Top Artists – Elvis Costello

Elvis Costello / Spike

More Elvis Costello

More Reviews and Commentaries for the Brilliant Music of Elvis Costello

  • With KILLER Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound or close to it throughout, this copy is one of the BEST we have ever heard
  • This early import pressing showed us a Spike we never knew existed until a few years ago – there was so much energy and presence that it just came jumping out of the speakers and simply refused to mind its manners. Elvis should be proud. Why don’t more records sound like this?
  • “Any King’s Shilling” on side two, with its authentic Irish instrumentation (fiddle, uilleann pipes, Irish harp, bodhran), has Demo Disc Quality sound of the highest order
  • One of the best batches of songs Elvis (and his buddy Paul McCartney) ever wrote – the combination of such good sound and such good music makes this the last of the great Elvis records for us audiophiles
  • If you’re a fan of Elvis’s, this is a Top Title from 1987 that belongs in your collection

Spike checks off a number of important boxes for us here at Better Records:

Elvis Costello – Trust

More Elvis Costello

More Top 100 Titles

  • With two outstanding Double Plus (A++) sides, this original UK import pressing is guaranteed to blow the doors off any other Trust you’ve heard
  • This copy has Demo Disc sound guaranteed to knock you right out of your listening chair
  • The clarity and transparency allow you to appreciate subtleties in the high end even when the bass and drums are really POUNDING
  • 5 stars: “…their most ambitious and eclectic album to date… Costello & the Attractions demonstrate their musical skill and savvy by essentially sticking to the direct sound of their four-piece band. In the process, they recorded, arguably, their most impressive album, one that demonstrates all sides of Costello’s songwriting and performing personality without succumbing to pretentiousness.”
  • 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.”
  • Trust is a good example of a record many audiophiles would benefit from knowing better.

This copy has The Big Sound that lets this music really rock. There’s a ton of low-end on this record; regrettably, most copies suffer from either a lack of bass or a lack of bass definition. I can’t tell you how much you’re missing when the bass isn’t right on this album. It’s without a doubt the Single Most Important Aspect of the sound on this album.

When the bass is right, everything falls into place, and the music comes powerfully to life. When the bass is lacking or ill-defined, the music seems labored; the moment-to-moment rhythmic changes in the songs blur together, and the band just doesn’t swing the way it’s supposed to.

(more…)

Elvis Costello / My Aim Is True

More Elvis Costello

Letters and Commentaries for My Aim Is True

  • This vintage pressing of Costello’s debut LP boasts two superb Double Plus (A++) sides
  • Exceptionally quiet vinyl – I don’t recall ever listing a quieter one
  • The sound is lively, punchy, and powerful – with all due respect, it should murder whatever copies you may have
  • A massive step up sonically from most domestic pressings, early or otherwise, and guaranteed to handily beat the imports as well
  • 5 stars: “A phenomenal debut, capturing a songwriter and musician whose words were as rich and clever as his music.”
  • Our favorite “unprocessed-sounding” rock recording – with virtually none of the euphonic glossy artificiality you might hear on many of the rock records we sell
  • There’s nothing wrong with that sound, mind you, but this recording captures much more of what the real instruments sound like in the studio, or should I say the garage, because that’s what these guys are trying to sound like, a garage band

Yes, it’s lively and has that driving punk rock bass, but what sets this copy apart from the average pressing is the top end — it’s extended, silky and correct. As a consequence, the vocals end up being much more present and natural, with almost none of the grit and spit common to most of the copies anyone is ever likely to come across.

That said, we want our rock records to rock. Here are some others you might want to read about:

(more…)

Elvis Costello / Armed Forces

Armed Forces is one of the best sounding rock records ever made. The hottest copies have unbelievably punchy, rock-solid bass and drums.

Hot Stamper Pressings of Armed Forces Available Now

Reviews and Commentaries for Armed Forces

Further Reading

Elvis Costello – King of America

More Elvis Costello

More Records We Sell Only on Import Vinyl

  • This F-Beat import pressing of Elvis’s brilliant 1986 release boasts seriously good Double Plus (A++) sound throughout – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • Both sides are clean, clear, and lively with plenty of bottom end and lots of space around all of the instruments
  • Nina Simone’s “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood” is only one highlight among many – these are some of his best songs
  • 4 1/2 stars: “Stripping away much of the excess that cluttered Punch the Clock and Goodbye Cruel World, Elvis Costello returned to his folk-rock and pub rock roots with King of America, creating one of his most affecting and personal records … one of his masterpieces.”

Even though the album was recorded right here in the states, the domestic copies are clearly made from dubs, sounding quite a bit more opaque, vague, closed-in, flat and dry than most of the British pressings we played.

Like most Costello albums on domestic vinyl, they should be avoided.

Of course, I and all my friends, at least the ones who were into Elvis at the time, had a copy with exactly this kind of mediocre sound and we liked it just fine. Now, thirty-six years on, I couldn’t sit through that kind of sound with a gun to my head.

Setting higher standards for yourself — consciously or unconsciously, the process works both ways — is an important aspect of becoming a more critical listener. Many of the Heavy Vinyl audiophile remasters sound “opaque, vague, closed-in, flat and dry” next to the best Hot Stamper pressings, but if you’ve never heard one, how would you know what you’re missing?

(more…)

Elvis Costello Arrayed His Armed Forces and Produced His Single Best Sounding Album

Hot Stamper Pressings of Elvis’s Albums Available Now

Reviews and Commentaries for Armed Forces

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

The sound of the rhythm section ranks with the best we’ve ever heard. Beyond that, the musical chops of this band at this time rank with the best in the history of rock. Steve, Bruce and Pete rarely get the credit they deserve for being one of the tightest, liveliest backing bands ever to walk into a studio or on to a stage.

The song Oliver’s Army on the first side is a perfect example of what we’re talking about. Rock music doesn’t get much livelier than that. Skip on down to Green Shirt for another track that’s as punchy as they come.

Virtually every other copy of this record I’ve ever played sounded pale and washed out compared to the good British early pressings. It almost makes you wonder what happened to the tape; it seems as if this tape wasn’t used to make any records after this batch was pressed, it’s that big of a difference. (We have found surprisingly good British second pressings before but they are never competitive with the likes of these earlier pressings.)

This album checks off a few of our favorite boxes:

The Double Whammy

A customer a while back noted that hearing his recently acquired Armed Forces Hot Stamper caused him to reevaluate his entire record collection. We empathized with the predicament in which he now found himself, and tried to put the experience in context this way:

You got blindsided by The Double Whammy — an amazing Hot Stamper pressing of a superbly well recorded album. That combination is deadly, deadly in the sense that it makes all your other records sound pretty damn dead in comparison.

Armed Forces is surely the best sounding Elvis Costello album The Man ever recorded. I would put it in the First Percentile of all the rock recordings I’ve ever played, ahead of 99% of the pack — but only if you have the right Brit pressing, the kind we describe at length in our review.

(more…)

Elvis Costello – A Very Bad Porky/Pecko Cutting

Hot Stamper Pressings of Elvis’s Albums Available Now

Letters and Commentaries for My Aim Is True

My notes for the one and only UK pressing I’ve played in many years, the one with Porky is the dead wax, note its many weaknesses:

Really loud and full

Too loud and hot vocal

Strains a lot

You know what the sound of this record reminds me of?

An old 45 RPM 7″ single. Remember those?

It’s not unusual for 45 RPM singles from back in the day to be very loud, very compressed, and they often have much-too-hot vocals designed to jump right into your lap.

Mono mixes sometimes have some of that same lowest-common-denominator sound. This mix is stereo but it sounds like it’s coming right out of a jukebox.

No doubt Mr. Peckham was told to make the record sound that way, and he did his job very well.

But audiophiles looking for good sound should heed this warning and avoid the UK LPs of the album. It’s a joke next to the domestic pressings with the right stampers. (The right stampers are hard to find but you will never hear a good sounding early pressing unless you have a copy with the stampers that sound right, a tautology to be sure but one worth noting.)

Our Previous Hot Stamper Commentary

The British pressings are simply not competitive with the best domestics. No import, from any country, can touch a good Columbia pressing from the states. The most common stampers for the Columbia pressings have never sounded very good to these ears, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t some killer copies with different stampers sitting in the bins wearing the generic ’70s Red Columbia label. We’ve heard them. Wish we could find more of them but they are rare and only getting rarer.

Further Reading

This record sounds best to us this way:

For those who might be interested in finding their own Hot Stamper pressings, we here provide

We play mediocre-to-bad sounding pressings so that you don’t have to, a public service from your record-loving friends at Better Records.

You can find this one in our Hall of Shame, along with others that — in our opinion — are best avoided by audiophiles looking for hi-fidelity sound. Some of these records may have passable sonics, but we found the music less than compelling.  These are also records you can safely avoid.

We also have an Audiophile Record Hall of Shame for records that were marketed to audiophiles for their putatively superior sound. If you’ve spent any time on this blog at all, you know that these records are some of the worst sounding pressings we have ever had the displeasure to play.

We routinely play them in our Hot Stamper Shootouts against the vintage records that we offer, and are often surprised at just how bad an “audiophile record” can sound and still be considered an “audiophile record.”

(more…)

On Trust, the Bass Is (Almost) All

Hot Stamper Pressings of Elvis’s Albums Available Now

Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of Elvis Costello

Notes from a Hot Stamper from a while back.

There’s a TON of low-end on this record. Regrettably, most copies suffer from either a lack of bass or a lack of bass definition. I can’t tell you how much you’re missing when the bass isn’t right on this album. (Or if you have the typical bass-shy audiophile speaker, yuck.) 

It’s without a doubt THE SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT ASPECT of the sound on this album. When the bass is right, everything falls into place, and the music comes powerfully to life. When the bass is lacking or ill-defined, the music seems labored; the moment-to-moment rhythmic changes in the songs blur together, and the band just doesn’t swing the way it’s supposed to.

On the best pressings, you get the full-on bottom end WHOMP you paid for, with no loss in control. You can clearly follow Bruce Thomas’s bass lines throughout the songs, a real treat for any music lover. (He and Elvis don’t get along, hence the end of the Attractions as his backing band. I guess we should be thankful for the nine albums on which they were together; many of them are Desert Island Discs for me.)

Not only that, but the drums have real body and resonance, a far cry from the wimpy cardboard drum sound you’ll hear on most copies.

Hey, these are The Attractions: the pro’s pros. You can’t ask for better, and as expected they deliver big time on this album. But the mastering and pressing problems of most British copies typically make them sound half-hearted and uninspired, which is certainly nothing like what they sound like on the master tape. On the master tape, they play GREAT. You need a very special copy of the LP to hear them play that way, and that’s all there is to it. The better the pressing, the better the band.

A Must Own Title

This, along with My Aim Is True and Armed Forces, is as good as it gets for Elvis on LP. All three are absolute Must Owns that belong in any serious rock collection. This is that rare breed of music that never sounds dated (especially considering the era in which it was produced). Music with real depth such as this only gets better with the passage of time. The more you play it, the more you appreciate it, and love it.

(more…)

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

More Elvis Costello

More Top 100 Rock and Pop Albums

  • With KILLER Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound or close to it throughout, this early UK pressing will show you just how good sounding Elvis’s Best Recording can be – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • Some of the biggest, boldest rock sound ever recorded
  • A Top 100 Demo Disc, and just amazing here – every track is Elvis at this 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.”

This album checks off a few of our favorite 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.

I would say the sound of the rhythm section of this album ranks up there with the very best ever recorded. Beyond that, the musical chops of this band at this time rank with the very best in the history of rock. Steve, Bruce and Pete rarely get the credit they deserve for being one of the tightest, liveliest backing bands ever to walk into a studio or on to a stage.

The song Oliver’s Army on the first side is a perfect example of what we’re talking about. Rock music doesn’t get much livelier than that. Skip on down to Green Shirt for another track that’s as punchy as they come.

Virtually every other pressing of this record I’ve ever played sounds pale and washed out compared to the good British early pressings. It almost makes you wonder what happened to the tape; it seems as if this tape wasn’t used to make any records after this batch was pressed, it’s that big of a difference! (We have found surprisingly good British second pressings before but they are never competitive with the likes of these early ones.) (more…)

Elvis Likes Mobile Fidelity About as Much as I Do

Excerpted from an interview in Variety.

People do seem to have caught on to “Painted” as a classic, though, even well outside the realm of your hardcore fans. I saw it on web forums where there were so many people thirsting over the two different editions of the album that Mobile Fidelity put out prior to this, calling it one of the great albums of the ’90s and clamoring to get the best available vinyl versions.

Well, I don’t have any opinion about that. I don’t hold with that company putting their name above the artist. I don’t like the way their records look. I’ve never listened to any of ’em because of that. I think there’s a huge arrogance. Because I’ve worked with the greatest, Bob Ludwig, who mastered the original record, remastered this (new Universal edition), mastered everything else. He’s the end of the story about that. So Mobile Fidelity can fuck themselves. If you put your name above the artist and above the title, what gives you the temerity to do that? You didn’t make the record.

But you must be proud of the fact that this body of work is so well-regarded…

Yeah. Apart from those copies. I’m kidding. They can do what they want with it. I mean, people are listening to it on a memory stick or whatever, you know? I guess it’s better that it exists than it doesn’t exist. It’s like when people say, are you worried about your birthday coming up? I go, you know what’s worse than having a birthday? Not having a birthday.