Pink Floyd, Beatles For Sale, E-Bay purchases

Been over a month since I've bought any new vinyl but stumbled across this seller on ebay recently who looks to have come across a box or something of old Led Zeppelin, Beatles and Pink Floyd albums. So I parked myself on those auctions. The Led Zeppelin albums being sold I already own, and first pressings + great quality as well, so I didn't bother with those. The only Beatles albums being sold I already owned, UK pressings + great quality, except for Rubber Soul, Revolver, and For Sale. Rubber Soul I got a cheap copy of, it was a US release but it had seen better days and some of the songs had some pops and cracks. I missed out on that one, and Revolver went for way more than I was willing to pay. However, I did get the copy of For Sale:

It's the Odeon TOJP 7074 Japanese import, released in 1992, with YEX 142 1S and YEX 143 1S runout etchings. Pretty pristine and plays with almost no noise. It was really quite a steal as it's a limited mono edition (only 5000 were made) that was released on the 30th anniversary of their debut.

I started liking The Beatles probably starting from Revolver onwards, and more of a "gets better the further down the road you get" sort of thing, which was why I was willing to live with my ok copy of Rubber Soul and not willing to spend very much on a Revolver in this auction. This album was more of a deal that I couldn't walk away from because of the price, eventhough I'd probably not be listening to this very often.

The rest of the auctions were all Pink Floyd albums. I put a bid for Animals but that went for more than I was willing to pay. Next up was the double re-release "A Nice Pair&quo;:

 

This 1974 Harvest, SHDW 403, UK release contains both "Piper at the Gates of Dawn" and "Saucerful of Secrets", with runout etchings: YAX 3419-2, YAX 3420-2, YAX 3633-2, and YAX 3634-2. Not to be confused with the 1973 release which featured a sign of a dentist on the upper right corner instead of the 1974 version which has a monk. I don't think there was any real difference between the pressings, just that the dentist objected to being on the album cover because of some law that said dentists can't advertise. In later re-releases of this album, they put stickers over the nipples of that girl ("a nice pair" har har).

The first disc, Piper, is in nearly flawless condition, not a hint of noise and visually looks brand new. Saucer has a bit more wear on it, but the occasional pop or crack doesn't really get in the way that much because eventhough some of the album is pretty quiet, the sound profile is still pretty thick. The Heart of the Sun probably has the most noticeable pops, but Saucerful of Secrets is crystal clear.

I've always liked Saucerful of Secrets better than their first album, just never been a big fan of that sort of pop that Pink Floyd with Syd Barrett was a part of, though it does have Astronomy Domine and Interstellar Overdrive.

 

This is the 1983 SKBB-388 US re-issue of "Ummagumma", the double album that includes a live disc and a studio disc. My runout etchings doesn't exactly match but it can only be one of the 1983 Capitol re-issues.

Honestly, I've always been a little mixed about this album. The live disc is great, and embodies some of the best things I like about older Pink Floyd, kind of spacey, open, improvisational, clever use of effects, highly dynamic, and the live sound as opposed to heavily produced. It also happens that the condition of the first disc is great.

The second studio disc is kind of a mixed bag. It embodies some of the things I don't really care for of the older Pink Floyd. A lot of this stuff is "interesting" and cool in that sort of way, but not really the kind of "interesting" that makes me want to listen to songs on repeat. It's not that the studio album isn't good, it's definitely worth owning and listening to, just not the sort of thing I like best from pre-Dark Side.

I will say, however, I've always thought the album art was pretty cool.

 
This is actually my second copy of the exact same release of Meddle, the 1971 SMAS-832 Harvest US first pressing, runout etchings SMAS 1 832 F16=16, SMAS 2 832 G21 * 3. The first copy I got as part of a deal and was incredibly cheap, as well as not being in that great of condition. There's a lot of quiet bits on the album so the noise can get annoying. This copy is in great shape though, with only the occasional pop here and there that's barely noticeable, and a bit of noise at the beginning of Echoes (which is unfortunate, but is common being the outside most part of the vinyl where it gets handled the most).

And like I said in my other post, the best thing about Meddle is Echoes being on the entire side 2.

Finally, I have:

 

This is an album I've always wanted to own on vinyl if only for the suite. It's a 1975 SMAS-382 US re-issue (has writing on the cover as opposed to just sky), runout SMAS-1-382-G24 ML and SMAS-2-382-G39. This album was listed as "stunning" with a very good grading, and visually it looks great, but it's one of those things where it looks awesome but when you play it, it's just an overwhelming amount of noise. All the damage is microscopic. I'm not that surprised because I got it for so cheap, and I'll probably ask for a refund but the album, re-issue or not, usually runs in the $40-50 range, with good copies going well north of $100.

I haven't really compared them to the CD counterparts. The only one of these albums that I've listened to recently was Atom Heart Mother and this copy is too terrible to do any kind of comparison. Though I will say, during some of the louder orchestrated parts of the suite, it does sound more fuller and bigger than I remembered it did on CD.

Filed under: Music
11/07/2014

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