... POORLY RECORDED SONGS THAT ...

"Can't Find My Way Back Home" from the Blind Faith album. The best vinyl copy I have, a first UK Polydor, is an improvement over the original US pressing, but the cymbals still sound like trash can lids. The song and performance still shine through despite that. (It's not an ear bleeder, just an awful recording). 

Whole album is pretty bad sounding but i rarely listen to the whole album. That song, Can't Find My Way, is, to me, the best thing on the record and occasionally i'll play the entire side one. Side two is a disaster:  Sea of Joy is ok, but Do What you Like-- kinda like Ron Bushy's 48 year long drum solo. :)

@wcfeil-- I went thru a Ziggy phase a while ago to find a good one. The 4E/6E UK is very good sounding, as was the reissue from several years ago which, I believe, was based on an analog tape. (It has subsequently been reissued again, but I don’t know the provenance of that one and didn’t buy it). The only problem with the reissue from a few years ago was that there was a batch with defects so the song "Star" was reduced to gibberish. I have two copies of that with the same problem. The 4E/6E in top condition is typically a hundred dollar record, whereas the reissue is cheap-ish. There may have been an EMI Centenary issue as well, which I don’t have- some were analog, others pulled from a digital transfer. (I think Hunky Dory on the EMI 100 Series is all analog but it still sounds more ’modern’ than the older UK pressings).

Michael, in some cases it is the particular issue- safety copy or needle drop (or CD pull), plus bad mastering. I have many records where there are significant differences in sound --from horrible to great- depending on the particular issue. And, it’s not always the fancy audiophile issue, or the "first pressing" (whatever that means in a particular context) that has the best sound.