Melissa Manchester: Melissa 1975 Arista AL-4031 Mastering Lab Lakewood Press NM-

For sale is a vinyl album by Melissa Manchester titled “Melissa”, originally released in 1975 by Arista Records. In the dead wax between the labels and the last tracks is etched “AL”, followed by “TML-S”, indicating that this album was mastered at The Mastering Lab of Hollywood, California, before this record was made at Audio Manufacturing Company’s pressing plant located in Lakewood, New Jersey. These are hallmarks of state-of-the-art engineering, sought after by collectors and music lovers for their superior sound quality. I bought this record used, professionally cleaned it on my VPI HW-17 machine and immediately put it into an archival inner sleeve. This preserves the integrity of the vinyl and any original inner sleeve(s) or insert(s) that may have come with the release. The inner sleeve is Near Mint. The cover is graded as Excellent because of corner blunts, shelf rubs and faint ring wear. The spine has a little bit of color loss at the corners from these blunts . The vinyl is visually graded as Near Mint Minus because of one superficial sleeve mark across “Love Havin’ You Around”, otherwise with shiny and bright surfaces, in a like-new condition, without any surface scratches, smudges or spindle marks on the labels. I’m play grading it between Excellent and Near Mint because of occasional low level ticking and super low levels of surface noise, none of which interferes with the vocals or music. It plays all the way through without any pops, lock-ups or skips from start to finish. This is still one of the best copies of this hard to find record that I have ever seen or heard and you would be hard pressed to find a copy of this record in this condition, especially a Lakewood first pressing. I have more Pop albums, as well as records of all genres in my Ebay store. Please take a look. They’re predominately Near Mint. Thank you for viewing my listing. I’ve been collecting records for about 50 years now and have always cleaned them and put them away carefully in plastic inner sleeves. Over the years I’ve used Dust Bugs, Disc Washers and have finally invested in a professional VPI record cleaning machine. Now that I’m retiring, I’m selling my very esoteric collection. I’m not a professional grader of records, but will use record guides, as well as my personal experiences as a basis of my grading all records. Since grading is subjective, I will be conservative. I offer discounts for multiple sales. Photos are of the actual item for sale, not a stock photo. Please review all descriptions and photos because I do not accept returns. Thank you for looking!