Sold Date: October 17, 2021
Start Date: May 17, 2021
Final Price: $114.95 (USD)
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Grateful Dead American Beauty SEALED 2LP 45 RPM AUDIOPHILE VINYL MFSL-2-429 MOFI. Condition is "New" and SEALED. Shipped domestically with buyer's choice of  USPS Media Mail or Priority Mail. Shipped Worldwide with eBay International Delivery.
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Features:

• 45rpm Speed Edition
• Mastering by Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab
• Specially Plated and Pressed on 180 grams of High Definition Vinyl
• 2LP Set
• Special Static Free - Dust Free Inner Sleeve
• Heavy Duty Protective Packaging
• Mastered from the Original Master Tapes
• Pressed at RTI

Michael Fremer's 100 Recommended All-Analog LP Reissues Worth Owning - Rated 53/100!
Numbered, Limited Edition 180g 45rpm 2LP Set! Mastered from the Original Master Tapes!  

Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums of All Time - Rated 261/500! 

Rolling Stone 2015 Readers' Poll: The 10 Best Jam Bands: The Grateful Dead Rated 1st!  

The Most American Folk-Rock Ever Made: Indelible Harmonies, Spare Playing, and Gorgeous Textures Surround Masterfully Crafted Songs

Close Your Eyes As the Dead Serenade You in Your Room: MoFi Edition of American Beauty Epitomizes Realistic Space, Vocals, Instrumentation, and Ambience

Includes Truckin, Sugar Magnolia, Friend of the Devil, Ripple

American Beauty is the most perfectly realized, superbly played, and openly natural folk-rock record ever released. They dont make albums like this anymore, but thankfully, Mobile Fidelitys extraordinary 180g 45RPM 2LP set allows you to experience this 1970 masterpiece with unrivaled intimacy, realism, detail, and perspective. The Dead might as well be sitting on a Persian carpet right in your living room.

The pinnacle of the Deads studio output, American Beauty lives up to its nameas well as that of the American Reality ambigram on the iconic cover. Airy vocal harmonies blow like fresh breezes. Strummed acoustic guitars amicably intermingle with plaintive percussive beats. Warmth, relaxation, and poignancy envelop the performances and create sensations of bliss, peace, and honesty. Songs flower with majestic melodies and emotionally direct lyrics. Its a rare album that invites and makes you feel, restores ones faith, and renews ones appreciation for all life offers.

Mastered from the original master tapes and pressed on 180g LP at RTI, this deluxe analog set possesses seemingly limitless dynamics, reference-grade presence, and expansive soundstages. The seamless, effortless integration of the groups vocals has always been a high point of American Beauty, and when you hear it here, youll want every record you own to sound half as good. Every members distinctive singing resounds with tube-like clarity; the intended expressionism is as plain as day. Instruments, too, resonate in glorious Technicolor. The supple tension of Phil Leshs bass lines, charismatic timbres of Jerry Garcias pedal-steel fills, and interwoven dialogue between the pianos and percussion are rendered with lifelike scale and tone.

Made just months after its companion release, Workingmans Dead, the San Francisco legends second 1970 masterpiece furthers the former works close-knit relationship between country and folk while adding extra rock and bluegrass currents. Understated amplified passages, graceful melodies, layered singing, and old-time string flavorsincluding mandolin work from masterful guest David Grismanbestow the material with easygoing, comfortable vibes. Again taking advantage of the best songwriting of Robert Hunters career, the Dead turns in its most collective studio performance, with every individual contributing equally and focusing on nothing but the songs at hand.

Indeed, Garcia doesnt even indulge in a single guitar solo on the record. A majority of fare lacks any significant instrumental breaks. The Dead recorded the foundations (drums, bass, acoustic guitars) of nearly every track live, which helps explain why American Beauty sounds so powerfully rich and clear. Coupled with the bands personal reflections of the circumstances surrounding themBob Weirs parents had died, Garcias mother and Leshs father were in the process of passing, Ron Pigpen McKernans health was in declinethese characteristics combined to yield a purity of heart that exceeds that managed by Dead peers (and roots revivalist leaders) The Band and Bob Dylan.

From Garcias breathtaking gospel-laden homage to his mother (Brokedown Palace) to Leshs healing salve in the form of the groove-based Box of Rain, from Weirs jaunty and free-wheeling summer escape Sugar Magnolia to McKernans eloquently simple homespun plea Operator, all the way to the closing autobiographical anthem Truckin, American Beauty feels like the warm, spirit-infusing embrace of a loved one after a long journey away. Welcome home.



Selections:
LP 1 - Side 1:
1. Box of Rain
2. Friend of the Devil
LP 1 - Side 2:
1. Sugar Magnolia
2. Operator
3. Candyman

LP 2 - Side 3:
1. Ripple
2. Brokedown Palace
3. Till the Morning Comes
LP 2 - Side 4:
1. Attics of My Life
2. Truckin