Rickie Lee Jones (self titled) 1979 Japan Press P-10675W Warner Pioneer OBI

$

20

• Rickie Lee Jones.
• "Rickie Lee Jones".
• 1979 Japan Pressing with OBI.
• Four Page Lyric Booklet In English and Japanese.
• Warner Pioneer P-10675W.

Item Details
Manufactured in: Japan
Recorded: September to December, 1978 At Warner Bros. Recording Studio, The Burbank Studios, And TBS (2 live tracks)
Recording Engineers: Lee Herschberg, Loyd Clifft
  Original Issue: February 28, 1979
This Issue: 1979
Label: Warner Pioneer P-10675W
Runout Deadwax Matrix Numbers:
Side 1: (stamp:) P-10675W1 &#x3004 1S3450 7 780XYZ 1 1-A 13 &#xA530 &#xA530 &#xA530 -1
Side 2: (stamp:) P-10675W1 1-A-12 1
Was bought new by this seller many years ago and now offered from his private collection (you have absolutely known provenance). Has had just a few plays only on an expertly setup high-end audiophile turntable, arm, and cartridge. Has never been exposed to heat or tobacco smoke and always stored vertically in a specially designed record cabinet (Rackit) to prevent warpage.
Was cleaned on a VPI HW 16 with Audio Intelligent solutions and ultra-pure water rinse (50X purer than distilled water) before my pre-sale sound check. I wear nitrile surgical gloves while cleaning and play testing to avoid any chance of transferring finger oils to the vinyl.

Very sensitive play testing was performed straight off my Ayre P-5xe fully balanced phono preamp over Sennheiser HD 600 headphones using a Schiit Audio Valhalla 2 tube headphone amp fitted with Voskhod Soviet matched tubes (see last photo).

Track list
1: Chuck E.'s In Love, On Saturday Afternoons In 1963(live), Night Train, Young Blood, Easy Money, The Last Chance Texaco.

2: Danny's All Star Joint, Coolsville, Weasel And The White Boy's Cool, Company, After Hours (12 Bars Past Midnight)(live).

I never take "distant" photos nor the so-prevalent type with the LP sticking halfway out of the jacket. I take close-ups under photo lamps so you can see nearly everything I describe in the jacket grading. It is virtually impossible to know the true vinyl condition from any photograph. That takes very bright and close visual inspection PLUS play testing with thorough coverage on high resolution equipment.
Grading Details
Note: Grading LPs by text characters is subjective and at best are only a guide as no two used records are of exactly the same quality. Please, refer to both my photo evidence and detailed descriptions to judge by YOUR OWN grading standards. Questions are always welcome. eBay no longer allows me to enter separate grades for each side of the sleeve or record so you may not see any in the box above but are listed below. Play quality is personally most important to me so vinyl visual qualities are graded and described in detail separately for your complete assessment.

Outer Jacket Inspection/grading:
NM/NM
The Jacket has been kept in its YSL importer thick poly outer sleeve for its 41 year life. Therefore it is Near Mint. The only distinguishing differences from Mint are: A very mild non-creasing bend at the lower right front corner, and some microscopic rub wear at that corner. The rear lower right corner has a very tiny crease that could have been a manufacturing bindery artifact. The OBI is also NM.

Vinyl visual inspection/grading:
NM-/NM-
Without a lot of tilting and rotating under bright light Side 1 looked perfect. In time all I could find was a thin transparent line of "fog" through track 2 a nanometer-thin reflective hairline through track 1. Side 2 had a handful of those almost invisible reflective "polishing swirls" resulting from sleeve insertion and removal plus a very small surface abrasion in the middle of T4. Play testing (see below) found no noises attributable to these artifacts.

Play Testing:
NM/NM
Extensive play testing was performed after visual inspection. I listened to the beginning, middle, and end of each track for a few minutes on each needle drop. I also listened to all lead-in, lead-out and transition grooves between each track. Some tracks were played all the way thru when digitizing my favorites to 192k/24-bit WAV files. Continuous written notes were taken. Here is rundown of each side from my notes.

Side 1 Play
T1 is Rickie's first hit single and it is a gem. Love those crisp finger snaps. The first transition grooves into the next track were dead quiet. I listen to all of these because they are a solid measure of the baseline vinyl noise floor for the pressing. This was just as I expected it to be given the fanatical Japanese manufacturing quality control processes and pure virgin vinyl formulations. T2 is one of the two live tracks. Its very poignant and one of my favorites. I heard just one single tick of moderate level in the middle and this was the only one in all the play testing. I rated T3 as the best audio fidelity of all the tracks. The audio was clear & clean, with very wide frequency range. An excellent mix and mastering job. T5 had a very accurate and realistic glockenspiel section. T6 has always been my musical favorite of the whole album. The use of metaphors in the lyrics are brilliant. At its very end just before the lead-out groove I did detect a bit of audible crackle for a few seconds. Overall it is a very clean and quiet side that actually does sound as if it was never played before.

Side 2 Play
The thing I loved the most about T1 was the striding bass line. T2 is moody, haunting and powerful. T3 is a longer track so I took more and longer play samples. Its another of my favorite picks and one of the strongest on the whole album because of the terrific work by backing musicians. I'd rate T4 as my 2nd most favorite of all. Its sad but beautiful. T5 begins with a quiet intro of  Rickie and piano joined later by the string section. Its a short track and in the last several seconds I did hear a few light ticks.

It was hard to sort out my favorites because there isn't a single weak track on the whole album. Musically it is superb. The audio purity and consistent quiet vinyl background due to the Japanese quality perfection makes this copy one of the most desirable versions to own.

Packaging

• Record will be placed outside the jacket to protect against seam splitting.
• Original inner sleeve and 4-page lyric sheet are included separately.
• Record has been placed into a new MFSL-style "rice paper" plastic sleeve, as the original, even though plastic, may be holding onto some dust. This will keep vinyl surfaces clean during shipping and ultimate buyer usage.
• Outer jacket is contained in a new clear polyethylene protective sleeve.
• Sent in good quality record mailer with cardboard stiffeners.

Shipping

• Shipping will be via USPS Media Mail for a flat charge of $3.98 per single album sale.
• A combined shipping discount is available on multiple sales completed on the same day($3.98 plus $0.50 for each additional LP).
• If you do buy more than one LP  on the same daydo not pay immediately but wait for my all-combined invoice. A discount for the combined items will show on that invoice. Then, once payment is received, the items will ship.