{"product_id":"bowiepinup_2602_6x__","title":"Bowie, David - Pin-Ups - Hot Stamper (Quiet Vinyl)","description":"\u003cp\u003eBowie puts a unique spin on tracks originally played by The Who, The Yardbirds, Pink Floyd and other British rockers. It's a fun, intriguing album that stands up well to repeated plays. Bryan Ferry did the same thing in 1973 with some of his favorite pop songs. Oddly enough, both albums entered the charts on the very same day in November of that year.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eWhat The Best Sides Of Pin-Ups Have To Offer Is Not Hard To Hear\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThe biggest, most immediate staging in the largest acoustic space\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThe most Tubey Magic, without which you have \u003ci\u003ealmost\u003c\/i\u003e 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 \u003ca href=\"\/search?q=tag:%221973%22\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e1973\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eTight, note-like, rich, full-bodied bass, with the correct amount of weight down low\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eNatural tonality in the midrange -- with all the instruments having the correct timbre\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eTransparency and resolution, critical to hearing into the three-dimensional studio space\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNo doubt there's more but we hope that should do for now. \u003ci\u003ePlaying the record is the only way to hear all of the qualities we discuss above,\u003c\/i\u003e 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eThe Seventies - What a Decade!\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis is some of the best high-production-value rock music of the 60s and 70s. The amount of effort that went into the recording of this album is comparable to that expended by the engineers and producers of bands like Supertramp, The Who, Jethro Tull, Ambrosia, Pink Floyd, and far too many others to list.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt seems that no effort or cost was spared in making the home listening experience as compelling as the recording technology of the day permitted.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eWhat We're Listening For On Pin-Ups\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eEnergy\u003c\/strong\u003e for starters. What could be more important than the life of the music?\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThen: \u003cstrong\u003epresence and immediacy\u003c\/strong\u003e. 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.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eThe Big Sound\u003c\/strong\u003e comes next -- wall to wall, lots of depth, huge space, three-dimensionality, all that sort of thing.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThen \u003cstrong\u003etransient information\u003c\/strong\u003e -- fast, clear, sharp attacks, not the smear and thickness so common to these LPs.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eTight punchy bass\u003c\/strong\u003e -- which ties in with good transient information, also the issue of frequency extension further down.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eNext: \u003cstrong\u003etransparency\u003c\/strong\u003e -- the quality that allows you to hear deep into the soundfield, showing you the space and air around all the instruments.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eExtend the top and bottom\u003c\/strong\u003e and \u003ci\u003evoila\u003c\/i\u003e, you have The Real Thing -- an honest to goodness Hot Stamper.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eKen Scott, Engineering Genius\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe amazing Ken Scott (Ziggy Stardust, Magical Mystery Tour, Honky Chateau, Crime of the Century (all Top 100), as well as All Things Must Pass, Truth, Birds of Fire, Son Of Schmilsson, America's debut and many more is the man responsible for the sound here. It should go without saying that this is one seriously talented guy! (He also co-produced the album.)\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe kind of Tubey Magical richness and smoothness that he achieved at Trident in the early 70s, not to mention sound that is remarkably spacious and practically free from distortion -- qualities that are especially important to us big speaker guys who like to play their records good and loud -- has rarely been equaled by anyone in the years that have followed (even by Ken).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAs noted above, many of his best recordings can be found in our \u003ca href=\"\/collections\/top-100\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eRock and Pop Top 100 List\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e of Best Sounding Albums, limited to the titles that we can actually find sufficient copies of with which to do our Hot Stamper shootouts.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn 2008 I had the opportunity to hear Ken speak at an AES meeting here in Los Angeles. I won't bore you by trying to recap his talk, but if it ever comes out on YouTube or the like, you should definitely check it out. The behind-the-scenes discussion of these artists and their recordings was a thrill for someone like me who has been playing and enjoying the hell out of most of his albums for more than forty years.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eVinyl Condition\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMint 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.)\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThose of you looking for quiet vinyl will have to settle for the sound of later 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIf 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eBowie, writing in his own hand, describes Pin Ups this way:\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cblockquote\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"These songs are among my favourites from the 64–67 period of London. Most of the groups were playing the Ricky-Tick (was it a 'y' or an 'i'?) - Scene club circuit (Marquee, eel pie island la-la). Some are still with us.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/blockquote\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePretty Things, Them, Yardbirds, Syd's Pink Floyd, Mojos, Who, Easybeats, Merseys, The Kinks.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLove-on ya!\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA1 \u0026amp; B3: Originally performed by The Pretty Things\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA2: Originally performed by Them\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA3 \u0026amp; B4: Originally performed by The Yardbirds\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA4: Originally performed by Pink Floyd\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA5: Originally performed by The Mojos\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA6 \u0026amp; B5: Originally performed by The Who\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eB1: Originally performed by The Easybeats\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eB2: Originally performed by The Merseys\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eB6: Originally performed by The Kinks\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Bowie, David","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51440424354088,"sku":"bowiepinup","price":99.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0257\/3415\/2295\/products\/bowiepinup.jpg?v=1770142565","url":"https:\/\/better-records.com\/products\/bowiepinup_2602_6x__","provider":"Better Records","version":"1.0","type":"link"}