[Muinarc]

Mudcrutch - Tom Petty and friends get together on this self-titled album.



Roy Buchanan - "Sweet Dreams: Anthology" - Some fantastic guitar to be heard in this compilation.



Tears for Fears - "Songs From the Big Chair"



The Wombats - "This Modern Glitch" - some good Alt. Rock sounds from this British band.

 

[Dr4Bob]

 

[xylin6]

from 1996 until 2006 IDM had an overwhelming abundance of incredible releases many from well known and some not so well known artists such as Aphex Twin,Boards of Canada,Autechre,µ-Ziq,Venetian Snares,Team Doyobi,Joseph Nothing,Freeform,I Cactus,Wauvenfold,Cylob,Matmos,Freescha,Lexaunculpt,Casino Vs Japan,EU,Differnet,
Fizzarum,ISAN,Solvent,Plone,Odd Nosdam,Múm,Khonnor,E*Vax,Arovane,Frank Bretschnieder,Plaid,and so many others,including this truly talented young man Nathan Fake whose 2006 release Drowning in a Sea of Love remains one of my all time favorite records of any genre. granted there are still amazing IDM albums being released today,it just seems that 96-06 was (to me) the golden decade of discovery and wonder.(and to anyone who says that software synthesizers can't sound as warm as analogue hardware,know that this entire record was made using cubase) and btw I do prefer analog to digital,just that,the gap is not near so wide as the *purists* would like to believe.and this record is the proof.

 

[linglingjr]

OnCue's Left Overs 2, it just came out a few hours ago:

 

[JoeDoe]

OnCue's Left Overs 2, it just came out a few hours ago:

I had no idea that guy was still making music!

 

[markm1]

 

I need to listen to some Blondie! Love them back in the day....
 

 

 

 
 
 

 
I'm new to Leonard Cohen's work and I'm grappling with the brilliance of his poetry/lyrics....pretty amazing stuff
 

 

 

 

 

[GalaxyGuy]

 
 
Do we have any "The Roots" fans here ?

 

Does this count?
 

 

[Luv My BASS 1]

Hip hop isn't dead.

 

[endallchaos]

[COLOR=000000] [/COLOR]
[COLOR=000000]Eminem - The Marshall Mathers LP 2[/COLOR]
[COLOR=000000] [/COLOR]
[COLOR=000000]I'm not used to listen to a hip-hop, but this record is enjoyable even to me. [/COLOR]

Yea, it's a good album, in my opinion.

 

[endallchaos]

Hip hop isn't dead.

My internet has been pretty bad, for the past week. I haven't heard it yet. Looking forward to it, though.

 

[TJ Elite]

 
Whoa. You dismiss something because of the order it's played in? You dismiss live performances over album recordings? Gapless playback? Wha?
 
Sorry bro, but that's just too over-the-top for me.
 
I was not critical of your group. I find it puzzling that you're so critical of the selection I decided to share with you. I would think that a fan of a cappella music would be more interested in promoting the style of music, as opposed to criticizing another group (with what seems like unwarranted baloney). But hey, I guess you're a bit more interested in promoting a group from your own country, than another group that clearly excels from somewhere else. Ok. I think I got that number.

 

Spoiler: My reply

Many artists work very hard on track sequencing on their albums. Even on albums where the songs aren't thematically or musically connected to one another, the order in which the songs are placed can often either make or break an otherwise good album. I never said live performances are by nature in any way inferior to studio recordings. I don't expect you to, but if you were to take a look at the one hundred of my current favorite albums listed in the link in my signature, you would find I've listed quite a few live albums preferring them over any other recordings I've heard from the discography of the artists in question.

 

Upon checking out Club for Five's YouTube page, I noticed they had a video of Brothers in Arms uploaded there. Feeling that song is without question the best way to introduce the album to someone, and very fitting considering it was the cover that inspired the group to record the You're the Voice album in the first place, I took a look at it but immediately noticed it was a live performance. Nothing wrong with that, but I feel a live version of a song is something you typically recommend for someone who is already familiar with the album version and likes it. In this particular case the differences in performance between the studio version and the live one didn't even play a role in my decision to abandon the idea of embedding the video in my original post. The song simply right off the bat sounded different. For an audiophile – a person who loves music, loves sound – every small difference in pitch, color, tempo, even absences of sound, is meaningful. And it's not just people who are devoted to music, even to an "average person" the character of sound changes how we perceive music. Linking a live version of a song from a studio album I was trying to recommend (a live version of the album also exists to my knowledge, have not heard it), regardless of how ever so slightly different the impressions people got from it might have been, would have not been in line with the experience I was trying to recommend to people. Anyone who found themselves liking the album could easily search for live videos on YouTube on their own accord. And if we DO take the performance in the live video on their channel into account, I did not find myself enjoying it, so that would've been even further reason for me to not link it besides what I already said.

 

The only studio version I found of any song on the album on their channel, was the music video for Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This), but despite being a song I like I personally don't enjoy listening to it outside the album. The same goes for all songs on the album in fact. Further, if I had never heard this group before and someone showed me that video, I would very likely say that it's "pretty neat", but I doubt I would listen to it till the end or have any desire to hear any more of the group's output. First impression matter. Would I be too hasty in that situation? Certainly, but I can say from experience that even though my attention span might be nowhere near as good as I'd like it to be, the vast majority of the internet flat out simply doesn't seem to have one. I don't think any less of a person who lacks a trait I wish I myself still had at a level it used to be a decade or so ago, but what I am trying to minimize is that they don't end up missing something they might have actually liked because of that. I don't care one way or the other if someone listens to something I mention online on a forum and doesn't like it, but what I do not want for anyone is that they try out something and jump too hastily to a conclusion that they don't like what they heard simply because they were listening to a wrong song for example. In the context of the You're the Voice album, I feel that the opening song is such that if you like it the group has instantly earned at least a bit of respect from you and you are prepared to be open-minded to anything they might throw at you. My belief is that for example the aforementioned Sweet Dreams cover would very likely give a very misguided impression of the group's music if that was the first thing you ever heard.

 

Was I being critical of your selection? I merely stated that based on the first 40 second at least I found it unlistenable. That is hardly enough exposure to form even a proper first impression I feel, perhaps a quick observation at best. I even went on to say that perhaps it was a personal failing of mine that I was unable to appreciate the content. After my response I linked the song to my friend who like me is a music lover and is a musician as well to see if I was totally alone in not being won over by the video. He likes Daft Punk but told me he did not like the interpretation. That doesn't mean much one way or the other, but gave me some assurance that I didn't judge a book too quickly by its cover. Out of fairness I did give most of the group's songs a brief listen on Spotify today to see if I had simply been introduced to the wrong song, along with listening to Daft Punk in its entirety on Spotify without the visuals which I strongly disliked. Unfortunately I can't say that I enjoyed the medley any more upon hearing it in its entirety, but compared to the other songs from their two main EPs (I skipped what seemed to be a collection of Christmas songs) the Daft Punk song collage was actually vastly more listenable to me, which I was honestly very surprised about.

 

Again, perhaps I am simply blind to this particular group's greatness, but I am honestly unable to see much merit in their arrangements. To return to the Daft Punk cover, I still fail to see what new and fresh their take had to bring to the table aside from being an a cappella performance, obviously. Pentatonix' music is clearly geared towards entertaining in a very similar way as most of today's pop music, and I can see why their music would have appeal to some people, but I happen to clearly not be part of that group of people. But in the end, lacking the ability to appreciate the group's music is my loss, correct? It's not like anyone who has taken a liking to them enjoys them any less due to my inability to be able to say the same.

 

I was not aware that if someone expressed approval of something I shared, that automatically meant I lost the right to express any kind of disapproval of their selection of choice. That might be polite but hardly achieves anything. I simply stated my honest opinion, nothing more, nothing less. If you had not enjoyed the music I shared and had said as much, I would have respected your opinion and been interested to hear what it was you didn't like. Perhaps you might have made some valid points that would have given me reason to look at the music from a different angle. Even if it wouldn't have ultimately changed my opinion, challenging one's views and approach to things is always something that's good to do from time to time and can lead to personal growth.

 

You may actually have misunderstood me slightly and thought I was recommending the album because it was an a cappella album. That is not the case. If fact, the music being a cappella had nothing to do with my recommendation. The only basis was that I felt it was very good music and something others might find well worth hearing. Also what comes to your claim that I have some kind of preference for artists that hail from the same country as I, I find unfounded. I listen to very little Finnish music and most of what I heard is in my opinion absolute, total garbage; I'm not even trying to be polite about that. I'm sure there are brilliant musicians in my country, I have simply not heard of most of them. Of the over 3000 albums I currently own, about 80 are by Finnish artists. That's roughly 2 to 3%. I only know one Estonian artist, composer Arvo Pärt, and in my book his music is superior to probably all Finnish music I've heard combined. I think that should speak volumes of where my preferences lie. I have heard great Finnish music, but not nearly enough. If you truly wish to argue I have a preference for people who happen to have been born in the same part of the globe as I, I'd love to hear what your basis is for that. If you were to claim I had for example a groundless bias for music originating from Japan, I would absolutely agree with you. I love many things that come from the Land of the Rising Sun and will admit to that without hesitation.

 

I think that about covers what I had to say. Well I forgot to comment on gapless playback, but I'll leave that be. 

 

---

 

Lemm - Arkhē
 

Currently listening to Lemm's debut album. I've always found it slightly difficult to take drum and bass completely seriously, but this album I looove. It is the album that showed me that DnB cannot just work perfectly well in full-album format, but also have an incredible amount of artistic merit and the ability to take the listener on a deeply immersive journey into its own microcosmos. I always feel bad about linking any songs from the album individually because this is one of those albums that is truly best experienced as a whole. Nevertheless below are two semi-random cuts. If I knew of a way to directly embed a playlist on Head-Fi, I would.
 
  

 

[magiccabbage]

This is such an underrated album. Its a masterpiece!
 

 

[longbowbbs]

24/96 AIFF

 

[snapple10]

^^ was listening to that last night and I was not feeling it
Will give another listen

 

[dweaver]

JD Souther - Natural History
Mumford and Sons - Babel
Heart - Best of Heart