{"product_id":"costearmed_2605xx","title":"Costello, Elvis - Armed Forces - White Hot Stamper","description":"\u003cp\u003eArmed Forces is one of the best-sounding rock records ever made, and a copy like this is proof enough to back up that claim. The better copies are extremely transparent and silky sounding, but with unbelievably punchy, rock-solid bass and drums.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI would say the sound of the rhythm section of this album ranks up there with the very best ever recorded. Beyond that, the musical chops of this band at this time rank with the very best in the history of rock. Steve, Bruce and Pete rarely get the credit they deserve for being one of the tightest, liveliest backing bands ever to walk into a studio or on to a stage.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe song \"Oliver's Army\" on the first side is a perfect example of what we're talking about. Rock music doesn't get much livelier than that. Skip on down to \"Green Shirt\" for another track that's as punchy as they come.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eVirtually every other pressing of this record I've ever played sounds pale and washed out compared to the good British early pressings. It almost makes you wonder what happened to the tape; it seems as if this tape wasn't used to make any records after this batch was pressed, it's that big of a difference! (We have found surprisingly good British second pressings before but they are never competitive with the likes of these early ones.)\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eWhat The Best Sides Of Armed Forces 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:%221979%22\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e1979\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\u003eShooting Out the Tough Ones\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBig rock records always make for tough shootouts. The everything-but-the-kitchen-sink approach they employ make it difficult to translate such powerful, dense and dynamic sound to disc, vinyl or otherwise. For our part, everything has to be tuned up and on the money before we can even hope to get the record sounding right. Careful VTA adjustment could not be more critical in this respect.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIf we're not hearing the sound we want, we keep messing with the adjustments until we do. There is no getting around sweating the details when sitting down to test a complex recording such as this. If you can't stand the tweaking tedium, get out of the kitchen (or listening room as the case may be). Obsessing over every aspect of a record's reproduction is what we do for a living. This kind of Big Rock Recording requires us to be at the top of our game, both in terms of reproducing the albums themselves as well as evaluating the merits of individual pressings.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhen you love it, it's not work, it's fun. Tedious, occasionally exasperating fun, but still fun. And the \u003ca href=\"\/search?q=tag:%22turn-up-your-volume%22\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003elouder you play a record like this\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e, the better it sounds and the more fun it is.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eWhat We're Listening For On Armed Forces\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\u003eThe Double Whammy\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA customer a while back noted that hearing his recently acquired Armed Forces Hot Stamper caused him to reevaluate his entire record collection. We empathized with the predicament in which he now found himself, and tried to put the experience in context this way:\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cblockquote\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eYou got blindsided by The Double Whammy -- an amazing Hot Stamper pressing of a superbly well recorded album. That combination is deadly, deadly in the sense that it makes all your other records sound pretty damn dead in comparison.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/blockquote\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eArmed Forces is surely the best sounding Elvis Costello album The Man ever recorded. \u003c\/strong\u003eI would put it in the First Percentile of all the rock recordings I've ever played, ahead of 99% of the pack -- but only if you have the right Brit pressing, the kind we describe at length in our review.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eArmed Forces sets a standard few records can meet. It will make every audiophile Half Speed and 180 gram pressing you own sound positively sick in comparison. The real thing just can't be beat, and Armed Forces is as real as it gets, baby! A \u003ca href=\"\/search?q=tag:%22big-speaker%22\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ebig speaker record\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e for the ages, and a Demo Disc \u003ci\u003ePar Excellance.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe domestic pressings suck; they'll bore you to tears with their sub-generation smeary veiled sound. The Hot British copies will \u003ci\u003erock your world\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eVinyl Condition\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMint Minus Minus 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 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.\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\u003eA Must Own Rock Record\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eArmed Forces is a \u003ca href=\"\/search?q=tag:%22rock-masterpiece%22\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eMasterpiece\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e and good as it gets for Elvis on LP (along with My Aim Is True and Trust). All three are absolute Must Owns that belong in any serious rock collection.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOthers that belong in that category can be found \u003ca href=\"\/search?q=tag:%22core-rock-collection%22\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ehere\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\n","brand":"Costello, Elvis","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51800522916136,"sku":"costearmed","price":249.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0257\/3415\/2295\/files\/costearmed.jpg?v=1773769019","url":"https:\/\/better-records.com\/products\/costearmed_2605xx","provider":"Better Records","version":"1.0","type":"link"}