... POORLY RECORDED SONGS THAT ...

@wcfeil-- I went thru a Ziggy phase a while ago to find a good one. The 4E/6E UK is very good sounding, as was the reissue from several years ago which, I believe, was based on an analog tape. (It has subsequently been reissued again, but I don’t know the provenance of that one and didn’t buy it). The only problem with the reissue from a few years ago was that there was a batch with defects so the song "Star" was reduced to gibberish. I have two copies of that with the same problem. The 4E/6E in top condition is typically a hundred dollar record, whereas the reissue is cheap-ish. There may have been an EMI Centenary issue as well, which I don’t have- some were analog, others pulled from a digital transfer. (I think Hunky Dory on the EMI 100 Series is all analog but it still sounds more ’modern’ than the older UK pressings).

How about "Surrealistic Pillow"? A great record but suffers from too much reverb, low levels, poor mixing, muddy bass and no snap to the drums. And the better the system, the worse it seems to sound. You can't make it better with tone controls. All you can do is get the volume to the right level and don't sit too close. 

This is a record that I've never bought on CD, let alone any remastered versions. I'm afraid to hear what they've done to it. But I still love it, even after all these years. 

It's not the recordings, it's the playback settings folks.

Michael, in some cases it is the particular issue- safety copy or needle drop (or CD pull), plus bad mastering. I have many records where there are significant differences in sound --from horrible to great- depending on the particular issue. And, it’s not always the fancy audiophile issue, or the "first pressing" (whatever that means in a particular context) that has the best sound.