Hot Stamper Pressings of Music on Island Records Available Now
Please note that the album you see pictured on the left is not the one we are discussing here.
It has been our experience going back many years that the earliest pressings for many records on the Island label are not very good.
To be fair, this one — again, not Mr. Fantasy — is not a bad sounding pressing.
With grades of 1.5+ on both sides, it fits comfortably in our section for good, not great sounding LPs. But the right reissues are a big step up in class sonically. They’re the ones that win shootouts, not these Pink Label LPs.
It’s big and clear but dry and spitty and badly needs tubes — or the sound of tubes — in the cutting chain.
That’s not supposed to happen, the early pressings are supposed to be the most Tubey Magical ones, with the reissues being less Tubey Magical — but in the world of records, when has that rule of thumb ever counted for anything?
Been There, Done That
We’ve run into so many sonically-flawed Pink Label Islands by now that hearing one sound lackluster if not actually awful doesn’t phase us in the least. Some of the other Pink Labels that never win shootouts can be found here.
