Top Artists – Paul McCartney

Let’s Face It – Some Truly Great Records Are Almost Always Noisy

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Paul McCartney Available Now

Some records are consistently too noisy to keep in stock no matter how good they sound. McCartney’s first album is one of them.

Copies of McCartney’s first can rarely be found on the site, but when there are any copies available, they are most likely to be found in our section for records with condition issues. Here you will find about about 30% of all the Hot Stamper pressings active on the site at any one time.

Hot Stampers are almost exclusively vintage vinyl pressings — “old records” you might say — and old records, even after a good cleaning, are rarely quiet. (We lay out the particulars of our grading system here.)

One of our customers noted that the Hot Stamper we sent him of McCartney’s first album was a bit noisier than he would have liked. We replied:

As for surface issues, we wish we could find them quiet, but that is simply not an option, especially considering how dynamic the recording is. In the listing we noted:

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“The records are so good I cannot concentrate on anything else while they are playing.”

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of The Beatles Available Now

One of our good customers had this to say about some Hot Stampers he purchased recently, one of which was Please Please Me.

Hey Tom, 

In the fall of 2007 I ordered my first Hot Stamper from you, Please Please Me.

Since then I have bought several more Hot Stampers from you, and occasionally you or Todd have written me asking how I like them. I have always replied saying I haven’t listened to them yet, because I’m waiting to buy a good enough turntable to do them justice. 

Good news: I now have a very good turntable.

Even better news: I have now listened to the first few Hot Stampers, and the combination of my new turntable and your Hot Stampers is heavenly.

The records are so good I cannot concentrate on anything else while they are playing, I just have to listen, and I want them to go on for ever.

The detail and clarity are breathtaking and it’s difficult to believe the sound can be really that good, but it is. It’s like the musicians are there in the room, it’s amazing.

For example, Please Please Me and Mccartney Unplugged are stunning, but in truth all the ones I’ve listened to so far are stunning. I’m really looking forward to listening to the rest.

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Our 2016 Shootout Winner Just Sounded More Like Live Music

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Paul McCartney Available Now

Back in 2016 we had this to say about a copy of the album we had just played:

This copy will put you front and center for the single greatest Paul McCartney recorded concert of all time.

In the final round of shootouts on both sides, this copy showed itself as clearly superior in terms of transparency and three-dimensionality, as well as having the most rock solid bottom end. To sum it up, my notes read “so real,” which is exactly what makes this copy THE one to have. This is Paul and his mates LIVE in your listening room like you have never heard them before.

This copy gave us the feeling that we were right there in the audience for the taping of this amazing performance. It made other copies sound like records — good records, but records nonetheless. This one has the IMMEDIACY of a live show, one which just happened to be fronted by one of the greatest performers in the history of popular music, Sir Paul McCartney.

We shootout this album about once a year, which means that many changes will have occurred to the stereo in the meantime. One of the qualities that we noticed this time around was how much like live music this album can be when the pressings have one specific quality — tons of bass.

Live music, especially live music heard in a club, tends to have plenty of bass. It’s the sonic quality that’s by far the most difficult to recreate in the home.

When a record manages to capture that kind of “live” low end energy, it really helps make the connection between the sound of live music and the sound coming out of your speakers.

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Paul McCartney’s Must Own Masterpiece

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Paul McCartney Available Now

The best tracks on McCartney’s first album have the quality of LIVE MUSIC in a way that not one out of a hundred rock records do. It sounds like it’s recorded live in the studio, but of course that’s impossible, because Paul plays practically all the instruments himself.

It just goes to show how good a multi-track studio recording can sound when it’s done well.

The recording also has an unprocessed quality which we’ve always found attractive, with some songs sounding more like demos than finished takes, about as far from Abbey Road as it would be possible to get.

In our experience, the real McCartney Magic is only found on the best domestic Apple pressings. We’ve never heard an import that did much for us, and the later CBS issues are hardly worth the vinyl they’re pressed on.

This album, like Unplugged and Band on the Run (and not a whole lot else) is SUPERB from start to finish. At the end of side two you want MORE. I wish I could say that about the rest of his discography.

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Our First Unplugged Shootout Winner

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Paul McCartney Available Now

UPDATE 2026

I don’t recall — it was fifteen years ago and we’ve played a lot of copies since then — but these notes may have been generated for our first shootout of McCartney’s Unplugged album.

Back then we would have been limited to buying them locally in stores, so it might have taken us quite a few years to acquire enough copies in to do the shootout.

By the way, the original wholesale cost to the stores was $7 and change. Most stores were charging $20-25 when the record came out. I knew guys who bought a case or more, knowing that the album was soon to go out of print with a  limited run of 50k. They quickly raised that to 75k because of the demand was so high. They found they could get $50 a pop as soon as that happened, which wasn’t long. (In 1991 music lovers were not being inundated with a ridiculous number of pointless reissues they way they are today. Record Store Day, I’m looking at you.)

I mention below that 8 out of 10 copies sound pretty good, which is not quite true. There are lots of copies that don’t sound very good at all, but if you know the trick to avoiding them, then yes, 8 out of 10 will at least sound “good.”

McCartney Unplugged is one of those records that helped us dramatically improve our playback quality. If you have the time, we encourage you to check out the links at the bottom of this post.

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Sonic Pros and Cons for Unplugged

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Paul McCartney Available Now

The best pressings of this album convey the immediacy of a live show, one which just happens to be fronted by one of the greatest performers and songwriters in the history of popular music, Sir Paul McCartney.

On the best copies, the sound is warmer, richer, and sweeter, or in a word, more ANALOG sounding. You get more extension up top, more weight down low, and more transparency in the midrange.

It’s surprising just how veiled and two-dimensional so many copies sound, considering this is a live recording with not a lot of processing.

As a digital recording, some of that processing is baked into the tape. Unplugged will  never sound as good as this McCartney album, but that’s to be expected.

The bulk of the recordings from 1991 are simply not competitive with those from 1970, not by a long shot. There were hundreds of great records recorded or released in 1970. There are 24 Hot Stamper pressings of them on the site as I write this. I would have a hard time finding even a half-dozen from 1991.

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Paul McCartney – McCartney

More of the Music of Sir Paul McCartney

  • INCREDIBLE Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound or close to it brings McCartney’s Apple debut to life on this vintage pressing – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • It’s practically impossible to find copies of this album that sound any good, let alone this good
  • The musicality, energy and presence are right on the money, not to mention that the studio space is huge
  • On the more resolving audiophile systems of today, the ambience, three-dimensionality and transparency of the best originals are aspects of the sound that only the highest quality vintage vinyl pressings are capable, in our experience, of reproducing
  • Record Collector highlighted “Every Night,” “Junk,” and “Maybe I’m Amazed” as songs that “still sound absolutely effortless and demonstrate the man’s natural genius with a melody.”
  • A Top 100 pick and Paul McCartney’s one and only Masterpiece – a Must Own when it sounds this good
  • Marks in the vinyl are sometimes the nature of the beast with these vintage LPs – there simply is no way around them if the superior sound of vintage analog is important to you
  • This is our pick for Paul McCartney’s best sounding album. Roughly 100 other listings for the Best Sounding Album by an Artist or Group can be found here.
  • A Must Own Title from 1970, a great year for rock and pop music

The best tracks here have the quality of live music in a way that not one out of a hundred rock records do. The music jumps right out of the speakers and fills up the room.

The album sounds like it’s recorded live in the studio, but of course that’s impossible, because Paul plays practically all the instruments himself! It just goes to show how good a multi-track studio recording can sound when done well.

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Listening in Depth to McCartney

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Paul McCartney Available Now

The best tracks here have the quality of LIVE MUSIC in a way that not one out of a hundred rock records do. The music jumps right out of the speakers and fills up the room.

The album sounds like it’s recorded live in the studio, but of course that’s impossible, because Paul plays practically all the instruments himself! It just goes to show how good a multi-track studio recording can sound when done well. (More rock and pop recordings with live in the studio sound can be found here.)

Side Two

Oo You

The distorted guitar in a huge and reverberant room that leads off this side is one of my favorite “sounds” on any McCartney album. The bigger, richer and grungier the guitar sounds, the better.

Momma Miss America
Teddy Boy

This is a very tough track to get right. There is processing on Paul’s voice that some copies make a mess of, adding a kind of unpleasant resonance, which of course the better copies do not.

It’s a fairly simple arrangement: acoustic guitar, bass, voice and Linda’s backing vocals. When all of these things are in balance, the sound will be lovely. Paul’s voice, because of the processing I mentioned, doesn’t sound as natural as it does on other tracks, but it shouldn’t be irritating or disagreeable.

Singalong Junk
Maybe I’m Amazed

Another exceptionally hard track to get right. On a top copy the guitar solo will JUMP right out of your speakers. It should have the energy of LIVE MUSIC

Kreen-Akrore

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Paul McCartney – Pipes of Peace

More of the Music of Paul McCartney 

  • You’ll find excellent Double Plus (A++) grades throughout this vintage UK pressing – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • The sound here is rich and Tubey Magical, two qualities the CD made from these tapes surely lacks and two qualities which are crucial if this music is to sound the way Sir Paul intended
  • These sides are bigger, more natural, warmer and more solid than those of any other copy you’ve heard or your money back
  • The sound may be heavily processed, but that sound works surprisingly well on the best sounding pressings (played at good, loud levels on big dynamic speakers in a large, heavily-treated room, of course)
  • “‘Say Say Say’ [featuring Michael Jackson] hits hard, sounding as funky as anything on Thriller, and ‘Pipes of Peace’ achieves an earned grace. Perhaps Pipes of Peace doesn’t have the gravitas of Tug of War but it offers something equally valuable: a portrait of an impeccable craftsman at play.”

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Wild Life – “I treasure this album, and was delighted to learn a shootout had been done for it.”

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Paul McCartney Available Now

Our good customer Austin had this to say about his most recent purchase:

Hi Tom,

It bears remembering that McCartney was reviled by the music press of the day, who were stridently left-wing and far more sympathetic to Lennon and Harrison for their social activism than whether their latest music releases were any good.

Harrison regrettably piled on in an interview with Record Mirror, saying of Wild Life, “the songs are pretty poor–and the sounds! The recording was very bad. It’s as if he’s forgotten everything, I was really disappointed.”

Which is to say I agree with your general point that the album is underestimated and underappreciated. It’s not his best work and perhaps not a great album, but certainly a good one containing a lot of worthwhile experiments if also a few that don’t quite come off. I treasure this album, and was delighted to learn a shootout had been done for it.

I’m mildly surprised you didn’t take the opportunity to point out Alan Parsons as one of the two engineers credited on the sessions, the other being Tony Clark. Parsons is also an uncredited backing singer on the chorus of ‘Tomorrow’.

To quote Paul himself on the eve of the Wings 1972 European tour, “I’m not trying to anything staggering, it’ll be a good band that can play good music, that’s good enough for me.” Wild Life easily holds its own against these ambitions.

Best regards,

Austin

Austin,

I have to admit that I have not played the album in decades, and the last time I did play it, I’m sure it would have been the domestic pressing. Even those were hard to find back in the 70s. It didn’t sell well and disappeared from the bins shortly after release. All I really have are old memories of the album to go by, and you can imagine how reliable those are.

The staff did the shooout. They found the killer copies that made it to the site as Hot Stampers, including the one you bought.

The important thing is that you like the album and now you can hear it in all its glory. What could be better?

There are plenty of records I love dearly — many of them qualifying as Desert Island Discs even — for which buyers are hard to find.

Most of them we still do shootouts for, although there are plenty that we were forced to give up on. If there are no buyers, we have no business doing a shootout for the sake of doing a shootout, especially when there are so many deserving titles waiting in the queue, often for months.

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