{"product_id":"tearsseeds_2602_4_6x__","title":"Tears For Fears - The Seeds Of Love - White Hot Stamper (With Issues)","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e*NOTE:\u003c\/strong\u003e There is a white coloring \/ defect that plays as moderate to loud noisy vinyl in the spreads and intros \/ outros to songs on both sides. The noise is slighty louder on side 2 than on side 1.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e*NOTE:\u003c\/strong\u003e 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\u003eWhen it comes to genre busting rock I put this album right up at the top of the heap, along with several other landmark albums from the Seventies: Roxy Music’s first, The Original Soundtrack, Crime of the Century, Ambrosia’s first two releases, The Yes Album, Fragile, Dark Side of the Moon and a handful of others.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Seeds Of Love is clearly the band’s Masterpiece, and being able to hear it on a killer Hot Stamper pressing is nothing short of a thrill.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI have a long history with this style of Popular Music, stretching all the way back to the early 70s. I grew up on Bowie, Roxy Music, 10cc, Eno, The Talking Heads, Ambrosia, Peter Gabriel, Supertramp, Yes, Zappa and others -- individuals and bands that wanted to play rock music but felt shackled by the constraints of the conventional pop song. Nothing on \"Sowing the Seeds of Love\" fits the description of a conventional pop song.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhich albums by The Beatles break all the rules? Side two of Abbey Road and the whole of The White Album, which is why both are Desert Island Discs for me. Can’t get enough of either one.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eWhat The Best Sides Of The Seeds Of Love 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 even as late as \u003ca href=\"\/search?q=tag:%221989%22\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e1989\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 Discovery of a Lifetime\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhen I discovered these arty rock bands in my early twenties I quickly became obsessed with them and remain so to this day.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMy equipment was forced to evolve in order to be able to play the scores of challenging recordings issued by these groups and others in the 70s. These albums informed not only my taste in music but the actual stereo I play that music on. I’ve had large dynamic speakers for the last four decades precisely because they do such a good job of bringing to life huge and powerful recordings such as these.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTears For Fears on this and their previous album continue that tradition of big-as-life and just-as-difficult-to-reproduce records. God bless ’em for it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eWhat We're Listening For On The Seeds Of Love\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\u003eAnalog Sound\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe sound of most copies is aggressive, hard, harsh, and thin. What do you expect? The album was \u003ca href=\"\/search?q=tag:%22digital-recording%22\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003erecorded digitally\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e and direct metal mastered at Masterdisk. Most of we analog types put up with the limitations of the sound because we love the music, some of the most powerfully moving, brilliantly written and orchestrated psychedelic pop of the last thirty years. Imagine if the Beatles in their Sgt. Pepper\/ Magical Mystery Tour phase kept going in that direction. They very well might have ended up in the neighborhood of \"Sowing the Seeds of Love.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBut wait -- the better pressings have smooth, sweet, analog richness and spaciousness I didn’t think was possible for this recording. The bass is full and punchy. When it really starts cooking, such as in the louder, more dynamic sections of \"Woman in Chains\" or the title cut, it doesn’t get harsh and abrasive like most copies. It’s got energy and life without making your ears bleed -- if you have the system to play it.\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 Pop Record\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWe consider this Tears for Fears album their Masterpiece. It's a recording that should be part of any serious popular music collection.\u003c\/p\u003e \n\u003cp\u003eOthers that belong in that category can be found \u003ca href=\"\/search?q=tag:%22core-pop-collection%22\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ehere\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eA Tough Record to Play\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis is a very \u003ca href=\"\/search?q=tag:%22difficulty-of-reproduction%22\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003edifficult record to reproduce\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e. Do not attempt to play it using anything other than the highest quality equipment.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eUnless your system is firing on all cylinders, even our hottest Hot Stamper copies -- the Super Hot and White Hot pressings, the ones with the biggest, most dynamic, clearest, and least distorted sound -- can have problems.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eYour system should be thoroughly warmed up, your electricity should be clean and cooking, you've got to be using the right room treatments, and we also highly recommend using a demagnetizer such as the Walker Talisman on the record, your cables (power, interconnect and speaker) as well as the individual drivers of your speakers.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis is a record that's going to demand a lot from the listener, and we want to make sure that you feel you're up to the challenge. If you don't mind putting in a little hard work, here's a record that will reward your time and effort many times over, and probably teach you a thing or two about tweaking your gear in the process (especially your VTA adjustment, just to pick an obvious area many audiophiles neglect).\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Tears for Fears","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51928398364968,"sku":"tearsseeds","price":399.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0257\/3415\/2295\/files\/tearsseedo.jpg?v=1771959118","url":"https:\/\/better-records.com\/products\/tearsseeds_2602_4_6x__","provider":"Better Records","version":"1.0","type":"link"}