Masterpieces of Rock & Pop

Rock and Pop Masterpieces

Ambrosia – Self-Titled

More of the Music of Ambrosia

  • This copy was delivering the goods for Ambrosia’s ambitious Masterpiece with very good Hot Stamper grades throughout
  • We guarantee there is more space, richness, presence, and performance energy on this copy than others you’ve heard or you get your money back – it’s as simple as that
  • A permanent member of our Top 100 and, on big speakers at loud levels, the best copies are Rock Demo Discs of the highest order
  • “Its songs skillfully blend strong melodic hooks and smooth vocal harmonies with music of an almost symphonic density.”
  • Ambrosia is an album that helped us dramatically improve our playback quality

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Heart – Dreamboat Annie

More of the Music of Heart

  • A vintage copy of Heart’s debut LP with very good Hot Stamper grades from first note to last
  • It’s richer, fuller and with more presence than the average copy, and that’s especially true for whatever godawful Heavy Vinyl pressing is currently being foisted on an unsuspecting record buying public
  • This is true of even our lowest-priced, lowest-graded copies – they are guaranteed to sound much better than any pressing you can find on the market today, as well as any pressing you may already own
  • 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
  • A Better Records Top 100 album, 4 1/2 stars on AllMusic: “Aggressive yet melodic rockers like ‘Sing Child,’ ‘White Lightning & Wine,’ and the rock radio staples ‘Magic Man’ and ‘Crazy on You’ led to the tag ‘the female Led Zeppelin.'”

Not many records have this kind of big, rockin’ sound, that’s for sure! Punchy and present, open and transparent, with real weight and power to the low end. If you’re an audiophile who loves classic rock, you just haven’t lived until you’ve heard side one of this album on a Hot Stamper pressing.

We’re pretty fond of these ladies here at Better Records. Their second album, Little Queen, has been a favorite test disc around here for years. When Heart is at their best, the music is wonderful. If you’re lucky enough to own the right pressing, this band can ROCK with the best of them.

Live Rock and Roll Sound

This is a true Demo Disc in the world of rock records. It’s also one of those recordings that demands to be played LOUD. If you’ve got the big room, big speakers, and the power to drive them, you can have a live rock and roll concert in your very own house. When the boys behind Heart (superb musicians all) let loose with some of those Zep-like monster power chords — which incidentally do get good and loud in the mix, unlike most rock records which suffer from compression and “safe” mixes — I like to say that there is no stereo system on the planet that can play loud enough for me. (Horns maybe, but I don’t like the sound of horns, so there you go.)

What A Hot Copy Gets You

For one thing, the music just JUMPS out of the speakers. There is so much more LIFE to this recording than I ever thought possible, and only the best pressings let that energy come through. In a nutshell, those are the ones that earn the name Hot Stamper. (more…)

Emerson, Lake & Palmer – Out of This World Sound at Loud Levels

More of the Music of Emerson, Lake and Palmer

  • Boasting KILLER Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound or close to it throughout, this UK Island Pink Rim pressing makes the case that ELP’s debut is clearly one of the most powerful rock records ever made – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • Spacious, rich and dynamic, with big bass and tremendous energy – these are just some of the things we love about Eddie Offord‘s engineering work on this band’s albums
  • Analog at its Tubey Magical finest – you’ll never play a CD (or any other digitally sourced material) that sounds as good as this record as long as you live
  • “Lucky Man” and “Take A Pebble” on this copy have Demo Disc quality sound like you won’t believe
  • 4 1/2 stars: “Lively, ambitious, almost entirely successful debut album… [which] showcased the group at its least pretentious and most musicianly …there isn’t much excess, and there is a lot of impressive musicianship here.”

If you’ve got the system to play this one loud enough, with the low-end weight and energy it requires, you are in for a treat. The organ that opens side two will rattle the foundation of your house if you’re not careful. This music really needs that kind of megawatt reproduction to make sense. This is bombastic prog that wants desperately to rock your world. At moderate levels, it just sounds overblown and silly. At loud levels, it actually will rock your world.

Near The Top Of The List

Without a doubt this record belongs in the Top Rock section. I’d even say it belongs in the Top Ten. It is one of the most dynamic and powerful rock recordings ever made. The organ on this album is wall to wall and floor to ceiling. The quiet interlude during “Take A Pebble” is about as quiet as any popular recording can ever be — the guitar is right at the noise floor. It’s amazing! (Which explains why so many domestic copies have groove damage. The record is just too hard to play for the average turntable. Hell, it’s hard to play with an audiophile turntable.)

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Kraftwerk – Autobahn

More Art Rock

  • Stunning sound on this fun, TAS-approved album, with Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades or close to them from start to finish
  • The right early import pressings (a happy discovery from a few years back) have richness, transparency, space and presence not found anywhere else, I tell you!
  • Forget the dubby domestic pressings – they’re disappointing in the extreme
  • These imports are tough to find with the right stampers, the right sound and audiophile quality playing surfaces, which explains why it’s been over a year since our last big shootout
  • 5 stars: “The 22-minute title track became an international hit single and remains the peak of the band’s achievements – it encapsulates the band and why they are important within one track – but the rest of the album provides soundscapes equally as intriguing.”

This vintage British Vertigo 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…)

Harry Nilsson / Nilsson Schmilsson – The Robed Man’s Masterpiece

More of the Music of Harry Nilsson

  • Solid Double Plus (A++) sound brings Harry Nilsson’s indisputable Masterpiece of Bent Rock to life on this vintage copy
  • Both sides are remarkably good sounding, thanks to the brilliant engineering skills of Phill (That’s Two L’s) Brown
  • A Better Records favorite (we give it Five Stars) that really comes to life on a superb pressing such as this one
  • 4 1/2 stars: “…it’s a near-perfect summary of everything Nilsson could do; he could be craftier and stranger, but never did he achieve the perfect balance as he did here.”
  • If I were to compile a list of my favorite rock and pop albums from 1971, this album would definitely be on it

Big production pop like this is hard to pull off. Harry did an amazing job, but the recording is not perfect judging by the dozen or so copies we played during our most recent shootout, and the scores w’ve suffered through before. Let’s face it: “Jump Into The Fire” will never be smooth and sweet; neither will “Down” on side one. But other tracks on this album have Demo Disc sound.

Nilsson Schmilsson is an album we think we know well. It checks off a number of important boxes for us here at Better Records:

One of His Best

Son of Schmilsson and the album simply titled Harry are two other superb Nilsson records that both come highly recommended. Harry is my favorite of them all, perhaps because it was so different from anything that I’d ever heard up to that point (I was 15 at the time). A Little Touch… is also a personal favorite, with the great American songbook done in Nilsson’s inimitable style.

By the way, if you get a chance to see the documentary “Who Is Harry Nilsson (and Why Is Everybody Talkin’ About Him?),” you should definitely check it out. Most of us here have seen it by now and it’s a ton of fun.

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Van Morrison – Moondance

More of the Music of Van Morrison

  • An early Green Label pressing that was doing just about everything right, with both sides earning solid Double Plus (A++) grades or BETTER – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • Drop the needle anywhere on the album for a taste of early-70s Tubey Magical analog sound, not to mention the kind of blue-eyed soul that will remind some of you just how good music on vinyl used to be
  • A tough title to find in clean condition these days – most are covered in repeating marks – but not this one!
  • “An album worthy of an Irish R&B singer who wrote a teen hit called ‘Mystic Eyes’ (not to mention a Brill Building smash called ‘Brown Eyed Girl’), adding punchy brass (including pennywhistles and foghorn) and a solid backbeat (including congas) to his folk-jazz swing, and a pop-wise formal control to his Gaelic poetry.” Christgau – A+ (a grade he does not give out often)

Musically the record Moondance most reminds me of is After The Gold Rush. Neil Young set out to make a commercial album that had nothing but strong songs built around catchy melodies, using the highest quality production values. What better describes Moondance?

Every song is good, you can sing practically every one of them from memory, and in fact you’ll probably feel like singing along with every one of them as you are playing this very copy.

Van Morrison never made another album as good as this one, and After the Gold Rush is still Neil’s Masterpiece (along with Zuma, of course). If there are two records on the planet that belong in everybody’s collection, it’s these two.

Finding good sounding LPs of both of them is a tricky proposition — unless, of course, you are a customer of Better Records, where superb sounding pressings of Classic Rock Albums can be found all day every day.

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The Who – Who’s Next

More of the Music of The Who

  • Both sides of this vintage UK import were giving us the big and bold sound we were looking for, earning solid Double Plus (A++) grades
  • The bigger your speakers and the louder you play them, the better this pressing will sound because that is the one true test of a rock record
  • This British LP is guaranteed to blow your mind with its phenomenal sound — check out the big, bold, rock ’em, sock ’em bottom end energy
  • These days the UK Track pressings seem to be the only ones that sound right to us – which means no British Polydors and no domestic Deccas (which we actually used to like) are very likely to be coming to the site
  • Compare this to any Heavy Vinyl (or other) pressing and you will hear in a heartbeat why we think the Real Thing just cannot be beat
  • 5 stars: “This is invigorating because it has. . . Townshend laying his soul bare in ways that are funny, painful, and utterly life-affirming. That is what the Who was about, not the rock operas, and that’s why Who’s Next is truer than Tommy or the abandoned Lifehouse. Those were art — this, even with its pretensions, is rock & roll.”
  • If you’re a fan of the band, this title from 1971 is a Masterpiece that belongs in every right thinking audiophile’s collection

Recently we sat down for a massive shootout for Who’s Next, a true Glyn Johns Classic and undeniably one of the greatest rock albums of all time.

The sound of this British Track pressing is wonderful from start to finish. There’s no grain to speak of and dramatically less smearing and veiling than most of the copies we played it against. The presence is startling — turn it up good and loud and The Who will be right there thrashing around in your listening room! The bottom end, on both sides, has the kind of weight that’s absolutely essential to this music.

We’re talking BIG ROCK SOUND and quiet vinyl, a rare combination in our experience, our experience of course coming from dozens and dozens of British Tracks and Polydors, German Polydors, Decca originals, MCA reissues, a few imports from other countries (Japan, thin and bright), and last but far from least, The Classic 200 gram pressing. (Here is our overview.)

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K.D. Lang – Ingenue

More of the Music of K.D. Lang

  • An original copy of Lang’s audiophile favorite from 1992 with INCREDIBLE Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades or close to them on both sides
  • The sound of this rare import is rich, full-bodied, lively, and warm, with solid bass and breathy, clear vocals
  • Includes Lang favorites “Miss Chatelaine” and “Constant Craving” – both are guaranteed to sound better than you have ever heard them
  • 4 stars: “… the craft of the album is impressive indeed, and few artists have reinvented themselves with as much poise and panache as lang did on Ingénue.”
  • If you’re a fan of Ms Lang, her classic album from 1992 surely belongs in your collection.

By 1992 records like this were only released on import vinyl and typically went out of print soon after they started their descent down the pop charts. I used to sell them back in the day and supplies were extremely limited and unpredictable. And once they were gone they were virtually never reissued. All of those factors conspire to make the cost of acquiring the mintiest pressings from overseas fairly high, and of course the main reason you have never seen the album on our site before.

Be that as it may, we have this copy available and it is not only very good sounding but the music is every bit as good as I remember it. (more…)

Cat Stevens – Teaser & The Firecat

More of the Music of Cat Stevens

  • A Teaser and The Firecat like you’ve never heard, with solid Double Plus (A++) grades throughout this vintage Island Pink Rim pressing – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • Here are the sides that will rock your world with their size, richness, clarity and energy, the likes of which you may have never experienced on vinyl
  • A brilliant classic folk rock recording but only the right pressings have the potential for Demo Disc quality sound
  • 5 stars and a Top 10 album – in some ways it’s surely the Best Sounding record Cat Stevens ever made
  • This Folk Rock Masterpiece from 1971 is one that belongs in every audiophile’s collection
  • “Tuesday’s Dead,” “Morning Has Broken,” “Bitterblue,” “Moonshadow” “Peace Train” – and that’s just side two! What side of any album has five songs of such quality?

Before I get further into the sound of this record, let me preface my remarks by saying this is a work of GENIUS. Cat Stevens made two records which belong in the Pantheon of greatest popular recordings of all time. In the world of folky pop, Teaser and the Firecat and Tea for the Tillerman have few peers. There may be other recordings that are as good but there are no other recordings that are better.

When you hear The Wind, Changes IV, or If I Laugh on this copy, you will be convinced, as I am, that this is one of the greatest popular recordings in the history of the world. I don’t know of ANY other album that has more LIFE and MUSICAL ENERGY than this one. (more…)

Roxy Music – Avalon

More of the Music of Roxy Music

  • An Avalon like you’ve never heard, with superb Double Plus (A++) sound throughout this vintage UK pressing – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • Copies that are exceptionally transparent, with three-dimensional depth and a wide soundstage, present this music the way it was meant to be heard
  • Credit Rhett Davies with creating the sonic space to allow the singers, instruments and subtle studio effects to be balanced and integrated from front to back, side to side and top to bottom
  • The sound may be a bit too heavily processed for some, but we find that on the best copies that sound really works for this music, some of the best ever produced by the band
  • 5 stars: “Ferry was never this romantic or seductive, either with Roxy or as a solo artist, and Avalon shimmers with elegance in both its music and its lyrics.”
  • 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

Records like Avalon get people (often known as audiophiles) to spend wads and wads of money in pursuit of expensive analog equipment good enough to bring this wonderful music to life in their very own listening rooms.

The album rewards a stereo with many of the qualities that audiophiles prize most highly when selecting equipment — spaciousness, transparency, clarity, detail, depth, soundstaging, speed, high frequency extension and the like.

The mix is as dense as any we know. Only the best copies have the ability to show you everything that’s on the tape. Credit must go to the amazingly talented Rhett Davies for creating the space to put so many instruments and sounds in.

We would add to that list presence and energy, along with warmth, fullness, and lack of smear on the transients. Whomp and rock and roll power do not seem to play much part in separating the best from the rest, although it’s nice when the bottom end is big and solid.

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