More of the Music of Whitney Houston
- Stunning sound for Whitney’s debut LP, with both sides earning Nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) grades – just shy of our Shootout Winner
- This album has the kind of smooth, rich, tonally correct analog sound we thought they had forgotten how to record by 1985 – but here it is, thank goodness
- Consistently strong material: “You Give Good Love,” “Saving All My Love for You,” “How Will I Know,” “All At Once,” and “Greatest Love Of All” (the last of seven (!) singles released from the album)
- 5 stars: “…introduced the world to ‘The Voice,’ an octave-spanning, gravity-defying melismatic marvel.”
The copies that do well in our shootouts have qualities common to many of the other male and female Hot Stamper vocal pressings we offer. The better copies are big, rich, clear and transparent, with breathy, immediate vocals.
Hardness, thinness, shrillness and the like — the kind of sound you would expect from a 1985 recording — will be very costly for any copy we play. I’m sure that sound can be found on the CD, and for a lot less money.
Energy and enthusiasm are key as well. You want to get the feeling that Whitney is really putting her all into these songs, and the better copies let you do that.
Space and depth are nice to have; otherwise you might as well be listening to the radio.
