Well recorded records ... what are your picks?


I just finished listening to some records. No surprises, just some usuals. But, I was thinking the whole time about how well some of these records were engineered and recorded. I thought I would write about them and ask for your favorites.

I finished with Thomas Dolby -- Aliens Ate My Buick. It is so well recorded! I am drawn in and must listen to the whole album. I lose myself in this one! Rickie Lee Jones -- Pop Pop. Spin her version of "Up From the Skies" and you will know what I am talking about. Pure recorded bliss. It is magical. I had to listen to the rest of the album and was not disappointed! Dire Straits -- Love Over Gold. Title track -- unbelievable. This album is so well recorded; no wonder I have known more than a few audiophiles who have recommended it. I listened to the whole damned wonderful album! Rickie Lee Jones -- Rickie Lee Jones. How can you miss with this one. If you need to test your set-up, go with this one. It is perfect. Oh, also, I listened to "Sunday in the Park with George" tonight. It is so well recorded with depth and width. I also enjoy the music. I also spun Dire Straits -- Communique. It is not as well recorded as Love Over Gold, but that is only by a "smidgen." It is truly a gem. I love the music, and it is very well recorded.

These are my picks for tonight. More to come, of course. I am wondering what are your favorites and why? This could be a nice exchange of information on well engineered and recorded records for all of us. And, we could all discover albums and their characteristics through each other's information.

Cheers!
bicycle_man
Joan Armatrading -- Me Myself I. Someone in my building was throwing it out. I picked it up. It is in excellent condition.

The music is great! The recording is great!

The quality of the recording supports my thought that the music industry recorded rock music very well until the early eighties. After that it seems to me that rock and other pop genres were not so well recorded. Of course, the exception is some artists who paid attention to how their albums were recorded, like Joe Jackson.
Supertramp Live, Paris. One of the best live albums I have heard! Beautifully recorded!

Get one, and listen to it. It is great!

Cheers.
Sit ! Bruford's One of a Kind, now that album is truly a masterpiece. Probably my top album ever always.
Current /newish Releases of interest:

Radiohead - In Rainbows (in particular the ltd edition release includes CD copy of album also, and it's a 45rpm LP)

The White Stripes - Ickey Thump (An all analog recording and the 1st ever LP to be mastered at Acoustech from 1inch tape)
Hi, following my 5 cents worth...

There are stacks of contemporary pop with a lot of these picks as I can see, that's fine, but how about some funked up jazz e.g. Hubert Laws: 'The Rite of Spring' with
Gene Bertoncini, Ron Carter, Jack DeJohnette, Dave Friedman, Bob James, Airto -- and of all things produced by Creed Taylor... (not everyone’s recommendation I guess)

Interesting here, since we talk about 'well recorded records', if I play this one with a more average type of pick-up it can sound plain weird --- now I heard it with an Orpheus and this particular album is something else completely, since all the tonal-colours come out, that freaky jazzy stuff starts to make sense all of the sudden. It is quite fantastic actually...

This brings up the second point, the quality of the pressings themselves. A mediocre pressing, and even Ricky Lee Jones, so well recorded, can sound just like -- well mediocre.

Last one, and everyone knows it for sure - Dark Side.. P.F.
Listening to a local SA pressing makes me realise why everyone in the early 80s thought CD was so marvellous.
Some of these pressings must have been pressed on stampers that had exceeded their natural life by more then 10x, but it sold anyhow with the lowly standard prevailing at the time. Yet another reason we got CDs up to our eyeballs... lousy LP quality.
Greetings,
Axel