nilssnilsson-schmilsson

Harry Nilsson / Nilsson Schmilsson – The Robed Man’s Masterpiece

More of the Music of Harry Nilsson

  • Solid Double Plus (A++) sound brings Harry Nilsson’s indisputable Masterpiece of Bent Rock to life on this vintage copy
  • Both sides are remarkably good sounding, thanks to the brilliant engineering skills of Phill (That’s Two L’s) Brown
  • A Better Records favorite (we give it Five Stars) that really comes to life on a superb pressing such as this one
  • 4 1/2 stars: “…it’s a near-perfect summary of everything Nilsson could do; he could be craftier and stranger, but never did he achieve the perfect balance as he did here.”
  • If I were to compile a list of my favorite rock and pop albums from 1971, this album would definitely be on it

Big production pop like this is hard to pull off. Harry did an amazing job, but the recording is not perfect judging by the dozen or so copies we played during our most recent shootout, and the scores w’ve suffered through before. Let’s face it: “Jump Into The Fire” will never be smooth and sweet; neither will “Down” on side one. But other tracks on this album have Demo Disc sound.

Nilsson Schmilsson is an album we think we know well. It checks off a number of important boxes for us here at Better Records:

One of His Best

Son of Schmilsson and the album simply titled Harry are two other superb Nilsson records that both come highly recommended. Harry is my favorite of them all, perhaps because it was so different from anything that I’d ever heard up to that point (I was 15 at the time). A Little Touch… is also a personal favorite, with the great American songbook done in Nilsson’s inimitable style.

By the way, if you get a chance to see the documentary “Who Is Harry Nilsson (and Why Is Everybody Talkin’ About Him?),” you should definitely check it out. Most of us here have seen it by now and it’s a ton of fun.

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Jump Into the Fire with Harry Nilsson

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Harry Nilsson Available Now

This commentary was written more than ten years ago.

Jump Into The Fire is one of the best tests we use for side two.

Copies that are too smooth make the “just bass and drums” intro sound thick and smeared.

Too bright and the vocals will tear your head off.

The “just right” copies rock from the start and never get too far out of control, even when Harry does. The best we can hope for is that the loudest vocal parts stay tolerable. Believe me, it is not that easy to find a copy that’s listenable all the way through, not at the high volume I play the record at anyway!

Again, with Nilsson screaming at the top of his lungs, you better have a good copy to get through this track, and even then it’s a bit of a problem.

A tough test for the old stereo, that’s for sure. Make sure your equipment is tuned up and the electricity is good before you get anywhere near a pressing of this album.

Big production pop like this is hard to pull off. Harry did an amazing job, but the recording is not perfect judging by the dozen or so copies I played this week and the scores I’ve suffered through before.

Let’s face it: Jump Into The Fire will never be smooth and sweet; neither will Down on side one. But other tracks on this album have Demo Disc quality sound, and, of course, the music is to die for.

Side One

Gotta Get Up

A tough one right off the bat. If you have an aggressive sounding copy, you’ll know it pretty quick!

Driving Along (more…)

Avoid the Tan Labels and Non-TML Pressings for Nilsson Schmilsson

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Harry Nilsson Available Now

Not that we would ever claim that TML in the dead wax guarantees good sound.

Side two of our tan label copy below was passable, but that’s sonically a very long way from the top copies we played, which of course were all TML, with lots of different stampers, none of which we are likely to reveal, now or in the future, for reasons we are sure you understand.

Anyone who buys one of our White Hot Stamper copies will definitely know, but we only find a couple of those every few years, as this is not a shootout that’s been easy to do for a very long time.

Make sure your equipment is tuned up and the electricity is good before you get anywhere near a pressing of this album.

Big production pop like this is hard to pull off. Harry did an amazing job, but the recording is not perfect judging by the dozen or so copies I played this week and the scores I’ve suffered through before.

Nilsson Schmilsson is an album we think we know well, one that checks off a number of important boxes for us here at Better Records:

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Nilsson Schmilsson – A Simply Vinyl Disaster

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Harry Nilsson Available Now

Sonic Grade: F

Awful in every way. Made from a dub of the master tapes and then mastered from them poorly.

Phill (That’s Two L’s) Brown

I recently looked up the engineer for the album and am rather shocked that I never paid much attention to his body of work before.

He assisted on some amazing sounding records, many that we’ve auditioned and some that we’ve done Hot Stamper shootouts for and know to be superb recordings:

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