[crazyeyes]

Hey guys I am making up a list of cd's for christmas. I want to get some new music to add to my library. I am looking for stuff that is recorded well. I am looking for more stuff like A Skylit Drive (i love the fast hard hitting drum beat in most of their songs), I also like Senses Fail, The Used, also into stuff like John Mayer, Dave Matthews. I am looking to expand my music library so figured i would make a list of cds for christmas.

Just seeing what you guys recommend that is recorded well.

Thanks

 

[nin3th]

if you don't have it already I strongly suggest live at radio city by dave matthews. great album.

 

[derek800]

Here are some of my favorites at the moment.

Radiohead - Ok Computer, In Rainbow's
Alice in Chains - Unplugged
Mastodon - Crack the Skye
City and Colour - Sometimes, Bring me Your Love
Sliversun Pickups - Swoon
Thrice- Beggars, Artist in the Ambulance, Vheissu, Alchemy Index Vols. 1-4

 

[Uncle Erik]

Try "6 & 12 String Guitar" by Leo Kottke. Don't let the country/bluegrass nature of it put you off - this is a superb album that is almost universally loved. It's just Kottke playing his guitars and it should fit with your tastes. People seem to either love the album or they've never heard of it. Give it a try.

 

[Redo]

Eric Clapton - Unplugged is always worth a go around (or ten) if you don't have it

 

[Mario_Fpolis]

Bozzio Levin Stevens - Black Light Sindrome
Michael Hedges - Oracle
David Sunborn & Bob James - Double Vision
The Derek Trucks Band - Songlines
Suzanne Vega - Songs in Red and Gray.

My 2c

 

[harkari]

Maybe OP could better define what he means by "recorded well," since he gave examples of bands rather than recordings. More and more for me it means primarily, "not dynamically crushed" (i.e., brickwalled, loudness wars, all that), and otherwise having great imaging, dynamics and presence. When I first started looking myself for well-recorded music, I hit upon the recommendation of Nirvana's Unplugged. I had it but hadn't listened to it for years, long before getting turned on to head-fi. I popped it in, cranked it up through my modest Envy>Caffeine>Grado 60 rig at work, and was immediately floored. Live albums often are some of the best sounding.

For studio albums, for both recording quality and the music, just lately I've loved:

Jenny Lewis - Acid Tongue
Melody Gardot - Worrisome Heart & My One And Only Thrill
Esperanza Spalding - Esperanza
Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest
Iron & Wine - The Shepherd's Dog

For older things, I think (e.g.) all of Fiona Apple's albums are exceptionally good recordings. Much older jazz, especially good remasters, can be astonishingly good. I own the Verve Master Edition of Getz/Gilberto. When Getz comes in on The Girl From Ipanema, you about jump out of your chair. It sounds like he's right next to you. Of course, of the three Grammys it won, one was for Best Engineering.

hk

 

[crazyeyes]

By recorded well I do mean not dynamically crushed. I hate when I find good music that I like to find out that it suffers from the loudness war and is just loaded with distortion, clipping, and tons of other stuff that makes it unlistenable.

You mentioned Nirvanas Unplugged which I don't have but I do have Nevermind and decided to go back and listen to that which I haven't done in a while. I am actually very impressed by this album. I use to have no dedicated headphone amp so was listening directly through my apogee duet. Before I thought this album was thin sounding and lacked any dynamic punch to it. Well I just went back to listen to it and realized that my system just wasn't giving me what I should have been hearing cause this album sounds awesome now and is full of dynamics that I wasn't hearing before cause the amp built into the duet was unable to accurately produce them.

 

[harkari]

Nevermind is actually a very well mastered album. Grohl's drums hit hard as hell, and everything has excellent bite and separation. Milner talks about it in his book Perfecting Sound Forever, which has a couple of chapters devoted to the loudness wars and what makes great recording and mastering great.

I find it ironic that most hard or heavy music is brickwalled, which means the drums don't hit, the guitars don't bite and the bass has no thump. Someone recommended Mastodon, but I think most of their albums are typical brickwalled metal mush (Leviathan seems a bit looser). I'm looking for some more recent metal that really is well mastered, but it is very, very hard to find. It's not all just the mastering. Most metal is too sonically dense to really hit. Kicks and bass get lost in the chugging of dual detuned 7-strings. Otep and Limp Bizkit are good, Chimaira's not bad, and Pantera's live Monsters of Rock EP (can't think of the title) is fantastic. But I think few new hard rock or metal recordings match the mastering and impact of the old grunge bands (Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, Nirvana, STP).

 

[immtbiker]

Quote:

Originally Posted by derek800 /img/forum/go_quote.gif Here are some of my favorites at the moment. Radiohead - Ok Computer, In Rainbow's Alice in Chains - Unplugged

"In Rainbows" is one of my favorite albums in recent times, but I don't feel that it is well recorded at all.
"Alice in Chains - Unplugged" is "cream of the crop" top notch quality.

 

[fatcat28037]

And let us not forget one of the most popular albums on Head-Fi..............

 

[soidera]

john mayer? the where the light is Live in LA cd

 

[immtbiker]

I listen to that CD at least once a week (CD 1, at least).
Even though it's a live album, when he is playing solo, or has a small accompaniment, the quality gives me the joy that I seek as a person dedicated to this hobby.

 

[moonshake]

Best recorded, mixed and mastered... These can squeeze the full potential of your expensive audio equipment.

Spoon - Ga ga ga ga ga
Nirvana - Nevermind
Thurston Moore - Trees outside the academy

 

[Leon83]

Esperanza Spalding - Chamber Music Society sounds amazing on the Denon D5000's.