Ever since shooting out the German original and my 2000 reissue, I have of course been curious to know how a real-deal 1967 US Original would stack up against the 1967 German pressing, which I very slightly preferred over the reissue. As usual, my friend Jared was happy to oblige with a copy — a…

What is this shit? My favourite album by one of my favourite singers! Yep, I said it. I know a lot of people hate Self Portrait, and have since the day it came out. BUT I LOVE IT! I know it’s weird to love a record of covers by one of the great songwriters of…

I’ve been meaning to write up a bunch of Bob Dylan Best Pressing Shootouts… and here’s the first! Get ready for more in the next little while on Self Portrait, Blood on the Tracks, and “Love and Theft.” When Rough and Rowdy Ways first came out, I was in a bit of a Bobby lull…

My friend Jared — the one who lends me all his fancy records and who has successfully turned me onto jazz — is obsessed with Sun Ra. He’s got a massive collection of his stuff. I totally understand the obsession. A lot of the Sun Ra music is amazing. As a vinyl collector, there’s lots…

I’m going through a pretty huge Neil Young phase at the moment. I mean, there’s so much to enjoy! I would have first heard his records from my parents’ vinyl copies (which I still have!): the self-titled debut, After the Goldrush, and Harvest are the ones I remember best. Then I had a second phase…

Well, this is an exciting one — quite plausibly the coolest record ever. It needs no introduction. And will receive none. The pressings My friend Jared kindly lent me his pristine, like legitimately Near Mint, 1967 German first pressing. The banana has been peeled, and Mr. Emerson does not appear on the rear cover —…

Last week, I had one of those moments I live for as a blogger. Listening to borrowed copies of Clifford Jordan’s Glass Bead Games, I spotted what seemed like evidence that the Pure Pleasure reissue was sourced from a needle-drop that had then been digitally manipulated to remove pops and clicks… hardly a very “analogue”…

There is a moment in a story by I. B. Singer — I can’t remember where exactly, and maybe there are several of them — where he says that at a certain point in his career, it wasn’t about writing stories anymore. Once he had attained a certain fame, once people saw the kinds of…

Since I moved from my headphone-based system to my loudspeaker system, I’ve been revisiting a bunch of my Best Pressing Shootouts. Well, I’ve become tired of all the red fonts I need to use for those — and in the case, I’m adding a totally new pressing into the mix. So rather that a “Revisited,”…