{"product_id":"littllastr_2602-1","title":"Little Feat - The Last Record Album - White Hot Stamper *HOLD FOR ARTHUR* I marked it sole","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe Last Record Album is one of our favorite Little Feat albums. The recording, by the estimable \u003ca href=\"\/search?q=tag:%22George-Massenburg%22\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eGeorge Massenburg\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e (working with \u003ca href=\"\/search?q=tag:%22Dave-Hassinger%22\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eDave Hassinger\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e), has many outstanding qualities. Among them is amazing bass; the bass goes \u003cu\u003ereally\u003c\/u\u003e deep in places (\"Long Distance Love\") and it's big, punchy, rich and well up in the mix throughout the album.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eWhat to Listen For\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe problem has always been an overly smooth top end, combined with congestion, smear, and a serious lack of presence. The good news is that if you clean enough copies with the advanced cleaning techniques we've developed, and you make enough improvements to your stereo, room, etc, with the right copy you can actually get this album to sound clear \u003ci\u003eand\u003c\/i\u003e rich.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eWhat The Best Sides Of The Last Record Album 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:%221975%22\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e1975\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\u003eWhat We're Listening For On The Last Record Album\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\u003eWhose Fault Is It?\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMost copies of this album are shockingly dull and compressed. The band itself sounds bored, as if they lack conviction in their own songs.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBut it's not their fault. Whose fault it is is never easy to fathom; bad mastering, bad tapes, bad vinyl, bad something else -- whatever it is, that thick, lifeless sound turns this powerfully emotional music into a major snooze-fest. It's positively criminal but it happens all the time. It's the reason we have to go through a pile of copies to find one that sounds like this.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHere you can find the kind of transparency that lets you hear the studio space around all the instruments. Many copies have a bad case of \"cardboard drums.\" However, when you are lucky enough to have one of our high-rez copies spinning on your table you will see immediately that the drum sound is \u003ci\u003eright\u003c\/i\u003e. The drums are rich and fat, a perfect match for the sound of the album as a whole.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eOne of the Greats\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLittle Feat is one of the ten best rock bands in the history of the world. Their live album Waiting For Columbus is, in my opinion, the greatest live rock album ever recorded. If you don't own a copy of it make sure to put it at the top of your Must Own Little Feat Album List.\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 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 Rock Masterpiece\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWe consider this Little Feat album their Masterpiece. Others that belong in that category can be found \u003ca href=\"\/search?q=tag:%22rock-masterpiece%22\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ehere\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Little Feat","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51439858843944,"sku":"littllastr","price":0.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0257\/3415\/2295\/products\/littllastr.jpg?v=1771351364","url":"https:\/\/better-records.com\/products\/littllastr_2602-1","provider":"Better Records","version":"1.0","type":"link"}