{"product_id":"joel_stran_2607","title":"Joel, Billy - The Stranger - Super Hot Stamper (With Issues)","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e*NOTE:\u003c\/strong\u003e There is a mark that plays 20 times at a moderate level at the start of the last track on side 1, \"Scenes from an Italian Restaurant.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e*NOTE:\u003c\/strong\u003e Side 1 of 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWe recently completed a shootout for the album and this copy was one of the better we played. After playing a stack of mediocre Strangers, we are completely confident in saying that you'll have a very hard time finding a copy that sounds like this.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Stranger is chock full of some of Joel's biggest hits, including \"Just The Way You Are,\" \"Movin' Out,\" \"Scenes From An Italian Restaurant,\" \"Only The Good Die Young\" and \"She's Always A Woman.\" AMG raves about this one (4 1\/2 stars) and it's easy to see why -- this is the kind of pop music that still sounds fresh almost 50 years (!) after it was recorded and might just be good for another forty years.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis vintage Columbia stereo pressing has the kind of Tubey Magical Midrange that modern records can barely BEGIN to reproduce. Folks, that sound is gone and it sure isn't showing signs of coming back. If you love hearing INTO a recording, actually being able to \"see\" the performers, and feeling as if you are sitting in the studio with the band, this is the record for you. It's what vintage all analog recordings are known for -- \u003ci\u003ethis sound\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIf you exclusively play modern repressings of vintage recordings, I can say without fear of contradiction that you have never heard this kind of sound on vinyl. Old records have it -- not often, and certainly not always -- but maybe one out of a hundred new records do, and those are some pretty long odds.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eWhat The Best Sides Of The Stranger 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:%221977%22\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e1977\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 Piano, High and Low\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe best copies of The Stranger have a \u003cu\u003ebig\u003c\/u\u003e \u003cu\u003ebottom\u003c\/u\u003e \u003cu\u003eend\u003c\/u\u003e. The bass is tight and note-like, very unlike the average pressing, which tends to be blurry and bloated down low.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBilly's piano almost never has extension up top as well as the weight of his hands pounding on the keys -- this copy gives you both.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe sound is open and spacious with plenty of Tubey Magic, the kind they still had in 1977. As most of you know, by the 80s this rich, solid, natural sound was practically nonexistent. Just play any Billy Joel album from 1986 onwards to hear what we mean.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eWhat We're Listening For On The Stranger\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\u003eMost Copies Don't Deliver The Goods\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI can't even begin to tell you how sleepy and veiled the sound is on the average copy. What good is Billy Joel's music when you can't tell how passionately he's beltin' out these heartfelt numbers? How boring is piano-based rock when the piano has no weight?\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOne mistake we made years ago was assuming that the earliest pressings cut by Robert Ludwig would be the best. They can be wonderful, but most of them sure aren't -- especially on side one, where they tend to lack extension up top. For whatever reason, he seemed to do a much better job cutting side two.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMany copies were gritty, some were congested in the louder sections, some never got big, some were thin and lacking the lovely analog richness of the best -- we heard plenty of copies whose faults were obvious when played against two excellent sides such as these.\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","brand":"Joel, Billy","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":52048654270760,"sku":"joel_stran","price":74.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0257\/3415\/2295\/products\/joel_strang_ca1ea27e-f539-4e6a-93b3-f9b70840d125.jpg?v=1670603021","url":"https:\/\/better-records.com\/products\/joel_stran_2607","provider":"Better Records","version":"1.0","type":"link"}