Top Artists – Richard Thompson (also Linda Thompson)

Richard & Linda Thompson / Pour Down Like Silver

More of the Music of Richard Thompson

  • With two solid Double Plus (A++) or BETTER sides, this UK copy is guaranteed to blow the doors off any other Pour Down Like Silver you’ve heard – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • There’s real Tubey Magic on this album, along with breathy vocals and in-your-listening-room midrange presence
  • Remarkably present, real and resolving, this pressing is guaranteed to murder any remastering undertaken by anyone – past, present and future
  • 4 1/2 stars: “…those brave enough to look past its dark surface will find a startlingly beautiful album; it’s not an easy album to listen to, but it greatly rewards the effort.”

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Unhalfbricking – Simply Vinyl Reviewed

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Richard Thompson Available Now

UPDATE 2026

This remastered pressing came out in 2000, which is probably the year we reviewed it and started to carry it. I thought it sounded very good at the time, but that was a long time ago! We were often fooled back in the old pre-shootout days, and there is no sense pretending otherwise because we have the embarrassing catalog entries to prove it.

What we could do back then and what we can do now, after decades of constant improvement, are as different as night from day, a subject we write about under the heading of audio progress.

I’ve also made a habit of admitting my mistakes in the hopes that other audiophile reviewers would consider following suit. (To my knowledge this has yet to happen, but hope springs eternal.)

Our 2000 Review

This 180 gram LP comes recommended, with very good English sound (smooth, rich) for this early Richard Thompson folk music, with the wonderful Sandy Denny on vocals. Happily, not your standard audiophile fare.

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“It’s great to hear a copy of this record that does the music justice.”

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Richard Thompson Available Now

One of our good customers years ago had this to say about a Hot Stamper pressing of Shoot Out the Lights he’d purchased:

Hey Tom,   

Recently purchased The Hot Stamper of R&L Thompson’s Shoot Out The Lights. What a wonderful copy! Easily put to shame the copies I have on hand by a long shot. It’s great to hear a copy of this record that does the music justice. An exceptional find on your part. Great doing business with you.

Jim S.

Jim,

Glad to hear you liked the copy we sent you as much as we did. We love the album and wish more audiophiles would give it a try. It is a truly extraordinary recording.

With very special recordings like this one, if you turn up your volume good and loud, you will surely be amazed at how dynamic the guitar solos are. I wrote about just such an experience I had many years ago.

I’ve seen Richard Thompson on a number of occasions over the years, and as loud as my stereo will play, which is pretty darn loud, I’ve never been able to make his guitar solos 20 dB louder than everything else, because they’re simply not on the record that way. That’s why live music can’t be reproduced faithfully in the home: the dynamic contrasts are much too great for the typical listener, or his stereo. 

Having said that, when you actually do turn this record up, way up, you get the feeling of hearing live music, and that’s not easy to do.

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Shoot Out The Lights – Bigger, Taller, Wider, Deeper

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Richard Thompson Available Now

One of the qualities we don’t talk about nearly enough on the site is the SIZE of a record’s presentation. Some copies of the album don’t extend all the way to the outside edges of the speakers, and don’t seem to take up all the space from the floor to the ceiling. Other copies do, creating a huge soundfield from which the instruments and voices positively jump out of the speakers. 

When you hear a copy that can do that, needless to say (at least to anyone who’s actually bought some of our best Hot Stamper pressings) it’s an entirely different listening experience.

With constant improvements to the system, Shoot Out the Lights is now so powerful a recording that we had no choice but to add it to our Top 100 list in 2014, but we would go even further than that and say that it would belong on a list of the Top Ten Best Sounding Rock Records of All Time.

The guitars are HUGE — they positively leap out of the speakers on the title cut, freeing themselves from a studio that seems already to be the size of a house.

Not long ago we played an amazing copy of The Sky Is Crying, one of the biggest — and by that we mean tallest, widest and deepest — sounding records we have ever heard. This album is every bit as big. It’s nothing less than astounding.

We live for that sound here at Better Records. If you do too, you might want to check out the albums in this group we consider to be Demo Discs for size and space.

There is the kind of solid, powerful kick to the drums on every track that only the best of the best rock records ever display, the Back in Blacks and Zep IIs, with deep punchy bass augmenting the drums, just as it does on the Hot Stamper pressings of those two titles.

It’s no exaggeration to say that this record should put to shame 99% of all the rock records you have ever heard.

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We Don’t Offer Domestic Pressings of Pour Down Like Silver for One Very Simple Reason

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Richard Thompson Available Now

In spite of the fact that the domestic pressings of this Richard and Linda Thompson classic from 1974 were mastered by the likes of Kendun and Sterling — two of the greatest mastering houses of all time, — they have never impressed us with their sound quality.

The biggest problems with this record would be obvious to even the casual listener: gritty, spitty vocals; lack of richness; bright tonality; lack of bass; no real space or transparency, etc.

The domestic Island pressings did not do nearly as well in our shootout as the best Island imports, no surprise there as the early UK records were mastered by one of our favorite engineers.

Avoid the Carthage pressings mastered by Sterling. They came in last in our shootout.

The domestic breakdown follows:

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Richard & Linda Thompson / Sunnyvista

More of the Music of Richard Thompson

  • Boasting two solid Double Plus (A++) sides, this original UK Chrysalis pressing (one of only a handful of copies to hit the site in years) is doing just about everything right
  • None of the domestic copies we played were more than passable, and even worse, most of the Brit originals we played were almost as smeary, veiled and opaque
  • Both of these sides are simply bigger, more present, more energetic and just plain more fun than most others in our recent shootout
  • If you’re a fan, this is the only way we know of to hear this album sound the way it should
  • 4 1/2 stars: “…the wittiest and most joyous album Richard & Linda made together.”

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Richard Thompson / Action Packed: The Best of the Capitol Years

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Richard Thompson Available Now

UPDATE 2025

Note that this review was written in 2001 when the record came out and we were still selling sealed new releases based on the audition of a single copy. (I had the play copy of this record in my personal collection for years and never got around to playing it, one of the downsides of having to play records all day to make money, resulting in little time to play the recordings of favorite artists that lack a customer base.

We have no idea what Action Packed would sound like these days on the much more revealing system we use now. I do know that the CD is very good. It’s probably the best way to approach the music initially. If you become a fan, consider the vinyl.

We would love to do a shootout for this title, but at a hundred bucks or more a pop it’s hard to imagine that a decision to devote the resources to such a project would be wise on our part.

We already do plenty of shootouts for records that are hard to sell, of titles that should be more popular with audiophiles but for some reason just aren’t.

Our Review from 2001

Another top outing on TWO clear vinyl LP’s from the master of modern electric folk music. It doesn’t get any better than this.

The sound is excellent and the music is some of the best Richard Thompson has ever made. If I had to choose one later Richard Thompson album, this would probably be it.

Almost every one of these pressings is very slightly dished, but this should not have any effect on the sound, which is excellent.

Thompson’s lovely duet with his son on Persuasion is worth the price of the album.

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Richard and Linda Thompson – Hokey Pokey

More of the Music of Richard Thompson

  • Superb sound for this classic Richard and Linda Thompson album, with both sides earning solid Double Plus (A++) grades – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • Clearly one of the better copies from our most recent shootout, with much more body, punchier bass and more detail than most others we played
  • Everything you want in the sound of a good British Folk Rock album is here in abundance on this original UK Island pressing – enjoy!
  • 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
  • 4 stars: “The Thompsons, from the opening Irish fiddle derivation of a Chuck Berry riff, through Linda’s exquisite performance of ‘A Heart Needs a Home,’ to their cover of Mike Waterson’s ‘Mole in a Hole’ which closes the record, once again create a timeless amalgam of folk and rock…”

This is one of Richard and Linda Thompson’s better releases, their second in fact, following the luminous I Want to See the Bright Lights Shine from a year earlier. Rich and full-bodied, with big bass and gobs of studio ambience, this pressing presents the music the way it was meant to be heard (more…)

Richard and Linda Thompson – First Light

More of the Music of Richard Thompson

  • The Hot Stamper debut of First Light, here with INCREDIBLE Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades or close to them on both sides of this vintage UK pressing – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • There’s real Tubey Magic on this album, along with breathy vocals and in-your-listening-room midrange presence
  • You get clean, clear, full-bodied, lively and musical analog sound from first note to last

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Richard Thompson – Henry the Human Fly

More Richard Thompson

  • This original UK Pink Rim Island pressing of Thompson’s solo debut (one of only a handful of copies to ever hit the site) boasts two very good Hot Stamper sides – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • 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
  • 4 1/2 stars: “Cuts such as ‘The Poor Ditching Boy,’ ‘The New St. George,’ and ‘The Old Changing Way’ have the timelessness of the best traditional material Fairport [Convention] had been mining in the past, while ‘Roll Over Vaughn Williams,’ with its swirling electric guitar, and the accordion and electric guitar interplay of the folk-rocker ‘The Angels Took My Racehorse Away’ are prime examples of Thompson’s vision of fusing the old and the new.”

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