thompshoot

Shoot Out The Lights – Bigger, Taller, Wider, Deeper

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Richard Thompson Available Now

One of the qualities we don’t talk about nearly enough on the site is the SIZE of a record’s presentation. Some copies of the album don’t extend all the way to the outside edges of the speakers, and don’t seem to take up all the space from the floor to the ceiling. Other copies do, creating a huge soundfield from which the instruments and voices positively jump out of the speakers. 

When you hear a copy that can do that, needless to say (at least to anyone who’s actually bought some of our best Hot Stamper pressings) it’s an entirely different listening experience.

With constant improvements to the system, Shoot Out the Lights is now so powerful a recording that we had no choice but to add it to our Top 100 list in 2014, but we would go even further than that and say that it would belong on a list of the Top Ten Best Sounding Rock Records of All Time.

The guitars are HUGE — they positively leap out of the speakers on the title cut, freeing themselves from a studio that seems already to be the size of a house.

Not long ago we played an amazing copy of The Sky Is Crying, one of the biggest — and by that we mean tallest, widest and deepest — sounding records we have ever heard. This album is every bit as big. It’s nothing less than astounding.

We live for that sound here at Better Records. If you do too, you might want to check out the albums in this group we consider to be Demo Discs for size and space.

There is the kind of solid, powerful kick to the drums on every track that only the best of the best rock records ever display, the Back in Blacks and Zep IIs, with deep punchy bass augmenting the drums, just as it does on the Hot Stamper pressings of those two titles.

It’s no exaggeration to say that this record should put to shame 99% of all the rock records you have ever heard.

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Shoot Out The Lights – Loud Versus Live Versus The Heavy Vinyl Reissue

thompshoot_1503_1_1282591967Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Richard Thompson Available Now

Here’s a thought: if 180 gram records are supposed to be an improvement over the original pressings, why is it that they NEVER sound big and bold like our best Hot Stamper pressings?

And I do mean never; I’ve played hundreds of them over the years and have yet to hear this kind of sound on any of them. At this point I would have to conclude that it is simply not possible.

If you have big speakers, a large listening room and like to play your records loud, there is no modern reissue that will ever give you the thrill that a vintage pressing like this can. (Of course, to fully appreciate the effect it obviously helps if you have a White Hot Stamper copy to play.)

Heavy Vinyl

Years ago, about the time that I was becoming disenchanted with Heavy Vinyl in general and Four Men With Beards in particular, that label released a modern reissue of the album. I could never work up the energy to bother to play it. The chances of it sounding like one of our Hot Stamper pressings are slim to none and much closer to none.

UPDATE 2024

I have now played the remastered Shoot Out the Lights and it’s very good!  It might be at best a low level Hot Stamper, maybe 1.5+, but for Heavy Vinyl that is indeed exceptional.

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Richard & Linda Thompson – Shoot Out The Lights

More Richard Thompson

  • An outstanding copy of The Thompsons’ final album with big, bold, energetic Double Plus (A++) sound or BETTER on both sides – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • Without a doubt this is the best record Richard and Linda Thompson ever made
  • Dynamic, huge, lively, powerful and musical – a real Demo Disc
  • A Top 100 album, and clearly Thompson’s Masterpiece of Grungy Guitar Rock
  • 5 stars: “Shoot Out The Lights found them rallying their strengths to the bitter end; it’s often been cited as Richard Thompson’s greatest work, and it’s difficult for anyone who has heard his body of work to argue the point.”

Without a doubt, this is the best record Richard and Linda Thompson ever made together, possibly the best record Thompson was ever involved with, but it also holds one other important distinction, one of great interest to us audiophiles: it’s the BEST SOUNDING record he (they) ever made as well.

Turn it up good and loud and you will be amazed at how dynamic the guitar solos are.

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Shoot Out The Lights – Loud Versus Live

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Richard Thompson Available Now

Shoot Out the Lights is yet another recording that really comes alive when you turn up your volume.

I’ve seen Richard Thompson on a number of occasions over the years, and as loud as my stereo will play, which is pretty darn loud, I’ve never been able to make his guitar solos 20 dB louder than everything else, because they’re simply not on the record that way. That’s why live music can’t be reproduced faithfully in the home: the dynamic contrasts are much too great for the typical listener, or his stereo. 

Having said that, when you actually do turn this record up, way up, you get the feeling of hearing live music, and that’s not easy to do.

Only the best recordings, in my experience, can begin to give you that feeling. (And of course it helps to have big dynamic speakers.)

On the best copies the sound is very dynamic, the soundstage HUGE. The overall presentation in terms of size and weight just makes you want to turn your stereo up as loud as it will go. In that sense, it has some of the qualities of “live” music, because live music is loud.

We do shootouts for this Top 100 title on a regular basis. To see what we might have in stock, please click here. (more…)

Shoot Out The Lights – The Best Sounding Record of the Decade?

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Richard Thompson Available Now

Without a doubt this is the best record Richard and Linda Thompson ever made together, possibly the best record Thompson was ever involved with, but it also holds one other important distinction, one of great interest to us audiophiles: it’s the BEST SOUNDING record he (they) ever made as well.

As I was playing the finalists for side two (at ear-splitting levels I might add) an odd thought crossed my mind. Where had I heard this kind of monstrous, punchy bass and these soaring, perfectly distorted guitars, so big and so powerful, before? There was something about the sound – the awesome energy, the freedom from compression or spatial restraint of any kind – that was strangely familiar from another shootout.

After a minute’s deliberation the answer came to me: I was remembering the feeling I got from the White Hot Stamper of Led Zeppelin II we played not long ago.

Yes, that’s the album that it most closely resembles. As outlandish as it may seem, the rock power of Shoot Out the Lights has much more in common with the rock power of Zep II than any other record I can think of.

To be sure, the vast majority of people, including the vast majority of audiophiles, have never heard a top quality RL Zep II played at extremely loud levels on a big speaker system in a dedicated room. Nor in all probability will they ever have the chance.

But I sure have, quite a few in fact. If anyone knows that sound I do. I’ve dedicated the past forty years of my efforts in audio to reproducing records with the Big Rock Sound like Zep II. There’s really none bigger in my opinion. (more…)

Letter of the Week – “Easily put to shame the copies I have on hand by a long shot.”

More of the Music of Richard Thompson

One of our good customers had this to say about some Hot Stampers he purchased recently:

Hey Tom,   

Recently purchased The Hot Stamper of R&L Thompson’s Shoot Out The Lights. What a wonderful copy! Easily put to shame the copies I have on hand by a long shot. It’s great to hear a copy of this record that does the music justice. An exceptional find on your part. Great doing business with you.

Jim S.

Shoot Out The Lights Is a Four Men with Beards Heavy Vinyl Winner

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Richard Thompson Available Now

Sonic Grade: B

Hey, this is a surprisingly good sounding pressing! Our Hot Stampers are clearly bigger and more lively, but for a Heavy Vinyl reissue this pressing is quite respectable.

You won’t get the effect we describe below on the Heavy Vinyl pressing that we heard on our best Hot Stamper original pressings, but you will get a very good sounding record.

With constant improvements to the system Shoot Out is now so powerful a recording that we had no choice but to add it to our Top 100 list in 2014, but we would go even further than that and say that it would belong on a list of the Top Ten Best Sounding Rock Records of All Time.

The guitars are HUGE — they positively leap out of the speakers on the title cut, freeing themselves from a studio that seems already to be the size of a house. (more…)