Name 3 songs where audio quality and song quality completely align


Lately I’ve found myself alternating between music I love (but sounds mediocre) and music I don’t know well or only like (but sounds incredible).

Occasionally, I stumble across a track where the song could both serve as a great show off piece for my gear and I love the music.

If you can, name up to 3 songs where the audio and song quality take you over the moon with pleasure.

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So many, but here are a few good as test tracks also.

 

Big Daddy Wilson - If you were mine 

Janice Ian - Breaking Silence 

Vanessa Fernandez - Here but I'm gone

 

 

 

 

 

The look of Love - Diana Krall

A Venture - The Yes Album

I’m Coming Through - Diana Krall The Gurl In The Other Room

Spooky  - David Sanborn Songs From The Night Before

Could only narrow it down to 4😬

@gosta as I said it was my opinion. Enjoy whatever you prefer. Music we listen to is not something we choose to impress others

@grislybutter Fine contribution. Really educational. Made me reevaluate my whole understanding of music.

 @12many 

I would be interested to read what people think of the track Trouble's What You're In by Fink. 

Just ran across that track recently and really enjoyed both the performance and the sound (thanks Tidal).  I haven't had much opportunity to go deeper into their catalog but looking forward to it.  Not exactly what I am used to, but compelling and interesting for sure.

Album by Guy Clark, Steve Earle, and Townes Van Zandt
Together at the Bluebird Café

My Old Friend The Blues Steve Earl
( I would have said Tecumseh Valley from the same album but it always makes me sad)

Celeste - Strange

Lyle Lovett North Dakota 

 

 

Chris Jones. No Sanctuary Here

Alison Krause and Union Station. Ghost in This House

Loggins and Messina. Pathway to Glory

and I second Holst’s Planets, can’t recall the orch/conductor, but I think it’s on DG.

Agapi Mou from the album Modeste Hugues - Modeste

Hardly anyone has heard of this album or musician. I discovered Modeste on a blog like Awesome Tapes From Africa when I was 23... the album was unlike any thing I’d ever heard, (usually, I listen to punk and classic rock like AC/DC, Sublime, Nirvana, Alice In Chains) I still listen to this album frequently and I’m 35 now, it’s that good. Now that I have a great hifi system, it sounds ever better.

Molo from the album Aubrey Qwana - Imvula Mlomo

Another African musician. His mother died when he was young, but you’d never know it listening to his peaceful, almost party like music. Molo is one of my favorite songs and it’s recorded really well.

Spring 1 from Max Richter - Vivaldi Recomposed by Max Ritcher

One time I got to listen to a $100,000 stereo system at a store in Mount Kisco, NY. The other songs I played there, you could clearly hear the limitations of the recording, not this one. It sounds like being in a room with 50 people playing stringed instruments. The birds somehow sounded more real than actual bird sounds because of some proximity effect. The violins sound absolutely beautiful and the musicians are possibly the best classical players in the world.

A couple catchy very well recorded honorable mentions Someone that Loves You from Honne - Warm on a Cold Night and (a sad one) Going Home from Sophie Zelmani - Sing and Dance.

 

@grislybutter +1

Dire Straits: "Your Latest Trick" from Brothers in Arms

Boz Skaggs: "I just go" and "Desire" from album, Dig.

ELP: "From the Beginning" ("Lucky Man" is good too)

Donald Fagan: "Morph the Cat" from album of same name.

Supertramp: most of album "Crime of the Century".

Blues Delight - Slightly Hung Over

Roberta Flack - The First Time I Ever Saw Your Face

Bill Withers - Ain't No Sunshine When She's Gone

Jonah Yano - Shoes (not all in English in case it bothers someone)

Lady Blackbird - Fix It (the whole album is great)

Daily Bread, Artifakts (it's under Various Artists on Roon for some reason) - Next Level Style (great for bass, really, don't play late if you have neighbors)

And an extra that definitely is showoffie but I really enjoy - Aisha Duo - Despertar

 

I have tons of well recorded music I like listening to favorited on Roon. I'm always searching. My tastes are anything but opera, classical and most R&B with folk, hip hop/rap, funk and jazz as probably my favorites...and the Grateful Dead.

Most any album by Eva Cassidy; Grateful Dead - Dark Star (Live at Winterland, 1973), Grateful Dead, Celebrating Jerry Garcia (engineering and song version are all exceptional on this album, including one of my all time favorites - Morning Dew (Live at Barton Hall, Cornell University - epic show!); Traffic - The Low Spark of High Healed Boys, any song off Dire Straits - Dire Straits. Mostly classic rock I listed, but I could rattle off pages of great songs with great engineering in most any genre too.

Stevie Ray Vaughan  Tin Pan Alley

Creedence Clearwater Revival  Green River

Gustav Holst  Jupiter

Allman Brothers  Midnight Rider

Bob Dylan  Hurricane

Mike

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I wouldn't list Billie Eilish under quality music but it's somewhat subjective. (I am being diplomatic)

My previous picks were whole albums where any song would meet the criteria laid out.

London Grammar / Truth is a Beautiful Thing

The Marias / Cinema

Herbie Hancock / Dis Is Da Drum

Special mention for me is... Incubus/ Science

As far as Fink goes, I only have Perfect Darkness on cd and it is fantastic music recorded very well.

The Stimulators - St. James Infirmary

Mark Isham - That Beautiful Sadness

Kevin Mahogany - Teach Me Tonight 

 

Treat yourself and check these out. 

Dire Straits - Brothers in Arms album, Pink Floyd The Wall and Supertramp Crime of the Century

While several albums above are favorites of my youth--great albums--they would never make it to the finals in the "demo album" shootout.  

Susan Tedeschi - Angel from Montgomery

Harry Belefonte - Belefonte Sings the Blues

Queen - Night at the Opera

 

 

 

 

“Awaken” by Yes on their 50th anniversary live release.   Recorded in Philly I believe. Awesome in every way. 

Any track from Billie Eilish "When We All Fall....". Superb recording. But only if your system can play the bass. Which it probably can´t (!).

Black Sabbath - S/T

Melody Gardot - Live from Soho

The Tierney Sutton Band - Desire

Fink´s live version of Troubles is great. Musically and technically.

Boz Scaggs "Thanks To You" from Dig is a wellknown audiophile track.

 

I would be interested to read what people think of the track Trouble's What You're In by Fink.  

Me personally it hard to choose. I agree with @mrmb that contributes to alot of factors. Steely Dan-Hey Nineteen is a great recording if your finding overall balance sound but I find it to be bass shy. On the contrast, Dire Straits-Money For Nothing also is a good recording which has good bass response but the top end might be somewhat softer. We can get more specific but that would be mentioned for awhile.

Their is a live version recording that really impressed me is a latin artist called Marco Antonio Solis-Cuando Te Acuredas De Mi live from Buenos Aires. If you want consistency, that is one of my favorites to try.

Some more,

Laurie Anderson - Gravity's Angel

Peter Gabriel - Intruder

Can - Vitamin C

 

Depending upon my minute-by-minute attitude, mood etc., an incalculable number of the tracks on my 18TB hard drive would be applicable. It is as impossible to pick just 3-tracks, as it is meaningless to try.  It would be like trying to predict what each of my listening sessions would start or end with, let alone predict what I would play in between.

I'll just go pop rock here --

Michael Jackson -- Thriller

Roy Orbison -- Pretty Woman

Beach Boys -- The Girls on the Beach

Great answers.

I want to add an oddity -- I love Steely Dan. But many of their albums -- including the ones which are supposed to sound amazing -- are very bright, full of glare, harsh. And no, it’s not just because they’re digital. It has to do, I suspect, with *early* digital processes.

There are some points at which they got markedly better -- for example, Fagen’s Kamakiriad is much better than The Nightfly, Two Against Nature is much better than Gaucho. Aja is ok, but given that these were albums playing in nearly every hifi shop back in the day, I’m surprised at how hard (some) can be to listen to on a good system.

On the PLUS side: Andrew Bird's The Mysterious Production of Eggs fires from both barrels for me.

Not audiophile pressings, just came to mind,

Suzan Vega - Rusted pipe

ELP - From the beginning

David Sylvian - When the poets dream of angels

"Roads to Moscow" Al Stewart

"I Robot" Alan Parsons Project

"Faithless Love" Linda Ronstadt

"Alone Again (Naturally)" Gilbert O'Sullivan

"Rocket Man" Elton John

"Crazy" Patsy Cline

"River" (or any of a dozen other songs) Joni Mitchell

I agree with the previous entry that most of Pink Floyd qualifies.

Also, all Alan Parsons Project albums.  

The entire album Ultra Depeche Mode is where song quality aligns with audio quality.

The entire album of Talking Heads Live

Most of Pink Floyd in fact.

The Atmos version of Kind of Blue by Miles Davis, every song on the album.

Willie Nelson, Always On My Mind

Dylan, Man In The Long Black Coat

Emmylou, Black Hawk And The White Winged Dove

Many Many more for sure