1976

These are the albums released in 1976 that we’ve auditioned and generally reviewed favorably.

The Brothers Johnson – Look Out For #1

More Soul, Blues, and R&B

More Recordings Produced by Quincy Jones

  • Look Out For #1 makes its Hot Stamper debut with stunning Nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) grades from first start to finish – just shy of our Shootout Winner
  • The sound is huge – big, wide, deep, and open, with a punchy bottom end and rhythmic energy to spare, as well as cleaner, smoother, sweeter upper mids and a more extended top
  • 4 stars: “The Brothers Johnson first earned national recognition as recording artists by singing the sensuously funky mid-tempo number “Is It Love That We’re Missin’,” featured on Quincy Jones’ album Mellow Madness. The dynamic duo maintains that same groove on this, its debut release for A&M Records.”

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Emmylou Harris – Luxury Liner

More Emmylou Harris

More Country Rock

  • Here is a seriously good copy of Luxury Liner (one of only a handful to hit the site in two and a half years) with Double Plus (A++) grades or BETTER from start to finish
  • Side two was sonically very close to our Shootout Winner – you will be amazed at how big and rich the sound is
  • Here is the full-bodied and natural sound we look for, with a nicely extended top end, plenty of space around the instruments and vocals, and far fewer of the problems that plague so many of the pressings we play
  • 4 1/2 stars: “Luxury Liner ranks as Emmylou Harris’ best-selling solo record to date, and it’s one of her most engaging efforts as well; her Hot Band is in peak form, and the songs are even more far afield than usual, including Chuck Berry’s “(You Never Can Tell) C’est la Vie” and Townes Van Zandt’s painterly tale of aging outlaws, “Pancho & Lefty.” – All Music

The sound that Emmylou and her producers were going for here is clean, detailed and low distortion, which is exactly what the best pressings like this one deliver. What really sets the good copies apart, though, is a natural, relaxed quality in the midrange. Emmylou sounds like a real person, with none of the too-clean, too-modern, tube-free sound that ruins many of the pressings of her records.  (more…)

Art Pepper / Living Legend

More Art Pepper

More Jazz Recordings featuring the Saxophone

  • Stunning sound throughout this vintage Contemporary pressing, with both sides earning Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades or close to them from first note to last
  • Here are just a few of the things we had to say about this killer copy in our notes: “very natural + roomy + relaxed”…”3-D + rich”…”sax jumps out [of the speakers]”…”sweet + rich + breathy”
  • Both of these sides are a textbook example of the Contemporary sound we love here at Better Records: rich, warm and lively, with superb clarity throughout
  • Which means that well into the 70s, Contemporary was still at the top of their game, and well ahead of most of the jazz label competition
  • Pepper’s saxophone sound is right on the money – breathy and airy with clearly audible leading edge transients
  • Speaking of transients, listen for the powerful kinetic energy produced when Shelly Manne whacks the hell out of his cymbals
  • This is only the second copy of this title to hit the site in years – finding them in audiophile condition is getting harder (and more expensive) than ever these days
  • Problems in the vinyl are sometimes the nature of the beast with these vintage LPs, but once you hear just how incredible sounding this copy is, you might be inclined, as we were, to stop counting stitches and just be swept away by the music
  • 4 stars: “After 15 years filled with prison time and fighting drug addiction, Pepper was finally ready to return to jazz. Accompanied by three of his old friends (pianist Hampton Hawes, bassist Charlie Haden and drummer Shelly Manne), Pepper … shows a greater emotional depth in his improvisations and was open to some of the innovations of the avant-garde in his search for greater self-expression.”

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Paul McCartney & Wings – Wings Over America

More Paul McCartney

More of The Beatles

  • With excellent sound on all six sides, these vintage Capitol pressings will be very hard to beat
  • SIX sides of live Wings music, phew! As I’m sure you can imagine, this shootout was quite the undertaking
  • This copy was just BIGGER and RICHER than most others we played – it’s clean, clear and full-bodied with a solid bottom end, tons of energy and lots of space around all of the musicians
  • “… the Beatles mystique was still very much attached to record and artist alike… and it seemed like McCartney represented the part of the group’s legacy that came closest to living up to fans’ expectations. Thus the album ended up selling in numbers, rivaling the likes of Frampton Comes Alive and other mega-hits of the period, and rode the charts for months.”
  • If you’re a McCartney fan, this title from 1976 is surely of interest, assuming you already have the first album, Unplugged and Band on the Run, and maybe Ram – all Must Own Titles or something close to them

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Count Basie And His Orchestra – I Told You So

More Big Band Jazz

Labels We Love – Pablo

  • Boasting seriously good Double Plus (A++) sound throughout, this vintage Pablo pressing will be very hard to beat
  • A Top Basie Big Band title in every way – musically, sonically, you name it, this album has got it going on!
  • This is the way it must have sounded in 1976, in the New York studios where the famous RCA engineer Bob Simpson was still behind the board
  • 4 stars: “This is one of Count Basie’s best big-band studio recordings for Norman Granz during his Pablo years. The arrangements by Bill Holman are both challenging and swinging, containing enough surprises to make this session a real standout.”

On the best pressings, the horns are so present and high-rez, not to mention full-bodied, this could easily become a favorite big band album to demo or test with — or just to enjoy the hell out of.

I never noticed until just now that the album cover picture for Farmer’s Market Barbecue and this album are exactly the same! Wow, Pablo, that takes balls. (more…)

Jeff Beck – Wired

More Jeff Beck

More Jazz Fusion

  • You’ll find seriously good Double Plus (A++) grades on both sides of this vintage copy of Beck’s sophomore solo effort (one of only a handful to hit the site in eleven months) – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • Big and full with a punchy bottom end and driving jazz/rock energy, here are the elements critical to the better sounding copies
  • Wired, the sequel to the hugely successful Blow by Blow, was produced by Sir George Martin and mixed by Geoff Emerick
  • 4 1/2 stars: “Within a two-year span, the twin towers Blow by Blow and Wired set a standard for instrumental rock that even Beck has found difficult to match. On Wired, with first-rate material and collaborators on hand, one of rock’s most compelling guitarists is in top form.”
  • If you’re a Jeff Beck fan, or perhaps more a fan of mid-70s Jazz Fusion, this title from 1976 is surely a Must Own

Copies with the most bass, the richest lower midrange and the most extension up top (to keep the upper midrange from becoming too hard and shrill) did the best in our shootout, assuming they weren’t veiled or smeary of course.

So many things can go wrong on a record. We know, we heard them all. We’re glad to report this copy was doing just about everything right, hence the high Hot Stamper grades. (more…)

Led Zeppelin – The Song Remains The Same

More Led Zeppelin

More Live Recordings of Interest

  • Amazing sound for this Zep live album, with KILLER Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound on sides one, two and four, and seriously good Double Plus (A++) sound on side three
  • Insane live rock and roll energy like nothing you have ever heard – the sound is full-bodied and reasonably smooth, making it possible to get the volume up good and high where it belongs
  • An incredibly tough album to find with the right sound and audiophile surfaces – this is one of the best copies for both
  • Packed with Zep classics, including “The Song Remains The Same,” “Dazed and Confused,” “Stairway to Heaven,” and more

It’s exceedingly rare that we come across a copy that sounds this good. Most we’ve played sound like bad, second-generation bootleg cassettes. We still pick them up every time we see them — hey, it’s Zep, man — but we weren’t sure we’d ever hear a decent copy. We dropped the needle on this one and were blown away by how hard it rocked.

It’s got the big sound that you look for on a Zep LP — great bass, huge drums, and immediacy to the vocals. The sound is silky up top, punchy down low, and very transparent.

Turn this one way up and you might just find yourself right in the middle of a killer live Zep concert.

The only song here that didn’t totally blow our minds was the version of “Dazed and Confused,” which sounded a bit compressed during the big jam. Other than that, all the big hits (“Rock And Roll,” “The Rain Song,” “No Quarter,” “Stairway,” etc.) sound Right On The Money.

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Electric Light Orchestra / A New World Record

More Electric Light Orchestra

More Arty Rock

  • A superb British import LP of ELO’s rock masterpiece, here with solid Double Plus (A++) grades from start to finish
  • Reasonably quiet vinyl throughout – not even those copies we’ve unsealed for our shootouts have been free from ticky vinyl in places or played much quieter than Mint Minus Minus
  • Both of these sides have the punchy bass and fully-weighted sound that this music demands – the energy level coming from these grooves is off the scale
  • 4 1/2 stars: “Opening with the opulently orchestrated ‘Tightrope,’ which heralds the perfect production found throughout this album, A New World Record contains seven of the best songs ever to come out of the group.”
  • If like us you’re a fan of arty rock from the ’70s, this is a killer album from 1976 that belongs in your collection.

A New World Record checks off a number of important boxes for us:

  1. It’s a Must Own title.
  2. It’s a rock and pop masterpiece, and
  3. It’s a personal favorite of mine.

The British originals are the only ones that can convey the sweet TUBEY MAGIC of the British Master Tapes. The string tone on the average domestic copy is shrill and smeary; too little of the critically important texture remains after the master tapes have been dubbed and the copies sent to America for mastering.

As a result of Jeff Lynne’s everything-but-the-kitchen-sink production approach, it’s the rare copy that provides enough transparency and resolution to bring out all the elements in these incredibly dense mixes, strings included. For audiophiles, ELO on LP doesn’t get any better.

Love those female background singers — their voices are clear and individually separated, but even more importantly, on the best copies like this one they are ENTHUSIASTIC. This is the very definition of a Hot Stamper: ELO on this copy is full of life and energy. The average copy is just another ELO record, like most of them Dead On Arrival.

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Brahms / Handel – Variations And Fugue On A Theme By Handel / Mayorga

More Direct to Disc Recordings

More Classical and Orchestral Recordings

  • Lincoln Mayorga‘s wonderful performance of these classical works for solo piano returns to the site for only the second time in years, here with STUNNING Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound or close to it throughout this original Sheffield Direct to Disc import pressing
  • As we discovered many years ago, all pressings of this recording are out of polarity – you must reverse the polarity of your system to hear this record properly
  • Out of polarity, it sounds shockingly small, practically mono – with the polarity corrected, it is as big and real as if you were listening to the recital live from the front row
  • Both of these sides are amazingly rich, spacious, and transparent, with an exceptionally clear, solid and present piano and virtually no trace of smear
  • This copy fulfills the promise of the audiophile-oriented recording in a way that few – shockingly few, to be honest – pressings of its kind ever have

This Sheffield Direct-to-Disc LP is one of the best records ever put out by Sheffield.

Lincoln Mayorga is an accomplished classical pianist: this is arguably his best work. (I had a chance to see him perform at a recital of Chopin’s works early in 2010 and he played superbly — for close to two hours without the aid of sheet music I might add.)

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Boston – Self-Titled

More of the Music of Boston

  • With big, bold, hard-rockin’ Double Plus (A++) sound, this pressing will show you just how good Boston’s debut album can sound
  • The multi-tracked, multi-layered guitars are as big as life on this copy and guaranteed to rock your world — on big speakers at loud levels this is a Demo Disc with few peers
  • 4 1/2 stars and a Top 100 title: “Nearly every song on Boston’s debut album can still be heard on classic rock radio today due to the strong vocals of Brad Delp and unique guitar sound of Tom Scholz. Boston is essential for any fan of classic rock, and the album marks the re-emergence of the genre in the 1970s.”
  • This is clearly Boston’s best sounding album. Roughly 100 other listings for the best sounding album by an artist or group can be found here.
  • In our opinion, this is the only Boston record you’ll ever need. Click on this link to see more titles we like to call one and done

Boston’s first (and only good) album is a long-time member of our Top 100, and on a great pressing like this it’s easy to see why. It’s an incredible recording when you can hear it right, and this is about as right as it gets!

It’s obvious why the first Boston album became a Multi-Platinum Record. Practically every one of its songs still gets heavy radio play on every rock station in town. Consummately well-crafted music like this is almost impossible to find nowadays. I guess that’s why they call it Classic Rock.

More Guitar

The multi-tracked layers of guitars really come to life on the better copies. The not-so-great pressings tend to be congested and compressed, thickening the sound and diffusing the layers of multi-tracked harmonies. Tom Scholz’s uniquely overdriven, distorted leads have near-perfect timbre. On the top copies, you can really hear how much power that sound adds to the music.

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