art-one-done

These are the titles by an artist or band in which they put everything they had, producing by far their best work. Unless you are a big fan, their other albums are, in our opinion, mostly derivative and second-rate.

We’ve gone to the trouble of playing a great many of their other releases, and been forced to recognize that, for most of our customers, the dropoff in quality seems fairly steep.

If you like Phil Collins, his second album is not bad. However, unless you’re a big fan, the first album is really all the Phil Collins you probably need. If you find that Phil Collins is “your thing,” by all means, try his second album.

Toto, B-52s, Boston, Warren Zevon, Gary Wright, Robin Trower, Carole King, Jeff Beck, The Tubes, the list of One and Done albums is simply our way of saying that you might not feel the need to go too deep into these artists’ catalogs, not at the prices we charge anyway.

Annie Lennox – Diva

More Annie Lennox

More Debut Albums of Interest

  • This vintage import offers outstanding Double Plus (A++) sound for both sides of this Annie Lennox classic from 1992
  • Dramatically bigger, richer, smoother, more transparent and just more ANALOG sounding than any other copy you’ve heard, guaranteed or your money back
  • “State-of-the-art soul pop, Annie Lennox’s solo debut is sonically gorgeous…” – Rolling Stone
  • “Diva glides with a rich, feminine dignity that stands tall in pop history.” – Slant
  • If you’re a fan of the Ms Lennox, this debut solo album from 1992 surely belongs in your collection.
  • The complete list of titles from 1992 that we’ve reviewed to date can be found here.

By 1992 records like this were only released on import vinyl and typically went out of print soon after they started their descent down the pop charts. I used to sell them back in the day and supplies were extremely limited and unpredictable. And once they were gone they were virtually never reissued. All of those factors conspire to make the cost of acquiring the mintiest pressings from overseas fairly high, and of course the main reason you have never seen the album on our site before.

Be that as it may, we have this copy available and it is not only wonderful sounding but the music is every bit as good as I remember it. (more…)

Stealers Wheel – Self-Titled

More Stealers Wheel

 More Debut Albums of Interest

  • With solid Double Plus (A++) sound or BETTER throughout, this early British A&M pressing of Stealers Wheel’s debut album is doing just about everything right
  • This Brit is Tubey Magical like you will not believe – it’s guaranteed to be a huge improvement over anything you’ve heard, especially the dubby domestic pressings
  • Thanks naturally must go to the brilliant Geoff Emerick – it’s shocking to contemplate the idea that he became an even better recording engineer in the ’70s
  • 4 stars: “…the first LP from the tumultuous Stealers Wheel is a debonair affair comprised of the kind of accomplished and polished pub pop for which impetus Gerry Rafferty would become known as he subsequently rode out the decade…”

Like so many British bands on the A&M label, when it came time to master the album for the domestic market, the people in charge (whoever they may have been) took the easy way out and simply ordered up a dub of the master tape with which to cut the album.

Spooky Tooth, Procol Harum, Fairport Convention, (my beloved) Squeeze and too many others to think about all had their records ruined by sub-generation masters.

But this is the real British-pressed vinyl from the real master tape, and that makes all the difference in the world.

(more…)

Ringo Starr – Ringo

More Ringo Starr

More Records Produced by Richard Perry

  • This pressing boasts a KILLER Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) side one mated to an outstanding Double Plus (A++) side two – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • Another Richard Perry production that sounds big and rich, just the way we like ’em
  • The audiophile sound is due to the excellent engineering skills of Bill Schnee – you may remember him from the credits of some of Sheffield’s better direct to disc recordings
  • The big hits are here and they sound fantastic: “Photograph,” “You’re Sixteen,” “Oh My My” and many, many more
  • 4 1/2 stars: “Ringo’s best and most consistent new studio album, Ringo represented both the drummer/singer’s most dramatic comeback and his commercial peak.”

Like Nilsson Schmilsson – an amazing Richard Perry production with equally amazing sound – the bad copies are really just awful. They tend to be veiled, smeary, compressed, rolled off up top and leaned out down low.

This is a big studio pop production with a lot going on; when it doesn’t work it really doesn’t work. Thankfully, on some copies it does, and this is one of those.

If you’ve tried Hot Stamper pressings of any of our favorite Richard Perry productions — No Secrets, Nilsson Schmilsson, Son of Schmilsson come to mind — you know the sound of this album.

Bill Schnee did some of the engineering. You probably know his name from the famous Sheffield Direct to Disc recordings he made there. If you like your records will lots of bottom end, richness, Tubey Magic and powerful dynamics, he’s the guy that can get that sound on tape, and Doug Sax, the mastering engineer for the album, is the guy that can get that sound onto disc. They made a great team.

(more…)

Steve Winwood – Back In The High Life

More of the Music of Steve Winwood

  • Both sides of this UK copy of Steve Winwood’s Solo Masterpiece earned outstanding Double Plus (A++) grades or BETTER
  • This early British pressing is guaranteed to be dramatically bigger, richer, fuller and smoother than anything you’ve heard
  • Higher Love with better than Double Plus sound? You’re gonna love it! And there’s really not a bad track on the album
  • “The first undeniably superb record of an almost decade-long solo career … the passion long smoldering in his finest work explodes in the album-opening duet with Chaka Khan, Higher Love…” — Rolling Stone

On the best copies, the sound is spacious and high-resolution. The bright, dry, grainy, analytical sound is replaced with something warmer, richer, fuller, sweeter, smoother — in other words, more ANALOG sounding. (more…)

David Lindley – El Rayo-X

More David Lindley

  • El Rayo-X finally returns to the site with STUNNING Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound or very close to it throughout
  • If you’re looking for deep punchy bass, crashing dynamics, silky sweet vocal harmonies, grungy slide guitars, tons of ambience, and super low distortion sound, this is the copy for you
  • Engineered in 1981 by Greg Ladanyi, the very next year he would take home the Best Engineering Grammy for Toto IV (one helluva good sounding album and a former member of our Top 100)
  • 4 1/2 stars: “One of the greatest rock music albums of its time. Fabulous.”
  • If you’re a fan of the man, this is a classic from 1981 that belongs in your collection (and the only record of his that does).
  • The complete list of titles from 1981 that we’ve reviewed to date can be found here.

This superb Asylum original LP is a real DEMO DISC — if what you are trying to demonstrate is how BIG and BOLD a good old-fashioned analog recording can sound.

After hearing Lindley’s white-bread session playing on ’70s albums by Linda Ronstadt, Jackson Browne, et al., you might think the man must have a stick up his butt. His solos just never seem to let loose or get loose, and they rarely rock. Mercury Blues is proof positive that he can rock like a wild man when he wants to. On this album, perhaps for the first time, he really does seem to want to.

The sound on this record is so punchy and dynamic, the rest of your rock records should seem positively anemic in comparison. Most of it sounds live in the studio, and live in the studio is how you get a bunch of guys to play with this kind of enthusiasm and energy.

Engineered in 1981 by Greg Ladanyi, the very next year he would take home the Best Engineering Grammy for Toto IV (one helluva good sounding album and a former member of our Top 100).

Fortunately for us audiophiles, this album catches him before the overly-processed, digital drums and digital echo “sound of the ’80s” had gotten into his blood. (Just play any of the awful Don Henley records he made to hear what we mean.) This record still sounds ANALOG, and even though it may be 1981 and mostly transistorized, the better copies display strong evidence of TUBES in the recording chain.

Another Record We’ve Discovered with (Potentially) Excellent Sound

(more…)

Jonathan Edwards – Self-Titled

More Singer Songwriter albums

More Records We’ve Discovered with (Potentially) Excellent Sound

  • If you’re a fan of superbly well recorded Acoustic Guitar Folk Pop (think James Taylor and Dan Fogelberg), this pressing is guaranteed to deliver the goods
  • 4 1/2 stars: “His brand of homespun tunes were perfectly matched to his emotive and soaring tenor… The acoustic and optimistic “Sunshine” struck a chord with listeners in the fall of 1971, climbing all the way to a lofty number four on the Pop Singles survey…
  • This is clearly the man’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 Jonathan Edwards record you’ll ever need. Click on this link to see more titles we like to call One and Done

This is a longtime Better Records favorite for both music and sound. It may not be one of the more popular titles we do our unique shootouts for, but for those of you who love folky, acoustic guitar pop — we often call it Hippie Folk Rock — you should find a lot to like about this album.

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).

(more…)

Billy Squier – Don’t Say No

More Rock Classics

  • With a nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) side two and a seriously good Double Plus (A++) side one, this copy will be very hard to beat – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • HUGE Rock Sound — the guitars and drums are positively jumping out of the speakers with dynamic energy, presented on a stage that’s exceptionally wide and tall — which means the two monster hits In The Dark and The Stroke both rock like crazy, with more bottom and top end extension than practically any of the other copies we played
  • 4 1/2 stars: “Billy Squier truly arrived with 1981’s Don’t Say No… The album is a near-perfect example of early-’80s melodic hard rock… as far as studio albums are concerned, Don’t Say No is undoubtedly his best.”

There’s a reason this album sounds big and lively. It was produced by Reinhold Mack (“& Billy” according to the liner notes), Mack being the man who produced a truly amazing sounding Queen album, The Game. If you’ve ever heard a serious Hot Stamper of that album, you know what we’re talking about when we say it delivers the Big Rock Sound we love here at Better Records. Turn it up and rock out! (more…)

Michael McDonald / If That’s What It Takes – A Masterpiece of Blue-Eyed Soul

More Blue Eyed Soul

  • One of the All Time Great Jeff Porcaro Drum Exhibition Records (with the equally amazing Steve Gadd handling the other tracks)
  • Some of the best Pop Rock engineering of all time, courtesy of Lee Herschberg and Donn Landee
  • 4 1/2 stars on Allmusic – more importantly, this is a dramatically better album than anything the Doobies ever released

I’m proud to count Michael McDonald among my favorite recording artists. He made this Desert Island Disc and single-handedly turned the Doobie Brothers into a band I could enjoy and even respect. This is a Must Own if you like the later Doobies and the kind of highly-polished but heartfelt and intelligent pop records the major labels excelled at in the ’70s.

With the right pressing the highs open up and his vocals JUMP out of the speakers. He’s RIGHT THERE. The next step is to check to see if you have punchy, well-defined bass, a key element in this rhythmically complex music. With plenty of presence in the vocals and punch down below, you have a copy that can hold its head high, with sound that really brings this music to life.

Drum Boogie

Let us not forget that this is also one of the All-Time Great Jeff Porcaro Drum Exhibition Records.

His work here on tracks 2, 6, and 8 is pure genius. Play this album against Katy Lied: I think you will find the comparison instructive. If That’s What It Takes and Katy Lied are the pinnacle of achievement for Jeff on the drums.

Drumming for the other six tracks is ably handled by the amazingly talented Steve Gadd, whose drum work on the title track of Aja is the stuff of legend (love that improvised click of the sticks!)

(more…)

Steeleye Span / Commoners Crown – A Masterpiece of English Folk Rock

Hot Stamper Albums with Huge Choruses

  • Incredible sound for this early British pressing, with huge and dynamic Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound throughout
  • The Tubey Magical Richness of this recording must be heard to be believed
  • Some of the best English Folk Rock Music ever recorded on analog tape and preserved on this lovely vinyl disc!
  • Allmusic gives it 4 1/2 stars: “Now a full-fledged rock group, competing with the likes of Jethro Tull and pumping out higher amperage than Fairport Convention, Steeleye engages in heavy riffing, savage attacks on their instruments, and generally kicks out the jams on this album.”

This original Porky/Pecko mastered British Chrysalis pressing has insanely good sound on both sides and, even more importantly, some of the best English Folk Rock Music ever recorded on analog tape (and preserved on this lovely vinyl disc!).

I grew to love this album back in the ’70s; the stereo store I worked at used it as a Demo Disc, so I heard it on a regular basis. Rather than getting sick of it, I actually bought a copy for my own collection to play at home. (Not sure if I managed to get an import, not sure if I would even have been able to hear the difference.)

Things have changed as we never tire of saying here at Better Records, but in a way you could say they have stayed the same. This used to be a Demo Disc, and now it’s REALLY a Demo Disc. You will have a very hard time finding a record with a richer, fuller, better-defined, dare I say “fatter” bottom.

Both sides have practically everything we look for in a Hot Stamper British Folk Rock Album — this copy is stunningly dynamic; has really solid bass; lovely transparency, incredible presence; tons of space and ambience; you name it, this copy has it. It does it all. (more…)

Tina Turner – Private Dancer

More Tina Turner 

  • Incredible sound throughout with each side earning Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • This vintage pressing is big and rich, with superb clarity and three-dimensional space, this is the kind of sound that most pressings only hint at
  • 4 1/2 stars: “In 1984, a 45-year-old Tina Turner made one of the most amazing comebacks in the history of American popular music… Without question, this was Turner’s finest hour as a solo artist.”

(more…)