live-rock-pop-blues

Cream – Goodbye

More British Blues Rock

  • Cream’s final album, here with STUNNING Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades or close to them from top to bottom
  • The low end speed and energy on this copy are crazy good – it’s like a Cream concert in your listening room
  • The best pressings, the ones that are full-bodied and smooth, let you crank the levels and reproduce the album good and loud the way it was meant to be heard
  • 4 stars: “The live music on the whole is better than that on Wheels of Fire, capturing the trio at an empathetic peak as a band.”

When you get a good copy of this album you’re sure to hear what we heard — that this is truly one of the great live rock albums (with a bit of studio material on side two as well). This copy has the Big Rock Sound that we go crazy for at Better Records. The best pressings, the ones that are full-bodied and smooth, let you crank the levels and reproduce the album good and loud the way it was meant to be heard.

When it’s all working, you’re front and center for a fiery Cream concert with these guys delivering one heckuva performance. And where else are you gonna get that these days?

What To Listen For

Side one has two extended songs, with Politician being the standout sonically. It’s got the Big Live Rock sound, very spacious and transparent. The first track, I’m So Glad, is always a bit midrangey.

Badge is a great test for side two. If Clapton’s Leslie-speaker-processed-guitar solo is blasting away right in your listening room and approximately the size of your house, then you have a good copy.

When a copy is cut really clean, as the best ones always are, the louder you play them the better they sound.

They’re tonally correct at loud volumes and a bit dull at “audiophile” volumes. We wouldn’t have it any other way.

(more…)

The Doors – Absolutely Live

More of  the Music of The Doors

  • These vintage Elektra pressings boast STUNNING Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound or close to it on all FOUR sides
  • 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
  • Recorded at concerts in 1969 and 1970, this double-LP set features two original songs – the haunting “Universal Mind” and the blues-rocker “Build Me a Woman” – not found on any of studio albums, as well as extended versions of “Soul Kitchen,” “Break On Through,” and “When the Music’s Over”
  • Marks in the vinyl are sometimes the nature of the beast with these Classic Rock albums – those on “The Celebration Of The Lizard” are especially bad – but if you can tough those out, this copy is going to blow your mind
  • If you’re a fan of the band, their live album from 1970 surely belongs in your collection

(more…)

Cheap Trick – At Budokan

More of the Music of Cheap Trick

  • Very good sound on this true classic from Cheap Trick, with both sides earning Hot Stamper grades – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • We guarantee there is more space, richness, presence, and performance energy on this copy than others you’ve heard or you get your money back – it’s as simple as that
  • One of only two Cheap Trick albums that cuts it for us sonically and musically (the other being Dream Police)
  • 5 stars: “With their ear-shatteringly loud guitars and sweet melodies, Cheap Trick unwittingly paved the way for much of the hard rock of the next decade, as well as a surprising amount of alternative rock of the 1990s, and it was At Budokan that captured the band in all of its power.”

The first pressings of this record come with an OBI strip and a Japanese style lyric and photo booklet, giving the impression that this is a Japanese pressing. But it’s clearly domestic, so kudos have to go to Epic Records for doing a wonderful imitation that would practically fool any record collector.

Most of the copies we have to offer will come with the booklet, while the OBI strips are long gone.

This is probably the only Cheap Trick record most casual fans will ever need. The live versions of ‘Ain’t That A Shame’ and ‘I Want You To Want Me’ are AS GOOD AS IT GETS. Where would Classic Rock Radio be without catchy pop like this? Nowhere man!

A Rock Masterpiece

We consider this Chip Trick album their Masterpiece. Others that belong in that category can be found here.

(more…)

Little Feat – Waiting For Columbus

More Little Feat

  • A vintage copy of Waiting For Columbus with seriously good Double Plus (A++) grades or close to them on all FOUR sides – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • Some of the best sounding live rock and roll sound you will ever hear outside of a concert venue (particularly on sides one, two, and four)
  • If you want to understand the unique appeal of the band, there’s no better place to start than right here
  • One of our all-time favorite live recordings and their single best release – a true Masterpiece
  • 4 1/2 stars: “There’s much to savor on Waiting For Columbus, one of the great live albums of its era, thanks to rich performances that prove Little Feat were one of the great live bands of their time.”
  • 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,” but with less of an accent on morbidity and more on the joy these amazing audiophile-quality recordings can bring to your life. Waiting for Columbus is a good example of a record many audiophiles may not know well but should.

This is an amazingly well-recorded concert, and what’s more, the versions the band does of their earlier material are much better than the studio album versions of those same songs in every case.

Fat Man In A Bathtub on this album is out of this world, but you could easily say that about a dozen or more of the tracks on this double album. Which simply means that you will have a very hard time listening to any of the studio versions of these songs once you’ve heard them performed with the kind of energy, enthusiasm and technical virtuosity Little Feat brought to this live show. (I saw them twice with Lowell and they were amazing both times.)

This is some of the best sounding live rock and roll sound you will ever hear outside of a concert venue. In fact, on a great copy, it’s just about as good as live rock’n’roll sound gets.

Here is a link to take you to more letters, commentaries and reviews for Waiting for Columbus.

(more…)

Frank Sinatra and Count Basie – Sinatra At The Sands

More Frank Sinatra

  • These original Blue and Green Reprise Stereo pressings were doing just about everything right, with all FOUR sides earning solid Double Plus (A++) grades or close to them
  • Truly one of the greatest live albums of all time, recorded late at night in the big room at the Sands Hotel in Vegas
  • This is Basie and Sinatra in their natural habitat and in their prime, putting on the show of a lifetime
  • On the right system, this is about as close as you get to hearing Sinatra singing live in your listening room, with the added realism of a live Vegas show (particularly on sides one, two, and four)
  • 4 1/2 stars: “Basie and the orchestra are swinging and dynamic, inspiring a textured, dramatic, and thoroughly enjoyable performance from Sinatra … the definitive portrait of Frank Sinatra in the 60s.”

This double album presents Sinatra and Basie at the height of their powers, in a setting especially conducive to both men’s music, the big room at the Sands Hotel in Vegas. If you missed it — and I’m sure most all of us did — here’s your chance to go back in time and be seated with the beautiful people front row center. This two-disc all tube-mastered analog set is practically the only way you’ll ever be able to hear the greatest vocalist of his generation — in his prime, no less — fronting one of the swingingest big bands of the time.

The presence and immediacy here are staggering. Turn it up and Frank is right in front of you, putting on the performance of a lifetime.

The sound is big, open, rich, and full. The highs are extended and silky sweet. The bass is tight and punchy. And this copy gives you more life and energy than most, by a long shot. Very few records out there offer the kind of realistic, lifelike sound you get from this pressing.

(more…)

Emerson, Lake and Palmer – Pictures at an Exhibition

More Emerson, Lake and Palmer

  • An original UK Island pressing of this ELP Classic live album with a STUNNING Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) side two mated to a seriously good Double Plus (A++) side one
  • Both of these sides are amazingly Tubey Magical and exceptionally spacious, with a massive bottom end and plenty of Rock and Roll (and classical) energy
  • Pictures at an Exhibition is yet another in the long list of recordings that really comes alive when you turn up your volume
  • “…it worked on several levels that allowed widely divergent audiences to embrace it — with the added stimulus of certain controlled substances, it teased the brain with its mix of melody and heavy rock, and for anyone with some musical knowledge, serious or casual, it was a sufficiently bold use of Mussorgsky’s original to stimulate hours of delightful listening.”

This British Island LP has real weight and heft, so when Emerson lays into the organ, it’ll rattle the walls. It has that big, fat, rich, smooth sound that we love here at Better Records. It’s warm and full, not thick and sludgy. It’s on the right end of the “tubey-transistory” spectrum.

Listen to how GIGANTIC the organ is that plays the fanfare opening of the work. Honestly, I have never heard a rock album with an organ sound that stretched from wall to wall like this one does. It sounds like it must be seventy five feet tall, too.

No, I take that back. The first ELP album has an organ that sounds about that big, but that’s a studio album. How did they manage to get that kind of organ sound in a live setting without actually having to build one inside the concert hall?

The domestic copies are a bad joke as you may have guessed.

You might think that you could just pick up any old Brit pressing to get this kind of sound, but that has not been our experience. Many of them are thick, dull, smeary, veiled, congested and/or just plain lifeless.

(more…)

Here’s How You Know You Have a Hot Stamper of Songs in the Attic

joelsongs600Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Billy Joel Available Now

It’s the side you play through to the end.

When the sound is right you want to hear more.

Since the opening track of this record is one of the keys to knowing whether it’s mastered and pressed properly, once you get past the sibilance hurdle on track one, the next step is to find out how the challenges presented by the rest of the tracks are handled on any given pressing. Some advice follows.

Actually, what you really want to know is how good each song can sound — what it sounds like when it’s right.

Once the quality of the mastering has been established, the fun part is to play the rest of the album, to hear it really come alive.

Side One

Miami 2017

This is usually the brightest cut on the first side, commonly found with some sibilance problems. On the high-res copies the sibilance is lessened, and the sound of the sibilance itself is much less transistory and spitty, with more of a silky quality, which is simply another way of saying it’s less distorted.

Of course one wouldn’t want the sibilance to be lessened by having a dull top end, but few of these pressings are dull. Most of them suffer from a brightness problem. The best copies keep the sibilance under control and balance the upper mids with extended highs. Without extension on the highs the sound will tend to be aggressive.

(more…)

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.”

(more…)

Paul McCartney – Unplugged

More Paul McCartney

  • A true Demo Disc and superb sounding import pressing with solid Double Plus (A++) grades on both sides – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • A strikingly intimate document of a live show, fronted by one of the greatest performers in history, Sir Paul McCartney
  • You get more extension up top, more weight down low, and more transparency in the midrange, than on most other copies we played
  • 4 stars: “… it remains one of the most enjoyable records in McCartney’s catalog. McCartney is carefree and charming, making songs like ‘Be-Bop-a-Lula’ and ‘Blue Moon of Kentucky’ sound fresh.”

Superb sound for this amazing recording! On the better copies, the sound is warmer, richer, and sweeter, or in a word, more analog sounding. You get more extension up top, more weight down low, and more transparency in the midrange. It’s surprising how veiled and two-dimensional so many copies can be, considering that this is a live recording (by the legendary Geoff Emerick himself) with not a lot of “messing around” after the fact.

Finding The Best Sound

This isn’t your typical rock record that sounds crappy on eight out of ten copies. Most copies of Unplugged sound pretty good. We did hear quite a few that had a somewhat brittle quality to the top end, with no real extension to speak of. It wasn’t ever a dealbreaker, but the copies with a silky openness up there are much more enjoyable — and, unfortunately, fairly uncommon.

There are copies that lack warmth, copies that never fully come to life, and copies that are a bit dark. Some that we auditioned didn’t seem to get the breath in the vocals, and others lacked weight to the piano. Again — not one of the pressings we played sounded bad, but many of them definitely sounded dry, boring and lifeless.

Just for fun, check out Linda’s percussion and tambourine work in the right channel of the first track on side one, “Be-Bop-A-Lula.” Since that’s one of our test tracks, we had the opportunity to hear her ‘contribution’ to the song about twenty times or so, and it became a source of — to be charitable — ‘entertainment’ in its own right as the shootout progressed.

(more…)

Eric Clapton – E.C. Was Here

More of the Music of Eric Clapton

  • Outstanding sound for this UK import pressing (only the second copy to hit the site in years), with both sides earning solid Double Plus (A++) grades or BETTER
  • Forget the dubby domestic pressings – here is the energy, the dynamic power, the low end WHOMP, and the Clapton-live-in-your-listening-room presence you’ve never experienced on the album before, guaranteed
  • “E.C. Was Here makes it clear that Clapton was and always would be a blues man. The opening cut, “Have You Ever Loved a Woman,” clearly illustrates this, and underlines the fact that Clapton had a firm grasp on his blues guitar ability, with some sterling, emotionally charged and sustained lines and riffs… [the album] remains an excellent document of the period.”

Check out Clapton’s superb arrangements and performances of two of the best songs from his short-lived Blind Faith period: “Presence of the Lord” and “Can’t Find My Way Home.” They’re two of the highpoints on an album filled with good material that does not seem to get the credit it is due. I bought this album when it came out in 1975 and never really got into it. Of course I had an inferior domestic pressing and a stereo that couldn’t have done the album justice anyway, but in my defense I would have to say that there really wasn’t any such stereo system on the face of the earth; we still had a long way to go.

Eric Clapton has made very few consistently good albums, considering his career is going on 50+ years. Slowhand, Unplugged, and his first album come to mind. After that it’s pretty slim pickin’s. Now you can add this one to the list. This concert album shows Clapton at his bluesy best.

(more…)