The Band
Music From Big Pink

*NOTE: This record was not noisy enough to rate our M-- to EX++ grade, but it's not quite up to our standards for Mint Minus Minus either. If you're looking for quiet vinyl, this is probably not the best copy for you.

We guarantee you have never heard Music From Big Pink sound as good as it does on this very copy. There's plenty of the all-important Tubey Magic and real weight to the bottom. You'll have a very hard time finding one that sounds this good, if our experience is any guide.

This copy has the kind of sound we look for in a top quality Band record: immediacy in the vocals (so many copies are veiled and distant); natural tonal balance (most copies are at least slightly brighter or darker than ideal; ones with the right balance are the exception, not the rule); good solid weight (so the bass sounds full and powerful); spaciousness (the better copies have wonderful studio ambience and space); and last but not least, transparency -- the quality of being able to see into the studio, where there is plenty of musical information to be revealed in this sophisticated recording.

What The Best Sides Of Music From Big Pink Have To Offer Is Not Hard To Hear

• The biggest, most immediate staging in the largest acoustic space
• The most Tubey Magic, without which you have almost nothing. CDs give you clean and clear. Only the best vintage vinyl pressings offer the kind of Tubey Magic that was on the tapes in 1968
• Tight, note-like, rich, full-bodied bass, with the correct amount of weight down low
• Natural tonality in the midrange -- with all the instruments having the correct timbre
• Transparency and resolution, critical to hearing into the three-dimensional studio space

No doubt there's more but we hope that should do for now. Playing the record is the only way to hear all of the qualities we discuss above, and playing the best pressings against a pile of other copies under rigorously controlled conditions is the only way to find a pressing that sounds as good as this one does.

EQ Issues

If you've ever played a pressing of this record you probably know what absolute pieces of garbage most of them are.

Most suffer from a severe lack of bass. As you may have noticed, we're big bass fans around these parts, so a bass-free Big Pink just won't do.

Clean pressings of Music From Big Pink with this kind of sound are not common to say the least. Finding a copy with proper tonality from top to bottom turns out to be a much more difficult prospect than one would think. Too many are thin, with painfully boosted upper midranges, and that EQ results in blary, gritty, grainy sound.

When you finally come across a pressing like this, correct and natural, with plenty of Tubey Magic, more than anything it comes as a relief. It shouldn't have to be this way -- for this or any other album -- but it is.

What We're Listening For On Music From Big Pink

• Energy for starters. What could be more important than the life of the music?
• Then: presence and immediacy. The vocals aren't "back there" somewhere, lost in the mix. They're front and center where any recording engineer worth his salt would put them.
• The Big Sound comes next -- wall to wall, lots of depth, huge space, three-dimensionality, all that sort of thing.
• Then transient information -- fast, clear, sharp attacks, not the smear and thickness so common to these LPs.
• Tight punchy bass -- which ties in with good transient information, also the issue of frequency extension further down.
• Next: transparency -- the quality that allows you to hear deep into the soundfield, showing you the space and air around all the instruments.
• Extend the top and bottom and voila, you have The Real Thing -- an honest to goodness Hot Stamper.

Vinyl Condition

Mint Minus Minus and maybe a bit better is about as quiet as any vintage pressing will play, and since only the right vintage pressings have any hope of sounding good on this album, that will most often be the playing condition of the copies we sell. (The copies that are even a bit noisier get listed on the site are seriously reduced prices or traded back in to the local record stores we shop at.)

Those of you looking for quiet vinyl will have to settle for the sound of other pressings and Heavy Vinyl reissues, purchased elsewhere of course as we have no interest in selling records that don't have the vintage analog magic of these wonderful recordings.

If you want to make the trade-off between bad sound and quiet surfaces with whatever Heavy Vinyl pressing might be available, well, that's certainly your prerogative, but we can't imagine losing what's good about this music -- the size, the energy, the presence, the clarity, the weight -- just to hear it with less background noise.

A Must Own Pop Record

This Demo Disc Quality recording should be part of any serious Popular Music Collection. Others that belong in that category can be found here.

Side One

• Tears of Rage
• To Kingdom Come
• In a Station
• Caledonia Mission
• The Weight

Side Two

• We Can Talk
• Long Black Veil
• Chest Fever
• Lonesome Suzie
• This Wheel's on Fire
• I Shall Be Released

AMG 5 Star Rave Review

... an album that reflected the turmoil of the late '60s in a way that emphasized the tragedy inherent in the conflicts. Music from Big Pink came off as a shockingly divergent musical statement only a year after the ornate productions of Sgt. Pepper, and initially attracted attention because of the three songs Bob Dylan had either written or co-written.

However, as soon as "The Weight" became a minor singles chart entry, the album and the group made their own impact, influencing a movement toward roots styles and country elements in rock. Over time, Music from Big Pink came to be regarded as a watershed work in the history of rock, one that introduced new tones and approaches to the constantly evolving genre.