Sold Date: January 14, 2016
Start Date: March 31, 2015
Final Price: $39.99 (USD)
Seller Feedback: 3765
Buyer Feedback: 0

09463 68270 1 8 - Suzanne Vega - Beauty & Crime - Classic Records 200g Quiex SV-P Super Vinyl Profile* LP Reissue - Still Sealed

Beauty and Crime is possibly Suzanne Vega’s best effort since her debut album and likely even better than the highly acclaimed “Solitude Standing”. “Beauty and Crime is a lengthy meditation on the city of New York, the place she calls home. These songs glide like a harlequin's ghost through the hearts and minds of city residents past and present, on its streets, in its hotels, apartments, in every corner of the city. There is more than the hint of memory on Beauty & Crime. The album is dedicated to the memory of Tim, who lived on "Ludlow Street" -- the name of the set's second cut, a searing and simply moving tribute to him -- and cites as muses in part "...Edith Wharton and all her heroines...and Frank Sinatra and Ava Gardner for their passion," and who have songs named for them here. In doing so, 9/11 itself cannot be left out of the equation, and the album's final two cuts deal with personal versions of this story, one of which is informed by her brother-in-law Angel Ruiz, a New York City cop stationed at Ground Zero after the attacks on the World Trade Center. Most of these songs look at life in the interim, or remembering what the city was like in the '70s as on the cut "Zephyr and I."??Musically, this is easily her most adventurous  record ever; yet it is also more accessible than any album since her debut. The craft and care put into the songs themselves and their articulation by Vega and producer Jimmy Hogarth are amazing. Here, emotions are laid bare in places whether in the first, second, or third persons, but they are always placed inside elegant yet spare lyrics that are taut, poetic, and evocative. The dreamy soundscape contains layers of guitars, percussion (organic, electronic and live, in one case) strings, reeds, brass, and backing singers (including daughter Ruby Froom who appears on a couple of cuts, and KT Tunstall who appears once). But it's the sound of Vega's acoustic guitar on all these songs that is unmistakably at the top and provides the album's anchor. It's important to note this, simply because it keeps these beautiful pop songs rooted in a new kind of contemporary folk that Vega was a pioneer of in the '80s. And it keeps her rooted to her own catalog, from the beginning to the present. In other words, as she has experimented in the past with all kinds of sounds, she has forever remained herself and never more so than here, whether it's the jazzy, faux bossa nova of "Pornographer's Dream" or its predecessor, the stunning "New York Is a Woman." "Frank and Ava," is a rocking pop tune whose electric and acoustic guitars entwine, seemingly kissing, wrapped around a bassline played by Tony Shanahan from the Patti Smith Group writes a reviewer from All Music Guide.” Mixed by Tchad Blake and recorded at both Sear Sound in New York and Olympic Studios in London , the sound of this record is full of depth and nuance that every audiophile and music lover will love. Mastered and cut on Classic Records “All Tube” cutting system by Bernie Grundman and pressed on 200g vinyl, this LP release is a must have and not to be missed! Highest recommendation.

*Background on Classic 200g Super Vinyl Profile 

In 2003, Classic Records launched its now famous Signature Blue Note Mono reissue series. As part of that series Classic developed an "authentic" 200 gram LP profile that replicated that of an original Blue Note record from the 1950's.  Comparing a test pressing on the new profile versus the same title on the normal 180 gram pressing it was discovered that the 200 gram version sounded significantly better.  The 200 gram pressing sounded louder, with more definition and solidity of notes across all frequencies and there was more detail - particularly low level detail like room or hall sounds, pages being turned, musicians whispering and automobile sounds outside the studio all became easier to identify.  At first it was speculated inside Classic Records that the extra weight resulted in the better performance as no one could come up with a better answer given that the stampers were the same as well as the vinyl pellets used on both 180g and 200g pressings.  One day, Michael Hobson, the founder of Classic Records was discussing this unexplainable sonic discovery with the Legendary Mastering Engineer and Sheffield Records founder, Doug Sax when Doug, without hesitation stated "Ah Michael you've discovered the difference in a flat versus conventional profile".  Puzzled, Hobson asked for an explanation which Sax described as going all the way back to 1950's mono pressings and what happened when stereo records came out in the early 1960's.  Sax explained that in the 1950's when mono records had no vertical modulation (only lateral), pressing PolyVinylChloride PVC (plastic) records were more easily pressed on "Flat Profile" dies fitted to the pressing machines since the grooves on the mono stampers were all the same height (no vertical modulation).  The molten vinyl was able to flow evenly across the stampers and fill properly during the molding (pressing) of the record.  The problems started when stereo record cutting came into vogue producing stampers that had variable height grooves sticking up across the diameter of each stamper.  Using the older mono pressing dies resulted in tremendous problems getting the areas between grooves of different heights to fill properly - a groove that is in front of another taller one often got passed over by the flowing molten vinyl resulting in "non-fill" which was audible and thus a "defective" record.  Pressing plants don't like to press defective records and are always looking for high pressing yields or a s few rejects as possible.

To solve the problem, the engineers developed a new pressing die profile which tapers from the center of the die, flattens in the middle of the diameter and then tapers again toward the outside of the die. The new profile was "concave" rather than flat.  When you put a flat stampers onto the concave dies the stampers distort and are no longer flat - the grooves are no longer perpendicular across the stamper and by association across a finished vinyl pressing.  This new die profile created "back pressure" on the flowing vinyl and solved the "non-fill" problem with stereo pressings and resulted in higher yields which was great for pressing plants and good for record companies who wanted good prices on pressings.  The problem was and still is that the new profile records don't sound as good as they could because they are not flat across their profile.  Using a micrometer across the diameter of a 1950's mono records reveals that the thickness is virtually the same across the record's diameter from center label to outer edge but not so for a newer stereo profile pressing which is convex across its diameter resulting from the concave profile dies / distorted stampers.  This is the dirty little secret that Classic had rediscovered was known to old school experts like Doug Sax who founded Sheffield Labs in the 1970's.  After the discovery, Classic Records never looked back and all of its releases and re-pressings after 2003 were on the new 200 gram Flat Profile dies that were specially made for Classic.  Some years later Classic discovered that the very same profile was used by JVC in Japan to produce the legendary UHQR pressings for Mobile Fidelity which are well known to sound better than the conventional Mobile Fidelity pressings of the same titles - it all makes sense now.  The long and the short of this is that Classic 200g Super Vinyl Profile (Flat Profile) pressings are as good as it gets for proper playback without groove distortion from non-flat pressings - Period.

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