Top Artists – David Bowie

Giorgio Moroder – Cat People

More Soundtrack Albums

TAS List Super Discs with Hot Stampers

  • You’ll find outstanding Demo Disc sound here, with each side earning solid Double Plus (A++) grades
  • Eno fans should get a lot out of this one, as should anyone who digs the crazy sound of ’70s and early ’80s analog synths
  • Bowie’s Putting Out Fire is the obvious high point of the album and it rocks like crazy on this pressing
  • Superb transparency is key to the best copies and this one has exceptional clarity on both sides

Stunning sound graces both sides of this TAS List Super Disc! We just finished a big shootout for this album, and this knockout copy sounded far better than most of the competition. Drop the needle on any track for some of the best sounding synthesizers you’ll ever hear!

Monstrously huge on both sides, with punchy bass and full-on major Whomp Factor! This kind of low frequency energy really fills the room; the soundscape is wall to wall and floor to ceiling. We know what Harry likes about this one — the Big Bold Sound with tons of Bottom End — and we have to admit that we like it too. This is the kind of record that KILLS on big speakers.

Eno fans should get a lot out of this one, as should anyone who digs the crazy sound of analog synthesizers of the ’70s and early ’80s. The Bowie track (Cat People) is great, of course, but you won’t find anything else resembling a pop song here — just a bunch of dark, trippy soundscapes with animal noises and some wild sound effects.

It isn’t easy to find clean copies of this one anymore. Much like Sergio Mendes’ Stillness, there are passages on here that are being sampled and turned into rap songs. Hey, with all these wild synth sounds, plus the funky Lee Sklar handling bass duties, who can blame ’em?!

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David Bowie / The Man Who Sold The World – On the Real Mercury Pressing

More David Bowie

The sound is rich and full, just the way the Brits like it. The heavy compression that both Bowie and Scott favor works its magic at every turn, adding fatness and richness and lovely harmonics to the guitars and the drums.

Not many Bowie albums from his “classic” period sound good on domestic vinyl, nothing I know of before Diamond Dogs with the exception of this album and the occasional copy of Space Oddity. Strangely enough, from then on practically every one of Bowie’s albums sounds best on domestic vinyl, all the way through to Let’s Dance, after which we more or less check out — don’t know those albums well and don’t plan on finding out more.

Ah but here, here we have some truly prime period Bowie, recorded, mastered and pressed with Top Quality sound!

Side One

Mick Ronson’s guitars are wonderfully clear. The vocals can get a bit hot on the first track (as is often the case), but by track two the sound has settled in and is rich and smooth, just the way we like it. Very present and lively vocals are a strong point.

Side Two

Listen to the big bass, richness and Tubey Magic of the third track — that is some Ken Scott studio wizardry at play.

Note that the second track seems to be where Alice Cooper found his “sound.” More power to him I say. You could get away with ripping off Bowie in 1970; nobody bought this album in the states, which is why it’s so damn rare and expensive.

And that is the reason there are so many bootlegs. Practically every copy on ebay is a bootleg.  They sound terrible by the way.

How to Spot the Bootleg Copies, Courtesy of Discogs

This release has stamped matrix numbers in the dead wax. All other versions with this cover are counterfeits (with etched matrix numbers) and should not be listed here.

This US release is the first release on LP of The Man Who Sold the World. It was only released in two countries – US and Japan (SFX-7345) – with this original cover. The building in the background is the Cane Hill Hospital where David Bowie’s half-brother Terry was a patient.

The album was released in a further three countries on the Mercury label – Germany (David Bowie – The Man Who Sold The World) in a large circular fold-out cover and the United Kingdom and Australia with a picture of David reclining in a dress. This latter cover is the one used on contemporary releases.

The US Mercury album was counterfeited (see David Bowie – The Man Who Sold The World) in the early 1970s after Bowie became popular. It was possible for a potential buyer to choose between the official RCA reissue (in yet another cover, see David Bowie – The Man Who Sold The World) and the widely distributed counterfeit.

The following visual indicators can be used to confirm an original US Mercury LP:
• The matrices in the runout (the space between the label and the grooves) are machine stamped (the counterfeits are hand etched).
• The space between the final lyric line of The Supermen and the cartoon bubble “Oh By Jingo” on the back cover is approximately the height of a line of text, while on the counterfeits the space is notably wider.

There are other differences, though these can be more easily seen and described in a side-by-side comparison.
Rights Society: ASCAP

Matrix / Runout (Side A, Runout, Stamped): SR 61325-A- M2
Matrix / Runout (Side B, Runout, Stamped): SR 61325-B- M1

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Young Americans Turned Me on to David Sanborn

More of the Music of David Bowie

This is a very old commentary. 

This is one of my favorite Bowie albums. Nobody seems to care about it anymore. They dismiss it as disco junk, but it actually has some of his best music on it. I especially like the song Win. David Sanborn’s saxophone sounds like it’s coming from 60 feet behind Bowie, a nice effect.

I Got Turned On to David Sanborn

This was the record that turned me on to David Sanborn. After hearing this album, and reading that he was responsible for the amazing sax work found here, I went out and bought a bunch of his jazz albums. They were uniformly awful I’m sorry to say. It was years before he actually made a good one, Backstreet, which is still a personal favorite.

By the way, that’s John Lennon on guitar for Across the Universe and Fame.

This part we would no longer agree with in 2023:

A Great Copy But No Demo Disc

This recording will never win any awards for sound. It’s good but it ain’t that good. Sonically I’d put it somewhere between Ziggy Stardust (amazing) and Station to Station (decent but problematic). If you want to hear Young Americans at its best, this copy will let you do that, but I doubt you’ll be demonstrating your stereo to others with this.

I have an original British pressing of this album which is quite a bit smoother. In fact, it’s a bit too smooth and loses some of the energy found on the best domestic copies like this one. There are always trade offs in audio and this appears to be one of them.

Live and learn is our motto, and progress in audio is a feature, not a bug, of record collecting at the most advanced levels. (“Advanced” is a code word for having little to no interest in any remastered pressing marketed to the audiophile community. If you want to avoid the worst of them, we are happy to help you do that.)

Further Reading

If you’re searching for the perfect sound, you came to the right place.

Queen – Hot Space

More Queen

Hot Stamper Albums with Huge Choruses

  • With Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound on side one and an outstanding Double Plus (A++) side two, this copy of Hot Space took top honors in our recent shootout
  • The best pressings – like this one – have plenty of bass and are smoother and fuller than the rest
  • Disco, funk, rhythm and blues, dance and pop music all found their way onto this 1982 release -the monster hit Under Pressure with none other than Mr. David Bowie closes out side two
  • “Hot Space is an essential cog for Queen completists… [it] has invention and ideas to spare.”

Queen albums in general are notoriously hard to find good sound for, and Queen albums from 1982 are probably even harder.

We’re guessing this album’s appeal is probably limited to fans of the band, but for those of you who want something different, or to hear Under Pressure sound good, we offer Hot Space with White Hot Stamper sound. (more…)

Let’s Dance – Analog Only

More of the Music of David Bowie

I have never heard a CD in my life with this kind of tubey magical richness and sweetness. That medium never does justice to the sound of recordings like this one, in my experience anyway.

People who exclusively play CDs have forgotten what that sound is; that’s why they can happily live without it.

I sure can’t. At present this sound is exclusively the domain of analog and likely to remain so well into the future.

Hearing a top copy of Let’s Dance is truly a special experience; the damn thing is amazingly well recorded, especially considering it came along well after the Golden Age of Rock Recording (the ’60s and ’70s, don’t you know). The sound is analog at its best; rich, full and super-punchy.

Omar Hakim

In addition, the musicianship is Top Notch and then some. Omar Hakim’s drumming is powerful, energetic, and performed with military precision. The guy is out of his mind on this album.

The combination of Nile Rodgers and the Legendary Stevie Ray Vaughn on guitar makes for a tasty, intricate mix of subtle rhythm work and searing leads. Or is that soaring leads? Hey, on this album it’s both.

Listening in Depth to Young Americans

More of the Music of David Bowie

Presenting another entry in our extensive listening in depth series with advice on what to listen for as you critically evaluate your copy of the album.

Here are some albums currently on our site with similar track by track breakdowns.

This is one of my favorite Bowie albums. Nobody seems to care about it anymore. They dismiss it as disco junk, but it actually has some of his best music on it. I especially like the song Win. David Sanborn’s saxophone sounds like it’s coming from 60 feet behind Bowie, a nice effect.

Side One

Young Americans  
Win

My favorite track on the album, an undiscovered gem in the Bowie catalog.

Fascination
Right

Side Two

Somebody up There Likes Me

One of the best tracks on the album. Sanborn is out of his head on this track. Another gem that never gets enough credit.

Across the Universe 
Can You Hear Me

This is one of the best tests for side two. It’s the rare copy that gets those soulful background voices to sound clear and clean. They often sound squawky, veiled, or thin.

Grain and smear are big problems with mass-produced vinyl like this. It takes a very special pressing to show you that those problems are in the vinyl, not on the tape.

Fame

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Pin-Ups – Some of His Favourite Songs

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of David Bowie Available Now

Bowie, writing in his own hand, describes Pin-Ups this way:

These songs are among my favourites from the “64–67” period of London.

Most of the groups were playing the Ricky-Tick (was it a ‘y’ or an ‘i’?) – Scene club circuit (Marquee, eel pie island la-la).

Some are still with us.

Pretty Things, Them, Yardbirds, Syd’s Pink Floyd, Mojos, Who, Easybeats, Merseys, The Kinks.

Love-on ya!

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Of Course This Is One of the Greatest Rock Albums of All Time

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of David Bowie Available Now

Is this one of the greatest rock albums of all time?

Unquestionably. It’s the pinnacle of glam rock. Every track is superb; not a moment is less than stellar from beginning to end.

Is it Bowie’s masterpiece?

Absolutely. No other Bowie record ranks higher in my book.

Is it amazingly well recorded?

You better believe it. This is not just Bowie’s masterpiece; it’s Ken Scott‘s as well. For BIG, BOLD, wall to wall, floor to ceiling sound, look no further. The recording is swimming in rich, sweet TUBEY MAGIC. This is a sound we cannot get enough of here at Better Records.

The guitars may not sound “real,” they way they actually do in real life, but they sure sound grungy and good.

Notes from a Recent Shootout

Just drop the needle on any song. Guaranteed you will never hear that song sound better. The mastering is beyond perfection. There’s really no “mastering” to listen for — all you’re really aware of is the music flowing from the speakers, freed from all the limitations that you’ve learned to accept.

There’s no need to go track by track trying to explain why this copy is the Ultimate Ziggy. One drop of the needle will tell you everything you’ll ever need to know. All doubts will be erased within moments. We played this copy against our best other pressings and again and again, no matter what track we played, the sound here was superior.

The Tubey Magic Top Ten

You don’t need tube equipment to hear the prodigious amount of Tubey Magic that exists on this recording. For those of you who’ve experienced top quality analog pressings of Meddle or Dark Side of the Moon, or practically any jazz album on Contemporary, whether played through tubes or transistors, that’s the luscious sound of Tubey Magic, and it is all over Ziggy Stardust.

Big Production Tubey Magical British Rock & Roll just doesn’t get any better.

Ranked strictly in terms of Tubey Magic, I would have to put this album on our list of Most Tubey Magical Rock Recordings of All Time, right up there with, in no particular order:

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