Vinyl:  VG++ Play Graded. Sounds Great!  Side 2 has a mark that causes a soft occasional repeating tick sound during softer passages on and off for 5 1/2 minutes.  Swan Song Picture Labels are Clean and Bright.  This is the Double LP 1976 Swan Song 1ST PRESSING! SS 2-201.  Audiophile acclaimed, Mastered at Sterling Sound and pressed at Monarch Records Mfg. Corp., Los Angeles, CA!  Listen for the distinctive quality of Monarch: silkier vocals, fatter bottom end.  It feels like you're in the Front Row for sure!  The Mighty Zep at their most thunderous and Hammer-of-the-Gods-like..The whole of side 2 is "Dazed and Confused"...that about says it all!  Breaking the rules and stretching out their jams as long as they or Eddie Kramer, their Recording Engineer will allow...BTW, remixed at Jimi Hendrix' Electric Lady Studios...Legendary!!  See the movie if you haven't already. See Review Below!
In the Dead wax:   Side One:  ST-SS-763683-GG   MR  "delta" 21402 (3)  ((Monarch Records Mfg. Corp., Los Angeles, CA))   (PR)   Side Two:   ST-SS-763684-GG (EX-1)  MR  "delta" 21402-X (13)  ((Monarch Records Mfg. Corp., Los Angeles, CA))   (PR)   Side Three:  ST-SS-763685-F "delta" 21403 MR ((Monarch Records Mfg. Corp., Los Angeles, CA))  (17)  (PR)   2-201  Side Four:  ST-SS-763686-GG  (EX-1)  MR "delta" 21403-X  (14)  ((Monarch Records Mfg. Corp., Los Angeles, CA))    (PR)
Cover: VG+ (see photos; Sticker on front cover; ring, shelf wear; tiny paper tear on back cover) Gatefold.  Includes the 8 page booklet that's about as emblematic of their individual personas as was ever depicted on an album...Very informative of each of their identities, which of course was a big feature of each of their individual vignettes in the movie.  Booklet has some creases, but no tears.  See photos.  Seams and spine are solid and clean, with some wear.  No splits.  No writing.  Spine print of band name and album title is readable with some wear.  Catalog number on spine is worn. 

Goldmine Standards.   I play grade every record that I sell on eBay as I have found you can't rate an LP accurately by just visually inspecting an album.  I wipe the dust off of every cover with clean, unscented baby wipes.  I professionally clean the vinyl. 

U.S. Shipping:  $4.50 Media Mail.  Tracking included. 50 cents additional shipping per additional item, when the shipment is combined.   If you wish to take advantage of my COMBINED SHIPPING deal, simply select your items by clicking on "ADD TO CART" on the main listing page.  Do this for all of your selections and then go to your cart to checkout. Your combined shipping discount will be computed automatically.  Free domestic shipping if you spend $100 or more!  
All records are packaged securely with the vinyl outside the jacket (to avoid seam split in transit). The vinyl and jacket are sandwiched between two cardboard stiffeners and shipped in a custom cardboard record mailer box. 
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Why buy a first or early pressing and not a re-issue or a ‘re-mastered’ vinyl album? 
First and early pressings are pressed from the first generation lacquers and stampers. They usually sound vastly superior to later issues/re-issues (which, in recent times, are often pressed from whatever 'best' tapes or digital sources are currently available) - many so-called 'audiophile' new 180g pressings are cut from hi-res digital sources…essentially an expensive CD pressed on vinyl.  Why  experience the worse elements of both formats?  These are just High Maintenance CDs, with mid-ranges so cloaked with a veil as to sound smeared.  They are nearly always compressed with murky transients and a general lifelessness in the overall sound.  There are exceptions where re-masters/re-presses outshine the original issues, but they are exceptions and not the norm. 

First or early pressings nearly always have more immediacy, presence and dynamics. The sound staging is wider.  Subtle instrument nuances are better placed with more spacious textures. Balances are firmer in the bottom end with a far-tighter bass. Upper-mid ranges shine without harshness, and the overall depth is more immersive.  Inner details are  clearer.  

 On first and early pressings, the music tends to sound more ‘alive’ and vibrant.  The physics of sound energy is hard to clarify and write about from a listening perspective, but the best we can describe it is to say that you can 'hear' what the mixing and mastering engineers wanted you to hear when they first recorded the music.   

AllMusic Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine 

Commonly dismissed as a disappointment upon its initial release, the soundtrack to 's concert movie The Song Remains the Same is one of those '70s records that has aged better than its reputation -- it's the kind of thing that's more valuable as the band recedes into history than it was at the time, as it documents its time so thoroughly. Of course, that time would be the mid-'70s, when the band was golden gods, selling out stadiums across America and indulging their wildest desires both on and off stage. It was the kind of excess that creates either myth or madness, and this 1976 live album -- comprised of highlights from their three shows at Madison Square Garden during July 1973 -- has its fair share of both, as  sounds both magnificent and murky as they blow up songs from their first five albums to a ridiculously grand scale. This is not the vigorous, vicious band documented on the subsequently released live  or the majestic might of the 2003 live album  and its accompanying eponymous DVD, where the band still sounded tight even when they stretched out for 20 minutes. Here, on a show documented just about 18 months after those on , the group is starting to let their status as stars go to their head ever so slightly. They no longer sound hungry; they sound settled, satisfied at their status as rock overlord, and since a huge part of 's appeal is their sheer scale, hearing them at their most oversized on  is not without its charm. This, more than any of their studio albums, captures both the grandiosity and entitlement that earned the band scorn among certain quarters of rock critics and punk rockers in the mid-'70s, which makes it a valuable historical document in an odd way, as the studio records are such magnificent constructions and the archival live albums so powerful. Plus, there is a certain sinister charm to the sheer spectacle chronicled on , helping pump up this album into something truly larger than life. At this stage,  only seemed concerned with pleasing themselves, but they only did so because they could -- others tried to mimic them, but nobody could get the sheer size of their sound, which was different yet equally monstrous on-stage as it was on record. It wasn't as consistent on-stage as it was on record -- a half-hour "Dazed and Confused" may be the stuff of legend, but it's still a chore to get through -- but the very fact that could take things so far is part of their mystique, and nowhere is that penchant of excess better heard than on .