5 posts tagged “music”
I discovered this really interesting site, Last.fm, today.
Basically, you open an account and download an application (Mac or PC) that watches what you play on iTunes, and reports back to the website. That data is then used to profile your musical tastes and also crunched into charts of your favourite artists, etc. I think it's a lot like Pandora, although I've never really played with that.
The application also displays information on the artist you're listening to, if it's already in their system. Users are encouraged to add info, as well as tag music (of course).
Sure, there are privacy issues with telling a website what you've been listening to...but really, it's just music after all. And what's quite impressive about Last.fm is the breadth of music that's already been listened to and tagged by users. There was even obscure stuff like Yoko Oginome (80s J-pop) that I listen to, and a healthy representation of Mandopop listeners. So it's fairly international.
Will play with it for awhile. In the meantime, my Last.fm profile page is viewable here.
I love this Web 2.0 stuff.
Later : Sheesh, this thing is addictive...I've been sitting infront of the computer, listening to music while clicking back and forth to my profile page while surfing. It gets even more interesting when you start going through the charts and clicking on songs and artists, and see what kind of popularity they have. Great stuff!
SiriuslyCold at the xtremeplace forum (for Singaporean audiophiles) started a great thread on 'The Loudness War', linking to this article at Austin360.com.
In a nutshell, record companies are recording stuff louder, and this results in there being less difference between the loud and soft bits of music on CDs. This isn't an issue of MP3 or AAC lossy compression...the CDs themselves are more 'compressed' to allow for the louder volume. So detail and nuance are sacrificed, because some record execs decided that consumers like louder records.
Until their ears go numb. After two tracks.
I like to think I have fairly sensitive 'audiophile quality' ears, and I'd often wondered why my older CDs sounded good on my system, but newer CDs (especially rock) sounded noisy and messy. Now I know.
The article at Austin360.com also links to an excellent visual illustration of how this all works. In the picture below, it looks like the contrast and colour saturation (i.e. 'dynamic range') of these classic paintings has been compressed and turned up respectively (I think), resulting in the messy sludge you see.
I put the DTS 5.1 version on the hi-fi last night, and now must highly recommend this album. It's truly a revelation.
The key is that George Martin and his son - who did the remastering and remixing - have been completely respectful and faithful to the Beatles' music. With the exception of some strings on While My Guitar Gently Weeps, every note on this album is either the original Beatles song or, mostly in the links between tracks, samples of those songs.
But what makes this album truly spectacular is the magnificent clean-up job that they have done on the original masters. Every previous Beatles recording I've heard, including the remastered Sgt Peppers released many years ago and the more recent 1 compilation, has had a jangly edge to it that I've always charitably considered to be 'atmospheric'. However, on this album, Martin has managed to create virtually pristine versions of the songs, without losing any authenticity or warmth.
Listening to the 5.1 mix, songs like Yesterday and Hey Jude are spine-chillingly intimate, while the faster tracks retain their edge while still providing greater clarity and separation of the various instruments than ever before. Martin also makes judicious use of surround effects, thankfully eschewing gimmicky stereo panning in favour of subtle flourishes. I've always felt that music is inherently a 2-channel experience - you want to hear the band perform infront of you, not sit amongst them while they play around you - and this mix retains that live feel.
However, having heaped such praise on this album, it is also, ironically, frustrating. That's because it is, ultimately, the soundtrack to a Cirque show, so you mostly get two minute excerpts of most of the songs, with only a few lengthier cuts at the end. When am I going to get to hear my two favourite Beatles albums - Rubber Soul and Revolver - in their entirety, with this kind of audio quality? Or, for history's sake, Sgt Pepper's?
Media sources say that the Beatles are biding their time, waiting to make a big bang launch of all the Beatles albums in this format. Certainly, this album is a tremendous promise of what we can hope for. But Martin isn't getting any younger, and there are only two Beatles left alive.
So what are we waiting for? I dread the thought of Yoko being the only person left alive to supervise the remastering...
Me want to see.
I (don't) feel so good...
The Godfather of Soul is dead.
I just bought a greatest hits selection from iTunes a few weeks ago, and I'm listening to it now.
Personally, the strongest memory I have of James Brown is because Raffles Hall had turned 'I Got You (I Feel Good)' into a cheer. I've led freshmen in the cheer so many times...
I feel good..nah nah nah nah nah nah...
I knew that I would...nah nah nah nah nah nah
So good! (Yeah!)
So good (Yeah!)
Nah nah nah nah nah...
I've recently been re-ripping my favorite CDs as 256kbps AACs. It's the highest resolution that is still sensible without eating up (too much) harddisk space, and the difference is (to my humble ears) clearly audible in comparison to the 160/192kbps bitrate versions that I had previously been using. In particular, bass and midrange clarity is vastly improved from the comparatively tinny-sounding lower bitrate versions. The recordings sound a lot fuller and deeper.
I was inspired to do this by an opinion piece in Hi-Fi Choice about using iPods as digital sources for audio systems. The argument was that a high-resolution digital rip (Apple Lossless or high-bitrate AAC), played back through an iPod's lineout into a good stereo amp should rival an entry-level (at least) CD seperate, because the all-digital format means that the compressed track is taken directly from the digital info on the CD and is potentially more 'accurate' than what the CD player might produce during playback.
I haven't really tested the hypothesis with my AACs and CDs head-to-head, because I don't have an iPod dock with a proper line-level output, but as I said above, there clearly is a qualitative difference between 256kbps and even 192kbps.
Anyway,in the course of all this re-ripping, I reached my collection of beloved musicals, and realised that some of the CDs are really pretty terrible in the first place. There really is room for 'archival' re-releases of remastered versions of some classics from the 1970s and 1980s, like EVITA and JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR. But searching on Amazon only uncovered a 2006 remaster of ASPECTS OF LOVE - an underappreciated musical, but not one of the greats by any stretch.
Surely there are enough fans out there to justify such remastered re-releases? Or even SACD versions? It's far more important to get high-quality releases of the original cast recordings out, rather than terrible revival cast recordings.
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Done a bit more digging at Amazon...okay, there are a few remasters out there, but not enough. Also, while there are some recent re-releases of key stuff, a lot of it is highlights-only (bleah!), and it isn't clearly stated whether these are remastered at all.
Oh, come on - SACDs! Please!
Technorati Tags: audiophile, hi-fi, music, musicals, sacd
