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Just picking a few random ones from the top of my recently added
As Yet Untitled - Terence Trent D'arby
Purple Rain - Prince
Brothers In Arms - Dire Straits
I'm On Fire - Bruce Springsteen
Seems I had a flurry of adding middle of the road 80's songs recently, but they do sound good.
For something more leftfield, try Blown Away by Sivert Hayem
Add suggestions below
Unfinished Sympathy & Hymn of the Big Wheel - Massive Attack
Tin Soldier & If I Were a Carpenter (Live) - Small Faces
Controversy - Prince
This colab between nils frahm and kiasmos is one of my favs of the moment
There’s a playlist on Spotify for exactly this. Standout for me is FGTH welcome to the pleasuredome
There’s a playlist on Spotify for exactly this. Standout for me is FGTH welcome to the pleasuredome
Yeah there are a few tbh, but some of the content isn't always particularly excellent headphone tracks I've found
Private Investigations - Dire Straits.
What headphones?
My current set are Beyerdynamic DT990 Pro 250ohm, through a Fiio K3 amp/dac. Also have an Audeze Penrose planar magnetic wireless/bluetooth set on order for gaming/bluetooth out and about duties.
I have a few go to songs for testing stuff:
Fischerspooner - Emerge
To build a home - The cinematic Orchestra
Hallelujah - Jeff Buckley
Then, some others:
Closer - Nine Inch Nails
Hide and Seek - Imogen heap
Oh and this. All of this.
What headphones?
Sony WH-1000XM3
Probs not audiophile quality, but they'll do
Pretty much any Leftfield track!
Best one for me (since getting those very same headphones) has been the acoustic version of Cathedral by Jade Bird. And all of Every Open Eye by Churches. The former because you can really hear the percussion of the guitar mixed in with vocals, and the latter because of the huge dynamic range of the music, the dynamism of the sound and how much of it you can hear.
Make sure you are listening in HD and also make sure that you have the right codec set up - LDAC for Android or AAC for Mac.
Private Investigations – Dire Straits.
Yes!
Also,
Aural assault.
Jamie Woon, sharpness
Live: Osees ‘Henchlock’ in KEXP
Fool’s gold - Stone Roses
Son of a Preacher man - Dusty Springfield
My daughter tells me that Billie Eilish needs to be listened to on headphones
Funny seeing both the Dire Straits tracks. I had the same thought when ‘your own sweet way’ by ‘The Notting Hillbillies’ came on the on the other day. A lot of music is just background but I really noticed the difference on that one.
As someone who listens to a lot of stuff on decent headphones, some favourites...
Private Investigations – Dire Straits.
Honestly can’t argue with that, the original 12” single release was outstanding, and the first vinyl pressings of Love Over Gold were simply stunning, mastered by Bob Ludwig at Masterdisk.
Difficult this, trying to think of individual songs from thousands.
One that springs to mind is ‘Gravity’s Angel’ by Laurie Anderson from ‘Mister Heartbreak’. Lots of deep bass, sudden sharp sounds, just a great song and recording.
Peter Gabriel does vocals on it, as well as on ‘This Is The Picture (Excellent Birds), and he does the same song on ‘So’, but with his own style.
Both albums work really well through ’phones, I particularly like the chosen tracks.
There are a couple of songs by Paul Simon I particularly love, from an album I keep going back to, ‘Hearts And Bones’. Never really considered to be one of his best, it was supposed to be a Simon & Garfunkel album, but Simon got fed up waiting for Artie to finish doing something else, took all of Artie’s vocals off that he’d done, and finished it himself. And I love it to bits, it’s a great recording, with the title track, and also ‘René And Georgette Magritte With Their Dog After The War’ (!) standouts for me.
Am still massively impressed and delighted every time I stick the Orb’s ‘Valley’ thru the cans. The piece has steadily revealed more and more sonic delights to my ears over the decades at the same rate that my equipment has been upgraded! (Currently AKG K550 mkIII)
Interesting snippets about the track from Alex Patterson:
We do things like turning the pages of a book and treating the tape to produce a high-hat, and using cutlery or scissors or spinning coins as percussion. We once used two huge swords. Thrash and I had a fight with them in the studio. That was fun. Apart from the fact I almost killed Thrash.
"We're also really into natural sources. Listen out for the rabbits in 'Assassin'. And the elephant I taped when I was in Nepal. We've just finished a new track called 'The Valley', for which we set up radio microphones all over this valley down in Dorset. It's amazing what we picked up. We also recorded some stuff in a chicken hut. There was one particular rooster which went mad whenever somebody clapped their hands. He was the star of the record. The snuffing horse was pretty good, too.- (INFO FREAKO, Melody Maker, October 9 1993, p.51)
Anything by Level 42, obviously.
Level 42...
😉
Another belter on headphones
My daughter tells me that Billie Eilish needs to be listened to on headphones
I'm sure she's right... just not on my headphones
If you can source a decent copy of Sibelius’ No 5 played by the Oslo Philharmonic conducted by Saraste
And I wish I could find and HD copy of Cornelius ‘Sensuous’ online. I have the album but the video really adds to the music. It's quite brilliant with headphones.
Talking of who, here’s some audiovisual fun:
Tubular Bells or Hunky Dory listen to David draw on a fag just before he sings or the creaky chair
Agree about level 42 - awful on any media. Love listening Disintegration, The Cure.
Anything by Level 42, obviously.
Oddly enough Lessons in Love is actually pretty good for testing audio equipment. If you can turn it way up and the bass line stays clean, and the wailing guitar bit stays clean, you've got yourself a pretty good set up. You might not want to listen to it though.
Gasoline by Halsey or anything from Badlands is good.
The Race by Yello
Listen to how the race engineer plays with your lugs sliding the V8 sound from left to right for 8 mins slipping in with come with me I'm gonna win the race doom biddy doom to win the race doom
Almost another out the closet Level 42 fan but just to add blown away literally at the Caird hall in Dundee by the bass, never listened to them getting on for 30 years now
Blue Mantle by the Aliens
The way it builds is awesome
Once described as the “sonic equivalent of waking up to find a spaceship in the garden”.
Some great suggestions above - I've spent an evening re-listening to lots.
How about - The Who - Who are you?
Not been through all the suggestions yet, but did listen to Private Investigations last night and yes, excellent!!!
As an aside, I've been falling asleep lately with headphones on - and at a decent volume too, it's quite strange
And just to add - I definitely won't be sampling any Level 42
Ricky Lee Jones, easy money.
Ry Cooder, down in Hollywood.
Pink Floyd, wish you were here.
(I’m old!)
I don't really listen via decent headphones, but on my posh speakers I ADORE
Kina Grannis - can't help falling in love with you...
Beautiful song and voice..
DrP
Having bought some new headphones and a portable DAC recently I’ve been listening to lots of stuff on Tidal. The sound quality is head and shoulders above Spotify especially the Masters quality tracks.
They’re currently doing 4 months trial for £1.99 if anyone is interested:
https://tidal.com/offers/blackfriday
My recommendations:
Sigur Ros - Hippipolla
Orbital - The Box Part 2
Hey Laura - Gregory Porter
Weird Fishes - Lianne La Havas
Build a better world - London Elektricity
The Chain - Fleetwood Mac
Stevie Wonder - Anything off Songs in the key of life
Tame Impala - Let it happen
Beatles - lots of the Giles Martin remixes
Royal Blood - Ten tonne skeleton
Hu Man - Greentea Peng
Flaming Lips - Do you realise (TPS Mix)
Leave at that before I disappear down a rabbit hole.....
One of my favourites
For what it's worth - buffalo Springfield
I am only listening through Spotify with my audio technica m50x
As an aside, I’ve been falling asleep lately with headphones on – and at a decent volume too,
I do this most nights.
Monster Magnets Dopes to Infinity album is great through good headphones. They were given decent studio time and money for the first time. The budget appears to have been spent on melatrons, theramins, panning,lots of incidental effects/strange noise and drugs, all of them.
Depends what you mean by decent headphones. I got seriously into them and ended up with a pair of Focal Utopia and then the Hifiman HE1000 v2 on the end of a Trilogy 931 Headphone Amp. Both would worry speakers with a £15-20k price tag and a similarly priced amp and *anything* sounded simply sublime! But then inc the amp you’re looking at £4-5k...
+1 for Tidal, have used it since March on a family plan and the quality is excellent. Wish it had customisable EQ though. But do I? The question comes and goes. Usually when listening to tin-eared classics like Zeppelin. That’s the one problem with better audio equipment is that it can render a lot of your favourites unlistenable. I’d certainly appreciate a function to tag custom EQ settings to albums in my collection.
All 9 minutes and 8 seconds of it
@trailwagger - Ben Ottowell lives near me and regularly plays local solo gigs. Not a huge fan - Bring it on was decent, everything else a bit pish
Not a huge fan – Bring it on was decent, everything else a bit pish
Every album released after has at least one belter of a track on it, the others are fillers at best. But Bring it on is a top ten album of all time for me, its was played on repeat for many years after its release and still gets a regular listen now.
I have started using a pair of middle of the road wireless in ear headphones for an exercise regime each evening.
The few re runs of radio 4 comedy shows were fun and albums by Faithless and Joy Division got me going on the trails.
However playing Pink Floyd's "wish you were here" stopped me in my tracks.
The multiple layers and the abstract stuff at the beginning is incredible and I don't mind admitting got the "Ray Meares" going as I was taken back to the moment when my brother passed.
The power of music never fails to impress.