"Bridge Over Trouble Water" sounds artificial

@aeshcwartz 

I'd say, it has nothing to do with the recordings. Your result is just reflective of the current (true) state of your playback system in your room...even if the upgrade results, in some way, in an apparent step backward or down in listening experience (in the case of a few recordings). 

Either the "upgrade" was not quite "up" enough, or other areas of the system need to be looked at, too.

But, I can assure you, once you've finally gotten it right, you do indeed get the satisfying treatment All your music deserves.

You can look at better gear or better tweaks or both, whatever you like, but this sort of 'jockeying' of subjective impressions of various recordings as you progressively improve your system goes on all the time. And at times things can somehow, in more isolated incidents like you've noted here, can temporarily appear 'go south' a bit unexpectedly in the process longterm. That may seem counterintuitive given the rationalization for a given upgrade, but I would say this kind of thing is situation normal and just goes to show that you may have a bit further to go with your system...but I'm saying that if you keep going you will definitely get there.

Sometimes, that can be a difficult thing to keep in mind in the long run, and it may be easy to get drawn down into the weeds so long you lose sight of it...assuming it's even your goal, of course.

I listened to this album a few weeks ago on Quboz. 96/24 mastering of the 1970 album by Vic Anesini, best version I remember ever hearing.

Would also like to add: remember that exactly where, and in what order, your recordings will ultimately land is overwhelmingly determined by the quality of your setup.

For the longest time, I believe it was J Gordon Holt, who went around proclaiming the relative recording quality of various vinyl editions in general, but as his system progressed into the $30k territory, he found himself reversing his opinions on several of his recommendations and ultimately felt himself forced to admit that trying to divine overall recording quality was actually too hazardous for anyone to do definitively.

I'm in the $65K + range for my system and it is very well matched components and cables.  I have been doing this for a long time.  Trust, there are great sounding recordings, there are good recordings, there are not so good recordings, and there are terrible recordings.  Some reissues are good and some are fabulous.  It's all over the map.

mozartfan, by the way since you mentioned Carol King, the reissue of 'Tapestry'  by Mobile Fidelity, Original Master Recording, is absolutely fantastic.  That one you can turn the volume knob way, way up.  It has dynamic range, slam, and sonic bliss that will shock you.  Well worth the higher price for a MoFi edition.

Probably because the song sucks in the first place. But YMMV