1986

Eric Clapton – August

More of the Music of Eric Clapton

  • Clapton’s 1986 release makes its debut on the site, with STUNNING Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound throughout this vintage Duck pressing – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • 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.
  • “Phil Collins and Eric Clapton joined together for a second collaborative effort with the November 1986 release August. They shared producing chores as Collins pop sensibilities combined with Clapton’s blues/rock foundation to provide a solid and satisfying listening experience… It remains a good effort by one of rock music’s guitar gods.”

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The Pretenders – Get Close

More of the Music of The Pretenders

  • With two INSANELY GOOD Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sides, you’ll have a hard time finding a copy that sounds remotely as good as this vintage import pressing – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • These sides are energetic, clear and full-bodied, with Chrissie Hynde’s vocals front and center where they belong
  • If all you know are audiophile or domestic pressings, you should be prepared for a mind-blowing experience with this copy
  • However, the sound of the album is more aggressive than some audiophiles might like, so fair warning: you will not be demonstrating your stereo with this one, no matter how much better sounding than other copies it may be
  • “Hynde’s voice is in great form throughout, and when she gets her dander up, she still has plenty to say and good ways to say it; ‘How Much Did You Get for Your Soul?’ is a gleefully venomous attack on the musically unscrupulous; ‘Don’t Get Me Wrong’ is a superb pop tune and a deserved hit single; and the Motown-flavored ‘I Remember You’ and the moody ‘Chill Factor’ suggest she’d been learning a lot from her old soul singles.”

Get Close has long been a personal favorite of mine. Side one starts off with a bang with “My Baby,” one of the best tracks this band ever recorded. Of course at this point it’s hard to call The Pretenders a band as it is pretty much Chrissie Hynde’s show. She continues to mature as a songwriter, and the arrangements and production value are excellent as well, with heavy hitters such as Steve Lillywhite, Bob Clearmountain and Jimmy Iovine involved.

We have a category on the site entitled women who rock. No other woman on earth can rock the way Chrissie Hynde can, and this album, along with Learning to Crawl, is all the proof anyone needs.

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Sonny Rollins – Alternate Takes

  • You’ll have a hard time finding a copy that sounds remotely as good as this vintage Contemporary pressing
  • One of our favorite Sonny Rollins records for sound – both sides here are incredibly big, full-bodied and Tubey Magical
  • 4 1/2 stars: “This LP contains alternate versions of selections from two famous Sonny Rollins albums: Way out West and Sonny Rollins and the Contemporary Leaders. These ‘new’ renditions… hold their own against the classic versions. [T]he music is hard-swinging and frequently superb.”
  • If you’re a 50s and 60s jazz fan, this Must Own compilation of recordings originally released in 1958 surely belongs in your collection

The album is made up of alternate takes from the Way Out West and Sonny Rollins and the Contemporary Leaders sessions, and as such there is a bit of sonic variation between these tracks and the ones on the actual albums. The best-sounding songs here, particularly the material from Way Out West, can sound amazing.

All Tube in ’58

The best copies are rich and tubey; many pressings were thin and modern sounding, and for that they would lose a lot of points. We want this record to sound like something Roy DuNann recorded with an All Tube chain in 1958, and the best copies give you that sound, without the surface noise and groove damage the originals doubtless suffer from.

Some copies have much more space; some are more present, putting the musicians right in the room with you; some are more transparent, resolving the musical information much better than others, letting you “see” everyone in the studio clearly. Some have more rhythmic drive than others. On some the musicians seem more involved and energetic than they do on the average pressing.

The copies that do all these things better than other copies are the ones that win our shootouts.

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Prince And The Revolution – Parade

More of the Music of Prince

  • Parade returns to the site after a nearly five year hiatus, here with solid Double Plus (A++) sound or BETTER from start to finish – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • Both of these sides are rich, full-bodied, Tubey Magical and wonderfully present with solid weight on the bottom end
  • 4 1/2 stars: “Prince & the Revolution shift musical moods and textures from song to song… All of the group’s musical adventures, even the cabaret-pop of “Venus de Milo” and “Do U Lie?” do nothing to undercut the melodicism of the record, and the amount of ground they cover in 12 songs is truly remarkable…”

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Jennifer Warnes – Famous Blue Raincoat

More of the Music of Jennifer Warnes

More of the Music of Leonard Cohen

  • A Demo Disc quality pressing of this longtime audiophile favorite with solid Double Plus (A++) sound from first note to last
  • Turn this one up good and loud (which you can do when the sound is right) and you’ll have a living, breathing Jennifer Warnes singing her heart out right in front of you
  • The space, resolution, and clarity here are wonderful – for evidence, just listen to the rosiny texture on the strings behind the “Song of Bernadette”
  • 4 1/2 stars: “The high point may have been the Warnes-Cohen duet on ‘Joan of Arc,’ but the album was consistently impressive.”

We’re big fans of this album here at Better Records. It’s the only thing Jennifer Warnes ever did that we would consider a Must Own recording or Desert Island Disc. In my humble opinion, it’s clearly both.

This copy showed us the Famous Blue Raincoat Magic we know and love. The drums are big and punchy with plenty of WHOMP and the sound of skins being thwacked. Jennifer’s voice is clear and breathy. If you know the record well you will surely be amazed at just how good this music can sound on a pressing as hot as this one.

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Elvis Costello – King of America

More Elvis Costello

  • With STUNNING Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades or close to them from top to bottom, this F-Beat import pressing was giving us the sound we were looking for on Elvis’s brilliant 1986 release – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • Here are just a few of the things we had to say about this killer copy in our notes: “lots of space”…”very breathy and full”…”tight and rich bass”…”big and weighty”…”jumping out of the speakers”
  • Both sides are clean, clear, and lively with plenty of bottom end and lots of space around all of the instruments
  • Nina Simone’s “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood” is only one highlight among many – these are some of his best songs
  • Marks and problems 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 1/2 stars: “Stripping away much of the excess that cluttered Punch the Clock and Goodbye Cruel World, Elvis Costello returned to his folk-rock and pub rock roots with King of America, creating one of his most affecting and personal records … one of his masterpieces.”

Even though the album was recorded right here in the states, the domestic copies are clearly made from dubs, sounding quite a bit more opaque, vague, closed-in, flat and dry than most of the British pressings we played.

Like most Costello albums on domestic vinyl, they should be avoided.

Of course, I and all my friends, at least the ones who were into Elvis at the time, had a copy with exactly this kind of mediocre sound and we liked it just fine. Now, thirty-plus years on, I couldn’t sit through that kind of sound with a gun to my head.

Setting higher standards for yourself — consciously or unconsciously, the process works both ways — is an important aspect of becoming a more critical listener. Many of the Heavy Vinyl audiophile remasters sound “opaque, vague, closed-in, flat and dry” next to the best Hot Stamper pressings, but if you’ve never heard one, how would you know what you’re missing?

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Van Halen – 5150

More Van Halen

More Rock Classics

  • Sammy Hagar’s Van Halen debut is back on the site for only the second time in nearly three years, here with two solid Double Plus (A++) sides – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • Clean and clear and open are nice qualities to have, but lively and full are harder to come by on this record – this pressing has it all
  • ‘Van Hagar’ hit the ground running with this new incarnation, including “Why Can’t This Be Love,” “Love Walks In” and “Dreams”
  • 4 stars: “… on 5150… they had the songs and the desire to party, so those good intentions and slow tunes don’t slow the album down; they give it variety and help make the album a pretty impressive opening act for Van Halen Mach II.”

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Talking Heads – True Stories

More Talking Heads

  • With two solid Double Plus (A++) sides or close to them, this copy is guaranteed to handily beat any True Stories you’ve heard – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • Here’s the Midrange Magic (particularly on side one) that’s surely missing from whatever 180g reissue has been made from the tapes (or, to be clear, a modern digital master copied from who-knows-what-tapes)
  • “…True Stories is not without its charms… ‘Dream Operator’ is one of the most affecting tunes Talking Heads ever recorded; the closing-credits theme ‘City of Dreams’ is similarly touching.”

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Peter Gabriel – So

More of the Music of Peter Gabriel

  • Here is an incredible copy of Gabriel’s breakthrough album from 1986 with Nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) sound from start to finish – just shy of our Shootout Winner
  • Both of these sides are lively, solid and rich – drop the needle on any track and you’ll see what we mean
  • Great songs including “Don’t Give Up,” “Sledgehammer,” “Big Time,” “Mercy Street,” “Red Rain,” “In Your Eyes,” and more
  • Problems in the vinyl are sometimes the nature of the beast with these Classic Rock records – there simply is no way around them if the superior sound of vintage analog is important to you
  • 4 stars: “…[Gabriel’s] most accessible and…catchiest, happiest record he ever cut. “Sledgehammer” propelled the record toward blockbuster status, and [it] had enough songs with single potential to keep it there.”

Here is a copy of So with the Big and Bold Peter Gabriel sound we love. If you want your Art Rock to actually rock (as well as be arty), this is the copy for you.

It’s not a perfect recording by any means, but when it sounds this good you can easily forget its shortcomings and marvel at how consistently good the material and the production are.

No Mean Feat

It’s exceptionally hard to find good-sounding copies of this album, as you can read about below. With a digital recording such as this, the margin for mastering error is very slim. Most copies just aren’t worth the vinyl they’re pressed on. They can sound harsh, gritty, grainy, edgy, and thin.

We did a shootout years ago that taught us a few things. The most surprising finding? The Brit copy I had in my own collection sucked — how about that! As a rule, I like the Brit pressings best for PG, but that rule got broken after playing all these domestic copies, some of which really sound good, clearly better than the average Brit.

Recording Issues

This is a digital recording, and most of the time it is bright, spitty, and grainy like a typical digital recording, which plays right into our prejudices. After hearing a bad copy, what audiophile wouldn’t conclude that all copies will have these bad qualities? After all, it’s digital. It can’t be fixed simply by putting it on vinyl.

Ah, but that’s where logic breaks down. Proper mastering can ameliorate many if not most of a recording’s shortcomings. When we say Hot Stampers, we are talking about high-quality mastering doing exactly that.

Mass-Produced Plastic Problems

But of course the mastering is only one part of the puzzle. I have multiple copies with the same stampers. Some of them are terrible, some of them are wonderful — you just can’t rely on the numbers to guide you with a piece of mass-produced plastic like this. You have no choice but to play the record to know what it sounds like. (And that’s a good thing. Keeps you honest. There’s no “cheating” when you have nothing to go by but the sound.)

This album sold in the millions. They stamped it out until the metalwork was as smooth as a baby’s bottom. Those badly pressed copies are not going to have any high-frequency extension, which leaves them with all the harsh upper mids sticking out of the mix to peel the paint in your living room and make your ears bleed.

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Stevie Ray Vaughan – Live Alive

More Stevie Ray Vaughan

More Electric Blues

  • A Live Alive like you’ve never heard, with superb Double Plus (A++) sound on all FOUR sides – remarkably quiet vinyl too
  • Those of you who are familiar with this record will not be surprised to learn that these shootouts are TOUGH – very few copies are any better than mediocre
  • 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
  • Speaking of Heavy Vinyl, the SRV Box Set put out by Analogue Productions in 2014 — a set we have never heard by the way — rather disappointed one of our customers. He took the time to write us about how he felt being $400 poorer after hearing it
  • This same gentleman learned how important it is to play records like SRV’s good and loud, the way we do
  • “Live Alive is a magnificent double-length showcase for Stevie Ray Vaughan’s guitar playing, featuring a number of extended jams on a selection of most of the best material from Vaughan’s first three albums.. The renditions here sound less polished than the studio versions, with Vaughan’s guitar tone bitingly down and dirty and his playing spontaneous and passionate” 

KILLER sound throughout! Most copies we played were thick, murky, overly smooth and/or veiled, but this one almost never suffers in any of those areas. The sound is clean, clear, transparent and lively throughout.

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