1975

Jethro Tull – Minstrel In The Gallery

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  • With solid Double Plus (A++) grades or close to them from start to finish, you’ll have a hard time finding a copy that sounds remotely as good as this original UK Chrysalis import
  • This side one is remarkably big and full with wonderfully breathy vocals and deep punchy bass, and side two is not far behind in all those areas
  • Here is the rock energy and power this music needs that few other copies we played could compete with (particularly on side one)
  • 4 stars: “Minstrel in the Gallery was Tull’s most artistically successful and elaborately produced album since Thick As a Brick…”

This original British copy gets BIG when it needs to (the proggy parts), and that makes it fun. Plenty of Tubey Magic is on offer as well, with rich, sweet acoustic guitars and a lovely freedom from hi-fi-ishness on the vocals.

As you probably know, Ian Anderson can get a little carried away with the processing on his voice, but the better copies make that processing sound right within the context of the overall sound. Most copies have added distortion and grit on the vocal effects, making them much less pleasing to the ear than the engineers envisioned.

Tubey Magical Acoustic Guitar reproduction is superb on the better copies of this recording. Simply phenomenal amounts of Tubey Magic can be heard on every strum, along with richness, body and harmonic coherency that have all but disappeared from modern recordings (and especially from modern remasterings).

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ZZ Top – Fandango

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More Rock Classics

  • An original pressing with superb Double Plus (A++) grades or close to them from top to bottom – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • From first note to last, the sound works for this music — tonally right, lively and plenty of top end extension (particularly on side two)
  • This is some of the grungiest guitar rock we’ve heard in a while and we were lovin’ every minute of it
  • “… they were a kick-ass live band… these are really good live cuts — and ‘Backdoor Medley’ and ‘Jailhouse Rock’ were fine interpretations, making familiar songs sound utterly comfortable in their signature sound — and Fandango! remains one of their better albums…”

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Richard & Linda Thompson / Pour Down Like Silver

More of the Music of Richard Thompson

Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of Richard (and Linda) Thompson

  • An original UK Island pressing with a STUNNING Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) side one mated to a solid Double Plus (A++) side two
  • There’s real Tubey Magic on this album, along with breathy vocals and in-your-listening-room midrange presence
  • Exceptionally 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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Queen – A Night at the Opera

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Hot Stamper Albums with Huge Choruses

  • A vintage copy of Queen’s Masterpiece with a KILLER Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) side one mated to a solid Double Plus (A++) side two
  • We shot out a number of other imports and the presence, bass, and dynamics on this outstanding copy placed it head and shoulders above the competition
  • Huge with WHOMP like nothing you have ever heard – finally, the code has been cracked (but the right British pressings are sure hard to find)
  • 5 stars: “…the appeal of A Night at the Opera is in its detailed, meticulous productions. It’s prog rock with a sense of humor as well as dynamics, and Queen never bettered their approach anywhere else.”
  • These are the stampers that always win our shootouts, and when you hear them you will know why – the sound is big, rich and clear like no other
  • We’ve discovered a number of titles in which one stamper always wins, and here are some others
  • This is a Must Own Title from 1975, a great year for Rock and Pop music

Although we wish it were not the case, for some reason it’s unusually difficult to find good-sounding Queen albums, which is why you rarely see most of their better titles on the site. (News of the World and The Game are exceptions to that rule; they’re much easier to find with good sound, especially The Game.)

Not to worry. We’ve done our homework (which simply involves finding, cleaning and playing a big stack of British pressings from different eras) and found you the copy that has all of the Queen Magic you heard in your head (and only in your head) while Bohemian Rhapsody was playing on the radio.

Here’s the pressing that finally can let you hear that BIG, BOLD sound in your very own listening room. You can even play it for your audiophile friends now. (more…)

Thelma Houston – I’ve Got The Music In Me

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More Direct-to-Disc Recordings

houstivego

  • This Sheffield direct-to-disc pressing boasts outstanding sound from start to finish – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • Loads of presence, with richness and fullness that showed us just how good the Direct to Disc medium at its best can be. It had everything going for it from top to bottom, with big bass, dynamics, clarity, top end extension (so silky up there!) and ENERGY
  • Make no mistake, this here is a real Demo Disc. The sound extends from Wall to Wall!

This wonderful pressing fulfills the promise of the direct-to-disc recording approach in a way that few direct-to-disc pressings actually do.

To be honest, most copies of this title were quite good; only a few didn’t do most things at least well enough to earn a good grade. This has not been the case with many of the Sheffield pressings we’ve done shootouts for in the past. Often the weaker copies have little going for them. They don’t even sound like Direct Discs!

Some copies lack energy, some lack presence, and most suffer from some amount of smear on the transients. But wait a minute. This is a direct disc. How can it be compressed, or lack transients? Aren’t those tape recorder problems that are supposed to be eliminated by the direct-to-disc process?

“Supposed to be eliminated” is a long way from “were eliminated.” Even though the mastering is fixed at the live event, there are many other variables which affect the sound. The album is pressed in three different countries: the United States, Japan, and Germany. Many mothers were pulled from the plated acetates (the “fathers”) and many, many stampers made from those mothers.

Bottom line? You got to play ’em, just like any other record. If no two records sound the same, it follows that no two audiophile records sound the same, a fact that became abundantly clear very early on in the listening. Of course, not many audiophiles are in a position to shootout eight or ten copies of I’ve Got The Music In Me, and I’m not sure most audiophiles would even want to. Here at Better Records we have a whole system set up to do exactly that, so we waited until we had a pile of them gathered together, cleaned them all up, and off to the races we went.

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Earth, Wind and Fire – Gratitude

More of the Music of Earth, Wind and Fire

More Recordings by George Massenburg

  • Outstanding sound throughout this vintage 2-LP set, with all FOUR sides earning Double Plus (A++) grades or BETTER – remarkably quiet vinyl too
  • My personal favorite EWF song of all time is here on side four, “Can’t Hide Love,” and on that same side you can find “Sing a Song,” “Gratitude” and “Celebrate”
  • We guarantee there is dramatically more richness, fullness, vocal presence, and performance energy on this copy than others you’ve heard, and that’s especially true if you made the mistake of buying whatever Heavy Vinyl pressing is currently on the market
  • 4 1/2 stars: “Gratitude brilliantly captures the excitement EWF generated on-stage at its creative peak… Neither hardcore EWF devotees nor more casual listeners should deprive themselves of the joys of the live versions of “Shining Star” and “Yearnin’ Learnin’.”

We Love This Record!

These live tracks are very well recorded. The sound is rich, smooth, sweet, and tonally correct. The soundstage is big, wall to wall as we like to say, and on the best copies the presence of the vocalists puts them right in front of you. You can clearly make out each of the voices in the choruses. What a sound! Nobody does harmonies better than these guys. For audiophiles who like to play their music loud, it’s GLORIOUS!

The great thing about this album is that it allows Earth, Wind & Fire to stretch out and incorporate some funky jazz into their music, like on “Sun Goddess”, a song that they recorded with Ramsey Lewis and which doesn’t appear on any other EW&F album. They do a couple of extended saxophone solos on the live stuff that really take the songs to another level. The band is on fire for practically every track here.

This and The Greatest Hits Volume One get you most of what’s great about the band. Both are Must Owns for anyone who likes Big Production Pop, soulful and otherwise.

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James Taylor – Gorilla

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More of Our Favorite Pure Pop Recordings

  • Soulful JT at his best, an underappreciated album by the man who single-handedly created a new genre of music
  • “Mexico,” “How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)” and “I Was A Fool To Care” are standouts – but, honestly, there simply are no weak tracks to be found on either side
  • Rolling Stone notes, “With Gorilla, Taylor is well on his way to staking out new ground. What he’s hit upon is the unlikely mating of his familiar low-keyed, acoustic guitar-dominated style with L.A. harmony rock and the sweet, sexy school of rhythm and blues.”
  • 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,” with an accent on the joy these amazing audiophile-quality recordings can bring to your life. Gorilla is a good example of a record audiophiles may not know well but might just benefit from getting to know better
  • If I were to compile a list of Must Own Rock and Pop Albums from 1975, this album would definitely be on it

This is soft rock at its best, made up primarily of love songs, and helped immensely by the harmonically-gifted backing vocals of Graham Nash and David Crosby.

To be honest, the recording of Gorilla itself cannot compete with the likes of Sweet Baby James or JT, both of which are Top 100 Titles. It can be a good sounding record, not a great one, certainly not in the same league as those two.

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Phil Manzanera / Diamond Head

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More of Our Best Art Rock Records

  • This original UK Island pressing of Phil Manzanera’s debut album ROCKS with superb Double Plus (A++) sound on both sides
  • Demo Disc quality sound barely begins to describe the size and power of this recording
  • This album is an amazing Sonic Blockbuster, with sound that will leap right out of your speakers like practically nothing you have every heard
  • A shockingly well-recorded album from the ultra-talented Rhett Davies – this is his Engineering Masterpiece
  • Don’t waste your money on the UK Polydor reissues or the domestic pressings, or anything else for that matter – the right UK Island pressings are in a league of their own
  • 4 1/2 stars: “Phil Manzanera’s first post-Roxy foray into solo albums is a terrific all-star affair that still holds up enormously well. Calling on favors from Roxy members present and past, and those from the Cambridge/British art rock scene, Manzanera assembled a supergroup for every song.”

The wind is at your back here because this is one seriously well-recorded album. If this copy doesn’t wake up your stereo nothing will.

Like its brother, 801 Live, this album is an amazing sonic blockbuster, with sound that positively leaps out of the speakers. Why shouldn’t it? It was engineered by the superbly talented Rhett Davies at Island, the genius behind Taking Tiger Mountain, the aforementioned 801 Live, Avalon, Dire Straits’ first album, and many many more.

If we could regularly find copies of this Audiophile Blockbuster (and frankly, if more people appreciated the album) it would definitely go on our Top 100 Rock and Pop List. In fact, it would easily make the Top Twenty from that list, it’s that good.

Looking for Tubey Magic? Rhett Davies is your man. Just think about the sound of the first Dire Straits album or Avalon. The better pressings of those albums — those with truly Hot Stampers — are swimming in it.

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Crosby / Nash – Wind on the Water

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More Graham Nash

  • You’ll find superb Double Plus (A++) grades or BETTER on both sides of this vintage copy – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • Finding the Tubey Magical, spacious, sweet ANALOG sound we were after was not easy
  • Here you will find noticeably richer sound than most pressings (hence the high grades) – many tended to be leaner and drier than we would have liked, and we take a lot of points off when they sound that way
  • It’s possible to get the clear, breathy vocals that bring out the wonderful harmonies these two are so rightly famous for – it’s just not easy
  • 4 stars: “Wind on the Water has an instant classic, lived-in sound and is a definite must-have.”

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Bennett and Evans – The Tony Bennett / Bill Evans Album

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  •  early pressing of this classic collaboration, here with solid Double Plus (A++) sound from first note to last and vinyl that is hard to find any quieter
  • When heard on our best Hot Stamper pressings, the album clearly belongs near the top of the All Time Great Male Vocal Recordings
  • Want to hear the Bennett-Evans Magic? Go right to “Waltz for Debby,” the high point of the album for us, and clearly one of Tony’s greatest performances, recorded when he was still at the peak of his powers, and thank goodness for that
  • 4 1/2 stars: “… one of the best albums of either’s career… an excellent jazz-pop hybrid in which both musicians were shown off to advantage.”
  • This is our pick for Tony Bennett’s best sounding album. Roughly 150 other listings for the Best Recording by an Artist or Group can be found here on the blog.
  • It’s yet another Vocal Album that belongs in any audiophile record collection worthy of the name

If you like sophisticated vocal jazz I don’t think you can do much better than this record, especially when it sounds like this. Tony Bennett’s voice sounds wonderfully rich, BREATHY, and above all REAL.

The soundstage is open and spacious, the piano full-bodied and clear, and the vocals have the clarity and fullness missing from most pressings. It’s incredible to hear these two top-notch musicians interacting and responding to each other in this kind of huge, open and natural space.

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