Brighteyes or Conor Oberst recordings that are the least garage band-y

@masi - First, curious about your user name. Is it cycling related?

I've found that lots on new artist records are recorded in a weird lo-fi way that is not conducive to critical listening. Not sure why the artist or record companies choose to record it like that, maybe it easier? Maybe their target audience doesn't care? Maybe it's a style thing? 

I bought a 2019 release from 2019 - Kelly Finnigan - "The Tales People Tell" on vinyl. It is produced by a local record label owned by one of the brothers that own/run my local record store. Anyway, the album was on a few "best of 2019" lists, but I found it unlistenable from a sound quality perspective. Too bad as the musical content was pretty good. I ended up selling the record back to my LRS as I just couldn't listen to it on my hi-fi system.

Sorry, didn't answer your question. Just an observation about a "modern" recording's lack of sound quality.

Of their collection, I like "I'm wide awake it's morning" best. In LP form it is very well recorded as well. 

Hey @reubent - masi61 is the same name I use at bikeforums.net, my other favorite forum. And yes, I have a 61 cm Masi Gran Criterium from 1978. My first ever road bike. It is black with yellow detailing, a lovely bike that I don’t ride much anymore. It heartens back to my teenage years and there are many great stories that it triggers. 

@boxer12 thanks for the recommendation. I plan to get a copy of “I’m Wide Awake it’s Morning” on vinyl and try it out. 

I read a review on the Bryston 28Bsst3 1,000 watt mono amps and it mentioned how those amps make rock music sound great. I have enjoyed listening to all kinds of recordings on my system and often ones that are fatiguing on my old NAD 2200 amp/cheap Sony D5 discman system are more listenable on my Bryston/Thiel system. The bad recordings often sound “small” in my listening room and turning it up louder hurts my ears. I guess this is the compression that the recording engineers apply to average out the signal to noise for listening in noisy environments like car stereos.

I like, for both musical content and sound quality:  "I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning." 

Thanks @larryi

My CD’s are randomly organized, haha... I need to collate all my Bright Eyes CD’s in a stack and evaluate which ones I have. But I know there are no Bright Eyes vinyl LP’s here, yet.

When I talked about bad recordings sounding small and said something about signal to noise ratio, what I was talking about might be more of an attribute of dynamic range compression. But self produced rock recordings on 2 channel or 4 channel indie rock basic tech, it is easy to comprehend how tape hiss could intrude. I don’t mind to listen to great music that is a non-audiophile recording. It helps to know the songs and rock to the music for motivation. And back to the bike reference, doing mechanic work (bike maintenance) is a perfect time to continue critical listening of all types of material.