1972

Crosby / Nash – Graham Nash / David Crosby

More of the Music of David Crosby and Graham Nash

  • This early Atlantic pressing (only the second copy to hit the site in over twenty-one months) boasts solid Double Plus (A++) sound from start to finish
  • Quiet vinyl for this album, especially considering how rare clean copies of formerly common titles like this one have become in the last twenty years
  • The vocals are remarkably breathy, smooth and sweet here – this recording is the very definition of Midrange Magic, thanks to the brilliant engineering of Bill Halverson
  • 4 stars: “This self-titled release is one of most impressive side project to arise from CSN. The best elements of each are readily available here, punctuated at every turn by their complicated vocal arrangements and air-lock harmonies.”

Where in the world did all the Midrange Magic that we were hearing on this copy of the album come from?

On a song like “Where Will I Be” the sound is so unbelievably transparent, open and intimate it sounds like an outtake from David Crosby’s first album, one of the ten best sounding rock records ever made.

I was in high school when I first played this album and I remember being disappointed with it, mostly because I was expecting another Deja Vu. As I’ve grown older, I have come to appreciate other qualities in a recording than those found on Deja Vu.

I’ve come to appreciate this album for what it is: not the grand musical statement that Deja Vu is, but a simpler, more intimate portrait of two artists at the start of a lifelong, harmonious collaboration (which ended prior to Crosby’s passing because he was such a jerk).

This is a damn fine batch of songs they’ve written and the two men sing them well.

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ZZ Top – Rio Grande Mud

More of the Music of ZZ Top

  • ZZ Top’s sophomore release debuts on the site with solid Double Plus (A++) grades throughout this early London pressing – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • From first note to last, the sound works for this music — tonally right, lively and plenty of top end extension
  • Both sides are rich and smooth like good analog should be, with an abundance of energy and rock and roll drive
  • “…Rio Grande Mud is the first flowering of ZZ Top as a great, down-n-dirty blooze rock band.”

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Santana – Caravanserai

More of the Music of Santana

  • Solid Double Plus (A++) sound brings Santana’s 1972 release to life on this vintage Columbia pressing (one of only a handful of copies to ever hit the site)
  • The sonics are rich, full-bodied and musical with punchy drums and guitar solos that really get loud
  • Remarkable transparency – you hear into the huge, deep soundfield with almost nothing between you and the musicians
  • Problems in the vinyl are sometimes the nature of the beast with these vintage LPs – those on “Future Primitive” are especially bad – but if you can tough those out, this copy is going to blow your mind
  • 4 1/2 stars: “…make no mistake: this is one of Santana’s finest accomplishments.

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Rick Nelson – Garden Party

More Country and Country Rock

  • Garden Party returns to the site after a ten month hiatus, here with KILLER Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades on both sides of this original Decca pressing
  • This is an amazingly rich, Tubey Magical recording, and when you get a good copy with enough clarity and top end extension to bring it to life it can sound very good indeed
  • If you like the sound of albums engineered by Stephen Barncard (think Deja Vu, American Beauty and Tarkio for starters) then you are going to find much to like about the rich, smooth, natural and relaxed sound here
  • “Rick Nelson’s Garden Party rocks a lot harder than the title track would lead one to believe, and is also as much of a showcase for the Stone Canyon Band as it is for Nelson.”

It’s tough to find copies without marks or problems in the vinyl to one degree or another, or ones that play this quietly, making this a special one indeed.

The music is quite enjoyable — even the younger guys around here were getting a lot out of it. Drop the needle on the title track (a top ten single) or “Are You Really Real?” to hear these guys at their best. Rick’s Stone Canyon Band at times featured future members of Poco and The Eagles, so that should tell you something.

Acoustic guitar reproduction is superb on the better copies of this recording. The harmonic coherency, the richness, the body as well as phenomenal amounts of Tubey Magic can be heard on every strum.

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Lincoln Mayorga – The Missing Linc

More of the Music of Lincoln Mayorga

  • With two STUNNING Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sides, this Sheffield Direct to Disc recording is certainly as good a copy as we have ever heard
  • Guaranteed to be dramatically richer, fuller and more Tubey Magical than any other copy you have heard, with especially punchy drums and rosiny-textured strings
  • The bass on side one extends all the way into whomp land for that big bass drum at the end of “Limehouse Blues” – what a sound!
  • The top end is key to the better pressings too – lots of string harmonics and bells and other high frequency stuff gets lost on most pressings, but not this one, it’s all there on this pressing
  • The audiophile “Sgt. Pepper” of its day, a record that was so much better than anything else you’d ever heard it made you rethink the possibilities (and they did the same thing with Volume III two years later)
  • If you’re a Sheffield Labs fan, and what audiophile wouldn’t be?, this title from 1972 is clearly one of their best
  • If you’re a fan of big drums in a big room, with jump out of the speakers sound, this is the album for you.

This is definitely not your typical Sheffield pressing. Some of them are aggressive, many of them are dull and lack the spark of live music, some of them have wonky bass or are lacking in the lowest octave — they are prey to every fault that befalls other pressings.

Which shouldn’t be too surprising. Records are records. Pressing variations exist for every album ever made. If you haven’t noticed that yet, start playing multiple copies of the same album while listening carefully and critically.

Just listen to the texture on the saxophone on “Limehouse Blues” — you can really hear the leading edge transients of the brass that are so important to the sound of those instruments. Track after track, the sound gets surprisingly more open and airy. The harpsichord has such great presence it jumps out of the speakers. 

I was selling audio equipment (Audio Research, Fulton speakers) back in the ’70s and this was a favorite demo disc in our store. The bass drum at the end of track two would shake the foundation with a big speaker like the Fulton J.

Every bit as amazing to me was the string quartet on side 2. You could actually hear the musicians breathing and turning the pages on their music stands, just as if you were actually in their “living presence.”

This is one of the albums that made me realize how good audio in the home could really be. In a way this was the Audiophile “Sgt. Pepper” of its day, a record that was so much better than anything else you’d ever heard it made you rethink the possibilities.

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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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Grateful Dead – Europe ’72

More Grateful Dead

  • Here is a seriously good copy of Europe 72 (one of only a handful to hit the site in three years) with solid Double Plus (A++) sound or close to it on all SIX sides of these vintage Green Label pressings
  • Marks and problems in the vinyl are sometimes the nature of the beast with these vintage LPs, but once you hear just how superb sounding this copy is, you might be inclined, as we were, to stop counting ticks and pops and just be swept away by the music
  • “No record album can replace a live appearance by the Dead – but those who can’t get enough of this exceptional band will be kept busy for a good little while with this one.” – Rolling Stone
  • 4 1/2 stars: “The band mixes a bevy of new material with revisitations of back-catalog favorites. Sadly, this European jaunt would be the last of its kind to include the formidable talents and soul of founding member Ron ‘Pigpen’ McKernan, who was in increasingly fragile health. Although few in number, his contributions to Europe 72 are among the most commanding not only of this release, but of his career.”

*NOTE: There is a mark that plays 10 times at a moderate level at the start of track 1 on side 2, “Jack Straw.”

A bunch of classic Dead songs that never appeared on a studio album are here in their definitive versions, including “He’s Gone,” “Jack Straw,” “Brown-Eyed Woman,” “Ramble On Rose” and “Tennessee Jed.”

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Roxy Music / Self-Titled

More of the Music of Roxy Music

  • This vintage UK pressing of Roxy’s amazing debut LP (one of only a handful of copies to hit the site in twenty-two months) boasts KILLER Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades or close to them throughout – this is some of the most dynamic sound the band achieved
  • Andy Hendriksen’s engineering (over the course of a week!) is superb in all respects – we think the best pressings of this first album reveal a recording that is superior to any other by the band
  • A Top 100 album, Roxy’s masterpiece, and a Must Own desert island disc of glamorous Arty Rock
  • 4 1/2 stars: “Falling halfway between musical primitivism and art rock ambition, Roxy Music’s eponymous debut remains a startling redefinition of rock’s boundaries. Simultaneously embracing kitschy glamour and avant-pop, Roxy Music shimmers with seductive style and pulsates with disturbing synthetic textures.”
  • When it comes to rock and pop music in 1972, our picks for the best of the best, numbering at the moment a mere 21 titles, can be found here
  • This link will take you to the Hot Stamper pressings of our hardest rockin’ albums currently available
  • Here are the titles that have earned a place on our none rocks harder list

Folks, this is a true Demo Disc in the world of Art Rock. It’s rare to find a recording of popular music with dynamics like these. The guitar solo at the end of “Ladytron” rocks like you will not believe.

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The Eagles – Self-Titled

More Eagles

  • You will be floored by the huge, rich, Tubey Magical guitars exploding out from your speakers on “Take It Easy” on this  side one – it will make a fantastic Demo Disc to blow your audiophile friends’ minds
  • These early pressings are extremely hard to find in audiophile playing condition, and one that sounds as good as this one might take you quite a few years to track down
  • This is exactly the kind of record that makes virtually any audiophile pressing pale in comparison – just about everything you could ask for as an audiophile is here, and more
  • One of the best sounding rock records ever made, a member of our Top Ten and without a doubt Glyn Johns‘s engineering (and producing) Masterpiece
  • A Top 100 Tubey Magical Demo Disc that is guaranteed to blow your mind on a pressing that sounds as good as this one does

It will not take the lucky owner of this record long to recognize what we’ve known for years: the Eagles first album is clearly and inarguably one of the best sounding rock records ever made. Almost all the qualities we look for on this album can be found on this very copy.

We’ve been up on our soapbox for years telling people how amazing this record can be, and here’s a copy that backs up our position from start to finish. (more…)

Elton John / Honky Chateau – A Must Own Classic

More Elton John

  • This vintage UK import pressing boasts superb Tubey Magical British Rock sound, with excellent Double Plus (A++) grades on both sides
  • A monster Demo Disc – the bottom end is huge, the top is open and extended, and the overall tonality rich and balanced
  • An amazing recording and a founding member of our Top 100 – it’s a shame we rarely find them with sound this good and audiophile quality surfaces (DJM see-through vinyl being what it is)
  • 5 stars: “The most focused and accomplished set of songs Elton John and Bernie Taupin ever wrote.”
  • This is a Must Own album from 1972, one that deserves a place in any audiophile’s collection
  • Honky Chateau is also one of those albums with one set of very special stampers that consistently win shootouts.

If you doubt that Elton John was an unusually gifted Pop Music Genius for much of the ’70s, just play this record. These eleven tracks should serve as all the proof you could possibly need. There’s not a dog in the bunch, and most of these songs are positively brilliant. Drop the needle on any track, you simply can’t go wrong.

Honky Chateau has to be one of the best sounding rock records of all time — certainly worthy of a prized spot on our Rock and Pop Top 100 List. It’s a shining example of just how good High-Production-Value rock music of the ’70s can be.

The amount of effort that went into the recording of Honky Chateau is comparable to that expended by the engineers and producers of bands like Supertramp, The Who, Jethro Tull, Ambrosia, Pink Floyd and far too many others to list. It seems that no effort or cost was spared in making the home listening experience as compelling as the recording technology of the day permitted.

The sides that had sound that jumped out of the speakers, with driving rhythmic energy, worked the best for us. They really brought this music to life and allowed us to make sense of it. This is yet another definition of a Hot Stamper — it’s the copy that lets the music work as music.

Big Production Tubey Magical British Rock just does not get much better than Honky Chateau. (more…)