the site numerous times, I spent a good portion of the 70s playing art rock records like Taking Tiger Mountain, Siren, Crime Of The Century, Deceptive Bends and scores of others. I remember being blown away when Low came out, and with this shootout we had a blast hearing just how good a killer Hot Stamper UK pressing can sound on the much more highly-evolved stereo system (equipment, room, set-up, tweaks, electricity, etc.) we have today.

It’s difficult to find a pressing that gets both sides of this album right, perhaps in part because the two sides are so different. Side one of this album features the more traditional (not really the right word, but it will have to do) Bowie rockers like “Sound and Vision” and “Be My Wife,” while side two sounds more like the instrumental synth music of Kraftwerk and Eno.

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Bloomfield-Kooper-Stills – Super Session (on 360)

More of the Music of Al Kooper

More of the Music of Stephen Stills

  • With solid Double Plus (A++) grades or close to them from top to bottom, this 360 Label pressing will be very hard to beat
  • Engineered by Roy Halee, the man behind one of the best sounding rock records of all time (the self-titled Blood, Sweat and Tears album), the oh-so-analog sonics here are especially dynamic and spacious (particularly on side one)
  • Our most recent shootout was a tough one: we had six clean 360 pressings, but only two copies earned White Hot grades and one of them was too noisy to sell
  • Even worse, none of our Supers earned even two pluses on both sides, so those of you looking for anything better than what we’re offering here are going to be as disappointed as we are
  • When we talk about some records being hard to find with top quality sound and audiophile playing surfaces, this is the kind of record we have in mind!
  • For fans of BS&T’s first album (and everybody else), Super Session is a Must Own
  • “Season of the Witch” is quite good here on this original Stereo 360 pressing
  • 4 1/2 stars: “This is one of those albums that seems to get better with age… This is a super session indeed.”
  • If you’re a fan of any or all of these guys, this vintage pressing of their 1968 classic belongs in your collection

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Cat Stevens – Catch Bull At Four

More of the Music of Cat Stevens

  • An original UK Island pressing that was doing practically everything right
  • It’s bigger, more dynamic, more lively, more present and just plain more exciting than most of what we played
  • This British pressing can show you the sweeter, tubier Midrange Magic that is the hallmark of all the best Cat Stevens records
  • CBAF is an exceptionally well recorded album full of wonderful tunes, one that we feel should definitely be more popular with audiophiles
  • “Though some of the lyrics retain Cat’s fanciful imagery… he shows a new emotional directness, especially on side two, the albums ‘down’ side. This is reflected in Cat’s singing, which becomes more assured and more emotive with each album.” – Rolling Stone
  • This has been a title in which one stamper wins our shootouts for more than a decade, but this time around we found another stamper for side one, a pleasant surprise I must say

If you’re familiar with what the better Hot Stamper pressings of Tea for the Tillerman, Teaser and the Firecat or Mona Bone Jakon can sound like — amazing is the word that comes to mind — then you should easily be able to imagine how good the better copies of Catch Bull At Four sounds.

All the ingredients for a Classic Cat Stevens album were in place for this release, which came out in 1972, about a year after Teaser and the Firecat. His wonderful guitar player, Alun Davies, is still in the band, and Paul Samwell-Smith is still producing as brilliantly as ever.

There’s no shortage of deep, well-defined bass either, allowing the more dynamic songs to really come alive. The ones that get loud without becoming hard or harsh are the ones that tend to get everything else right at the lower volumes.

Tubey Magical acoustic guitar reproduction is superb on the better copies of this recording. Simply phenomenal amounts of Tubey Magic can be heard on every strum, along with richness, body and harmonic coherency that have all but disappeared from modern recordings (and especially from modern remasterings).

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Blondie – Parallel Lines

More of the Music of Blondie

  • With KILLER Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound or close to it on both sides, this copy is guaranteed to blow the doors off any other version of Blondie’s One True Masterpiece you’ve heard – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • The powerful sound of this Power Pop Classic really comes through here – and that’s not a claim you can make about very many copies
  • There’s not a bad song to be found on the album, and lots of great ones: “One Way Or Another,” “Heart Of Glass (here in an extended version),” “Hanging On The Telephone,” etc.
  • 5 stars: “Blondie’s best album,” which is actually a bit of an understatement – it’s by far their best album
  • More reviews and commentaries for Blondie’s brilliant Parallel Lines
  • If you’re a Blondie fan, this breakthrough album from 1978 is a Must Own

All the Blondie magic you could ever want is in these grooves. The truly powerful sound of this Power Pop Classic really comes through on this bad boy — and that’s simply not a claim you could make about too many copies out there in record land, which tend to be flat, opaque and compressed. Not so here. This one just plain rocks.

Can this kind of music get any better? This album is a Masterpiece of Pure Pop, ranking right up there with The Cars’ first album. I can’t think of many albums from the era with the perfect blend of writing, production and musicianship under the guidance of producer Mike Chapman (The Knack) Blondie achieved with Parallel Lines.

As expected, if you clean and play enough copies of a standard domestic major label album such as Parallel Lines eventually you will stumble upon The One, and boy did we ever. The very best copies in our recent shootout were off the charts with presence, breathy vocals, and punchy drums. On top of that they were positively swimming in studio ambience, with every instrument occupying its own space in the mix and surrounded by air.

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Frank Zappa / Fillmore East – June 1971 – The Ultimate Rock Opera

More of the Music of Frank Zappa

  • Boasting two outstanding Double Plus (A++) sides, this original Bizarre Blue Label copy (the only kind we offer as a Hot Stamper) will be very hard to beat
  • The sound is big, lively, open and clear with Tubey Magical richness that only the best of these vintage pressings can show you
  • If you’re a fan of The Firesign Theater, Zappa, improv comedy and other such like, you might just fall in love with this album the way we have
  • If I had to compile a list of my favorite rock and pop albums from 1971, this album would definitely be on it

We’re big fans of this album, and Zappa in general, but it’s incredibly difficult to find copies that do justice to the music. The vinyl is typically thrashed, and even the copies in relatively clean condition usually don’t sound good. This one has about the quietest vinyl you could hope for, playing Mint Minus on both sides, and the sound is just about as good as it gets!

So many pressings don’t let you hear INTO the music. This is a live recording with musicians sprinkled all over the stage — three-dimensional transparency is absolutely key to the better pressings, the ones that let you immerse yourself in the spectacle, never losing sight of the individual performances of Zappa and his merry band of obscene nut jobs. This band works blue. It will have you in hysterics if you get into the down and dirty spirit of the show. If that doesn’t sound like your thing, steer clear of this one. It’s raunchy as hell, and the raunchiest bits are the most hilarious.

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Squeeze – Sweets from a Stranger

More New Wave

  • Boasting two excellent Double Plus (A++) sides or close to them, this vintage UK pressing is guaranteed to handily beat any other Sweets from a Stranger you’ve heard
  • We shot out a number of other imports and this one had the midrange presence, bass, and dynamics that were missing from most other copies we played (particularly on side two)
  • If you’re a fan of Elvis Costello, Graham Parker, Nick Lowe, Joe Jackson and even quite a few other lesser-knowns from this era, Squeeze is the band for you

I put them right up there with Elvis Costello and Peter Gabriel in the pantheon of British Pop Music of the era.

Squeeze’s prime period with Jools Holland on keyboards encompasses four albums, any of which is worth owning. The band really gets going with their second album, Cool for Cats (1979), pulls it all together and takes it to another level for their breakthrough third, Argybargy (1980), and produces two more of high quality, East Side Story (1981, produced mostly by Elvis Costello) and the darker but equally brilliant Sweets from a Stranger(1982).

I’m a huge fan of all four, as well as two from their later days, the amazing-to-this-day Cosi Fan Tutti Frutti (1985) and the weaker but enjoyable Babylon and On (1987). I play all of them on a regular basis.

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Frank Zappa – Waka/Jawaka

More of the Music of Frank Zappa

  • This vintage copy was doing just about everything right, earning solid Double Plus (A++) grades or close to them on both of these TAS-approved sides – fairly QUIET vinyl too
  • It took whomever is running the TAS Super Disc list about twenty years to catch up to us, but we’re glad they did – this is one of the most amazing sounding records we have the privilege to play, even if it does take us three years to get a shootout going
  • A Top 100 title, and deservedly so – the sound is big, rich, punchy, lively, clear and above all, analog (particularly on side one)
  • This copy will show you the size and power of a big band, Frank Zappa style (also particularly on side one) – there is (almost*) nothing like it
  • Rolling Stone raved that this Jazz Rock Fusion album contains “…some of the best material he’s done in years” and we could not agree more

(*Other than The Grand Wazoo, which can have sound every bit as good but is not the equal of Waka/Jawaka musically.)

What an incredible album. I know of no other like it. It’s not big band, it’s not rock, it’s not jazz, it’s a unique amalgamation of all three with an overlay of some of Zappa’s idiosyncratic compositional predilections (say that three times fast) thrown in for good measure.

In our opinion it’s nothing less than Zappa’s masterpiece, the summation of his talents, and a record that belongs in every right-thinking audiophile’s collection. (We say that about a lot of records audiophiles don’t know well, but we’ve been doing it for most of our 30+ years in this business and don’t see much reason to stop now.)

Most copies, especially the WB brown label reissues, are dull and smeary with little in the way of top end extension, failing pretty miserably at getting this music to come to life.

Not long ago we discovered the secret to separating the men from the boys on side one. On the lively, punchy, dynamic copies — which are of course the best ones — you can follow the drumming at the beginning of “Big Swifty” note for note: every beat, every kick of the kick drum, every fill, every roll — it’s all there to be heard and appreciated. If that track on this copy doesn’t make you a huge fan of Aynsley Dunbar, I can’t imagine what would. The guy had a gift.

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The Beatles – Rubber Soul

More of the Music of The Beatles

  • Boasting seriously good sound from start to finish, this vintage UK stereo pressing has the sound of Tubey Magical analog in its grooves
  • We guarantee you’ve never heard “Girl,” “I’m Looking Through You,” “In My Life,” “Wait,” “If I Needed Someone” and “Run for Your Life” sound better – and that’s just side two
  • A Must Own Folk Rock masterpiece and permanent member of our Top 100
  • 5 stars: “The lyrics represented a quantum leap in terms of thoughtfulness, maturity, and complex ambiguities. Musically, too, it was a substantial leap forward, with intricate folk-rock arrangements that reflected the increasing influence of Dylan and the Byrds.”
  • As is sometimes the case, there is one and only one set of stampers that consistently wins our shootouts for Rubber Soul.  Here are some of the other shootout winning stamper numbers we’ve discovered, and we did it the old fashioned way — by playing this album (and others like it) by the score

Since this is one of the best sounding Beatles recordings, this could very well be some of the BEST SOUND you will ever hear on a Beatles album.

There’s wonderful ambience and echo to be heard. Just listen to the rimshots on Michelle — you can clearly hear the room around the drum. On the best pressings, Michelle is incredibly 3-D; it’s one of the best sounding tracks on the entire album, if not THE best.

Tubey Magical Acoustic Guitar reproduction is superb on the better copies of this recording. Simply phenomenal amounts of Tubey Magic can be heard on every strum, along with richness, body and harmonic coherency that have all but disappeared from modern recordings, and especially from modern remasterings. 

Track Commentary

Rubber Soul is one of the most difficult Beatles records to get to sound right. The individual tracks seem to vary drastically in terms of their sound quality. Some (What Goes On) sound sweet, rich and near perfect. Others (You Won’t See Me) can be thin and midrangy. What’s a mother to do?

I think what we’re dealing with here are completely different approaches to the final mix. The Beatles were experimenting with different kinds of sounds, and their experiments produced very different results from track to track on this album more than practically any other I can think of besides The White Album (which as you know was recorded in multiple studios by multiple producers and engineers).

Nowhere Man on side one and Wait on side two are both excellent test tracks. 

Other records with track breakdowns can be found here.

A Must Own Beatles Record

Rubber Soul is a recording that should be part of any serious popular music collection. Others that belong in that category can be found here.

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Led Zeppelin – Houses of the Holy

More of the Music of Led Zeppelin

  • With two outstanding Double Plus (A++) or BETTER sides, this copy is guaranteed to blow the doors off any other Houses of the Holy you’ve heard
  • Side two was sonically very close to our Shootout Winner – you will be shocked at how big and powerful the sound is
  • For this album, Mint Minus Minus is as QUIET as we can find them
  • Only the pressings mastered by Robert Ludwig have any hope of doing well in our shootouts, and those are the only ones we have ever offered, beginning all the way back in 2006
  • Wall to wall, floor to ceiling Led Zeppelin power – this copy delivers like you will not believe, or your money back
  • A Better Records Top 100 album (along with 4 other Zep titles), 5 stars in AMG and a true Zeppelin Must Own classic
  • The Tubey Magical acoustic guitars here should be a wake up call to everyone that any and all attempts to remaster this album are bound to fail – that sound is gone and it is never coming back
  • 5 stars: “Jimmy Page’s riffs rely on ringing, folky hooks as much as they do on thundering blues-rock, giving the album a lighter, more open atmosphere…”
  • If you’re a fan of the band, this title from 1973 is clearly one of their best, and inarguably one of their best sounding

This copy has the kind of BIG, BOLD ROCK SOUND that takes this music to places you’ve only dreamed it could go. The HUGE drums on this copy are going to blow your mind — and probably your neighbors’ minds as well.

And what would a Zep record be without bass? Not much, yet this is precisely the area where so many copies fail. Not so here. The bottom end is big and meaty with superb definition, allowing the record to ROCK, just the way the band wanted it to.

The vocals too are tonally correct. None of the phony upper-midrange boost that the Classic Records reissue suffers from is evident on this copy.

The louder Robert Plant screams, the better he sounds and the more I like it.

The Classic Records pressing makes me wince, and Jimmy Page’s remaster is not much better.

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It’s A Beautiful Day – Self-Titled

More Psych Rock

  • This Columbia Stereo 360 pressing (only the second copy to hit the site in over four years) boasts solid Double Plus (A++) grades or BETTER from top to bottom – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • If this price seems high, keep in mind that the top copy from our most recent shootout went for $1200
  • Add to that the fact that in our previous shootout from 2021 there were few records that did not have scratches that played or noisy vinyl
  • One of our favorite 60s Psych Rock albums, a true Demo Disc for three-dimensional space, and a Desert Island Disc for musical originality
  • Full and rich, detailed and transparent, this copy is doing just about everything we could ask it to do
  • We’ve been working on this title for more than ten years, during which time we must have returned nine out of ten copies that came our way
  • 4 stars: “It’s a Beautiful Day remains as a timepiece and evidence of how sophisticated rock & roll had become in the fertile environs of the San Francisco music scene.”

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