Favorites – Rock-Pop

If I still had a record collection — no longer in the cards because all of my records went to good homes a long time ago — these 250 or so titles would be in it.

Fleetwood Mac – Future Games

More of the Music of Fleetwood Mac

  • With two STUNNING Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sides or close to them, this copy is guaranteed to blow the doors off any other Future Games you’ve heard
  • You’ll find huge sound on this copy – it’s big, bold and lively – this is clearly the right sound for Future Games
  • Fleetwood Mac practically invented Space Rock, which reached its apotheosis in 1973 on Mystery to Me (my favorite by the band)
  • A criminally underrated album unlike anything you’ve heard and a Better Records favorite for more than 40 years
  • It’s also a record that has disappeared off the face of the earth – we would love to do more shootouts for the album, but we just never see them anymore (more…)

Elvis Costello / Armed Forces – A Phenomenal Demo Disc from 1979

More of the Music of Elvis Costello

  • This vintage UK pressing will show you just how good sounding Elvis’s best recording can be, with KILLER Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades or close to them on both sides
  • It’s some of the biggest, boldest rock sound ever recorded
  • A Top 100 Demo Disc, and just amazing here – every track is Elvis at his best
  • 5 stars: “In contrast to the stripped-down pop and rock of his first two albums, Armed Forces boasted a detailed and textured pop production… However, the more spacious arrangements – complete with ringing pianos, echoing reverb, layered guitars, and harmonies – accent Costello’s melodies… It’s a dense but accessible pop record and ranks as his third masterpiece in a row.”
  • There are about 100 records we think deserve to be more popular with audiophiles, and Armed Forces is one of them.

This album checks off a number of our most-prized boxes:

Armed Forces is one of the best-sounding rock records ever made, and a copy like this is proof enough to back up that claim. The best copies are extremely transparent and silky sounding, but with unbelievably punchy, rock-solid bass and drums.

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Sergio Mendes and Brasil ’66 – Equinox

More of the Music of Sergio Mendes

  • An Equinox like you’ve never heard, with solid Double Plus (A++) sound throughout this wonderful copy, along with remarkably quiet vinyl for an original pressing
  • The breathy intimacy of the two wonderful female leads – Lani Hall and Janis Hansen – were brilliantly captured by the engineering team of Bruce Botnick and Larry Levine at A&M
  • It’s humble records like this one that blew my mind when I first discovered them back in the 80s, with their dynamic, energetic, spacious sound, as well as shockingly good music that at the time I had no idea existed
  • “Watch What Happens,” “Night and Day,” “Wave” – Mendes brings his innovative Bossa Nova arranging skills to these timeless classics
  • 4 1/2 stars: “Equinox continues the scrumptiously winning sound that Sergio Mendes cooked up in the mid-60s… Again, the mix of American pop tunes old and new and Brazilian standards and sleepers is impeccable, and the treatments are smooth, swinging, and very much to the point.”
  • 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,” with the accent on the joy these amazing audiophile-quality recordings can bring to your life
  • Equinox (along with their first release) is also one of those albums that helped us dramatically improve our playback quality

These Sergio Mendes records can be surprisingly dynamic, but only the better copies (such as this one) will allow those dynamics to explode naturally, with the kind of ease that only analog is capable of reproducing correctly in our experience.

As you’ve no doubt noticed, we’re the world’s biggest fans of Sergio Mendes here at Better Records. Brasil ’66, Stillness, and this album are all Desert Island Discs for us, and we even enjoy the hell out of some of the later albums. You can search all you want, but outside of The Beatles you are going to have a very tough time finding the diverse thrills that this group offers. We go crazy for the breathy, multi-part female vocals, their unusually voiced multi-tracked harmonies, the brilliant percussion, and, let us not forget, Mendes’ superb keyboard work anchoring as well as jazzing up the whole production.

His stuff never sounds dated to us, and we’ve never heard another artist do anything in the ’60s samba idiom nearly as well. We love Astrud Gilberto’s albums from the period, which no doubt served as a template for the style Sergio wanted to create with his new ensemble, but Brazil 66 is clearly a step up in every way: songwriting, arranging, production, and quality of musicianship.

Just play the group’s amazing versions of “Watch What Happens,” “Night and Day,” or “Jobim’s Wave” to hear the kind of Mendes Magic that makes us swoon. For we audiophiles, it just doesn’t get any better. (Well, almost. Stillness is still the Ultimate, on the level of a Dark Side of the Moon or Tea for the Tillerman, but Equinox is right up there with it.)

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The Pretenders – Get Close

More of the Music of The Pretenders

  • With two INSANELY GOOD Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sides, you’ll have a hard time finding a copy that sounds remotely as good as this vintage import pressing – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • These sides are energetic, clear and full-bodied, with Chrissie Hynde’s vocals front and center where they belong
  • If all you know are audiophile or domestic pressings, you should be prepared for a mind-blowing experience with this copy
  • However, the sound of the album is more aggressive than some audiophiles might like, so fair warning: you will not be demonstrating your stereo with this one, no matter how much better sounding than other copies it may be
  • “Hynde’s voice is in great form throughout, and when she gets her dander up, she still has plenty to say and good ways to say it; ‘How Much Did You Get for Your Soul?’ is a gleefully venomous attack on the musically unscrupulous; ‘Don’t Get Me Wrong’ is a superb pop tune and a deserved hit single; and the Motown-flavored ‘I Remember You’ and the moody ‘Chill Factor’ suggest she’d been learning a lot from her old soul singles.”

Get Close has long been a personal favorite of mine. Side one starts off with a bang with “My Baby,” one of the best tracks this band ever recorded. Of course at this point it’s hard to call The Pretenders a band as it is pretty much Chrissie Hynde’s show. She continues to mature as a songwriter, and the arrangements and production value are excellent as well, with heavy hitters such as Steve Lillywhite, Bob Clearmountain and Jimmy Iovine involved.

We have a category on the site entitled women who rock. No other woman on earth can rock the way Chrissie Hynde can, and this album, along with Learning to Crawl, is all the proof anyone needs.

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Eric Clapton – Self-Titled

More of the Music of Eric Clapton

  • Outstanding sound throughout this UK Polydor pressing, with solid Double Plus (A++) grades from top to bottom
  • Man, what a revelation to hear this old favorite sound so remarkably rich and open – you’ll have a very difficult time finding one that sounds this good lying around in the bins, that’s for sure
  • Both sides here are superb – the clarity, transparency, and presence outperformed most of the others we heard in our most recent shootout
  • Getting rid of the gritty, grainy, edgy qualities of the sound, while keeping all the detail and texture and resolution we know has to be on the tape is a tricky business, but this copy pulled it off better than nearly all of what we played
  • Forget the domestic Atcos – they suffer from all the problems listed above
  • 4 1/2 stars: “Throughout the album, Clapton turns out concise solos that de-emphasize his status as guitar god, even when they display astonishing musicality and technique.”
  • Here’s a question for you: was 1970 the best year ever for rock and pop music?

This is not your usual Clapton album, and that’s a good thing because most Clapton albums are full of filler. Not so here — almost every song is good, and many are superb.

Horns Are Key

The sound of the horn arrangements backing practically every song on the album are key to the quality of the pressing and mastering. Blurry, smeary, leading-edge-challenged horns on this album are the kiss of death, as are grainy-gritty transistory ones. When the horns have clarity, correct tonality, plenty of space around them and sound full-bodied, probably every other instrument in the soundscape will too.

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Supertramp – Breakfast In America

More of the Music of Supertramp

  • Both sides of this vintage copy have stunning sound for the band’s Must Own 1979 release, earning Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades or close to them
  • An excellent recording with huge, powerful, dynamic sound – the Tubey Magical richness of these sides will have your jaw on the floor
  • Turn it up good and loud and you will be amazed at how dynamic some of the guitar solos are.
  • As is sometimes the nature of the beast with these vintage LPs, there are some bad marks that play (most notably on “Take the Long Way Home” and “Casual Conversations”) but once you hear just how incredible sounding this copy is, you might be inclined, as we were, to stop counting ticks and just be swept away by the music
  • 4 1/2 stars: “The majority of the album consisted of tightly written, catchy, well-constructed pop songs, like the hits ‘The Logical Song,’ ‘Take the Long Way Home,’ and ‘Goodbye Stranger.'”

We’re always amazed by just how good the better copies of this album can sound — huge, spacious, punchy sound we can never get enough of around here. If you have big speakers, a great copy will blow your mind…and it will probably blow your mind even if you don’t!

We are not the least bit ashamed to say that we love this album here at Better Records, and a copy like this will certainly help to show you why. Drop the needle on “Gone Hollywood,” “The Logical Song” or “Take The Long Way Home” to hear how powerful this music can sound when you have a great pressing.

Most copies of this record are grainy, thin, shrill and aggressive. When you get a Hot Stamper like this one, the highs are sweet and silky. This recording has plenty of top end, so if the highs aren’t correct it pretty much ruins the sound of the record.

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Little Feat – The Last Record Album

Hot Stamper Pressings of Personal Favorites Available Now

  • Here is a vintage copy with KILLER Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades or close to them on both sides – this is the best studio album the band ever recorded
  • The drums are rich and fat and deliciously analog, a perfect match for the sound of the album as a whole
  • Consistently strong songwriting with dramatically more emotionally powerful tracks than their other releases
  • Features great songs like “All That You Dream,” “Long Distance Love,” “Mercenary Territory” and more

The Last Record Album is one of our favorite Little Feat albums. The recording, by the estimable George Massenburg (working with Dave Hassinger), has many outstanding qualities. Among them is amazing bass; the bass goes really deep in places (“Long Distance Love”) and it’s big, punchy, rich and well up in the mix throughout the album.

The problem has always been an overly smooth top end, combined with congestion, smear, and a serious lack of presence. The good news is that if you clean enough copies with the advanced cleaning techniques we’ve developed, and you make enough improvements to your stereo, room, etc, with the right copy you can actually get this album to sound clear and rich.

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The Eagles – Hotel California

More of the Music of The Eagles

  • Both sides of this vintage copy were giving us the big and bold sound we were looking for, earning solid Double Plus (A++) grades
  • If you have any modern remastered pressing of the album, please order this one so you can hear what you have been missing all these years
  • A Better Records Top 100 pick – here’s a copy that’s transparent and hi-rez, with all the energy and Tubey Magic that can only be found on the right pressings of the originals
  • Speaking of the right pressings, the right stampers are ten or twenty times as rare as the run-of-the-mill stampers that show up on eBay every day, which should explain why this multi-million selling title rarely makes it to the site
  • 5 stars: “Hotel California unveiled what seemed almost like a whole new band… The result was the Eagles’ biggest-selling regular album release, and one of the most successful rock albums ever.”
  • If ever there was a Must Own album from 1976, Hotel California has to be it – who doesn’t love this album?

We are having a devil of a time finding this album in audiophile playing condition these days, which is why you practically never see them on the site anymore, and copies quieter than Mint Minus Minus are rare indeed.

From first note to last, this pressing has superb, mind-blowing, Demo Disc sound. Drop the needle on any track on either side to hear what we’re talking about. The highs are silky and delicate, the bottom end is tight and punchy, and the vocals sound amazing. The bass is perfection, which really brings out the feel of the song “Hotel California.” It’s so deep and loping, the effect is practically narcotic.

“Life In The Fast Lane” is possibly the toughest song on the album to get right — it tends to have that transistory, compressed sound that we’ve come to expect from Bill Szymczyk. On this copy, it really rocks — super-punchy with amazing presence and lots of meaty texture to the guitars. It will always sound a bit harsher than ideal on any copy with real presence, texture, and energy; that’s just the sound they were going for. It is what it is, which makes it not a good track to judge the first side by.

On side two, one of the better sounding tracks is “Try And Love Again.” On a superb copy like this one, it’s off the charts. The wonderful clarity and punchy bass here take this song to a whole new level.

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Loggins and Messina – Mother Lode

More of the Music of Loggins and Messina

  • L&M’s 1974 release comes to life on this vintage copy with solid Double Plus (A++) sound or BETTER on both sides – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • A surprisingly dynamic, well-recorded album – with Demo Disc quality sound – and a personal favorite from way back
  • I can’t recall another pop or rock recording that better captures both the plucked energy and the harmonic nuances of the mandolin
  • Never a band to find favor with the critics, even AllMusic had to concede that the album was “Elegantly, tastefully accomplished.”
  • If I were to compile a list of my favorite rock and pop albums from 1974, this album would definitely be on it
  • Mother Load is one of the records that helped us dramatically improve the quality of our playback, along with scores of others you can read about here on the blog.

This superb Hot Stamper pressing of L&M’s fourth release demonstrates pretty convincingly just how well-recorded this album is! The bottom end is tight and punchy, and the clarity and transparency are truly off-the-charts.

When Jim Messina rips into his mandolin solo halfway through “Be Free,” your jaw is likely to hit the ground. On the better copies, it positively leaps out of the left speaker. I can’t recall another pop or rock recording that captures either the plucked energy or the harmonic nuances of the instrument better. To hear such a well-recorded mandolin on a copy of this quality is nothing less than a thrillL.

This copy gives us full-bodied pianos; rich, lively vocals, full of presence and brimming with enthusiasm; harmonically-rich guitars, mandolins, dobros and the like, as well as a three-dimensional soundstage that reveals the space around them all.

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Ambrosia / One Eighty

More of the Music of Ambrosia

  • Boasting two solid Double Plus (A++) sides or close to them, this copy of Ambrosia’s 4th studio album will be very hard to beat
  • The sound is lively, punchy, and powerful (particularly on side one) – with all due respect, it should murder whatever copies you may have
  • Analog at its Tubey Magical finest (also particularly on side one) – you’ll never play a CD (or any other digitally sourced material) that sounds as good as this record as long as you live
  • “The ballads are the album’s redeeming feature. They are all lovingly crafted and boast strong, often complex melodies that keep them from getting too sappy or sentimental… The album’s finale, “Biggest Part of Me,” is the best… It combines rich Beach Boys-styled harmonies with a heartfelt lyric to create a rich slice of blue-eyed soul that gave the group a number two hit single…”
  • As is sometimes the case, there is one and only one set of stampers that consistently wins our shootouts for One Eighty.  Click on this link to see other titles with a single set of stamper numbers that always come out on top

This is smooth, rich analog at its best. Easy on the ears as we like to say.

This is clearly the poppier side of Ambrosia, containing two of their highest-charting mainstream hits, “Biggest Part of Me” (#3) and “You’re the Only Woman” (#13). I, myself, of course prefer the proggy first two albums, falling as they do into the broad category of Art Rock where my favorite albums by Bowie, Peter Gabriel, Roxy Music, Supertramp, 10cc, later-period Beatles, Jethro Tull, Pink Floyd, Traffic and so many others from the last forty-plus years can be found.

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