What sends shivers down your spine when you play it on your system?


“The Ecstasy of Gold” orchestral intro on Metallica’s “S&M” CD. 
128x128mapman
@mapman 
i know the Iona Brown with Sir Neville Marriner (the “first” one) recording of “The Lark Ascending” on Argo the best. Maybe it was love at first sight, but that’s a great performance. I like the “Fantasia on a Theme By Thomas Tallis”, same recoding, even better. 
Arvo Part: “Tabula Rasa: I. Ludus”. There is a portion towards the end where there is a cacophony of bells that sound like Shinto temple bells or something. I love the whole piece, but that is a very holy crap  moment.
Plainsong, Like Cockatoos and This Twilight Garden (all by The Cure) and Dazzle by Siouxsie and the Banshees.  All very atmospheric. 
Casta Diva - Maria Callas

I don't know what it means (nor want to know), it just sounds other worldly.
Any death metal song with Hillary Clinton singing lead vocals sends shivers down my spine.
Agree with anything Ava Cassidy. When she sings "I'm getting ready..." Water works every time.

ZZ Top - Bluejean Blues 

Chet Baker Sings. It's amazing how much music heroin has given us and how much music it's taken from us.
There's a lot but this is something most of you guys probably don't know:

turn it up - then go ahead and buy the hi res version from a site:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOT2-OTebx0
Another one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIrdTi7Bzt8

Buy all his albums, they are available on vinyl. Space is Only Noise is the best starting point.
@nitewulf  James Blake "Limit to your Love" is on most audiophile testing lists. Great song especially in its bass line. Nicolar Jaar has a few good tunes too, not quite al album-wide person for me though.  
@nitewulf , thanks for the James Blake tip. I had never heard any of his music before. He gives a Jeff Buckley vibe with more soul. I like him.
Right now,what I’m currently listening to: the whole Morning Phase album by Beck.

In My Time of Dying - Zep

Big Log- Robert Plant. Lots of memories attached to that one.

Brahms’ 4th - Szell

Agree with Mahler’s 5th

Beethoven’s 9th - also Szell

Astral Weeks, the whole album - Van Morrision
@julie_priest, I am aware but, no one ever mentions it.

@rafevw, sure - the debut album is stunning.

Rhiannon Gidden's Freedom Highway is also a stunning album:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVrTf5yOW5s

DJ Krush and Toshinori Kondo - Mu Getsu:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaYy-ldpIXc

Air France - June Evenings:
https://youtu.be/a7CAm4bCwYg?t=171


Allan Taylor's "Hotels & Dreamers". 

Goosebumps galore, for at least half the songs on this 2003, Stockfisch Records SFR 357.6028.2 CD. 
M. 🇿🇦 
These are all Youtube  performances, but I love every last one
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFkzRNyygfk&list=FLDZswku4mKJJBxF_GDrFs8g&index=15
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ya9lvA1POfQ&list=FLDZswku4mKJJBxF_GDrFs8g&index=23
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTMm4NEQc1Q&list=FLDZswku4mKJJBxF_GDrFs8g&index=49
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGEjbJkxFhs&list=FLDZswku4mKJJBxF_GDrFs8g&index=71
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9jwGansp1E&list=FLDZswku4mKJJBxF_GDrFs8g&index=89
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaWkvqah9W8&list=FLDZswku4mKJJBxF_GDrFs8g&index=91
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWaljXUiCaE&list=FLDZswku4mKJJBxF_GDrFs8g&index=95
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cid4_9PnEZY&list=FLDZswku4mKJJBxF_GDrFs8g&index=102
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ferZnZ0_rSM&list=FLDZswku4mKJJBxF_GDrFs8g&index=103
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcUeothSPyc&list=FLDZswku4mKJJBxF_GDrFs8g&index=118
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubqXv5Ir5n8&list=FLDZswku4mKJJBxF_GDrFs8g&index=125
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRGuFM4DR2Y&list=FLDZswku4mKJJBxF_GDrFs8g&index=133
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QK8mJJJvaes&list=FLDZswku4mKJJBxF_GDrFs8g&index=135
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzDUi_L6MzA&list=FLDZswku4mKJJBxF_GDrFs8g&index=142
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDsqpeiTqg8&list=FLDZswku4mKJJBxF_GDrFs8g&index=147
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wt7Akjzkc54&list=FLDZswku4mKJJBxF_GDrFs8g&index=148
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXBXlJYKTNI&list=FLDZswku4mKJJBxF_GDrFs8g&index=124
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UskkwKmccGU&list=FLDZswku4mKJJBxF_GDrFs8g&index=183
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pp6hniAKHw&list=FLDZswku4mKJJBxF_GDrFs8g&index=194
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tE2uEl_aB9E&list=FLDZswku4mKJJBxF_GDrFs8g&index=196
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mS9U75YC-jA&list=FLDZswku4mKJJBxF_GDrFs8g&index=198
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_NpxTWbovE&list=FLDZswku4mKJJBxF_GDrFs8g&index=200
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NZ7LnkCl7w&list=FLDZswku4mKJJBxF_GDrFs8g&index=202
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJtE-MHzKYY&list=FLDZswku4mKJJBxF_GDrFs8g&index=212
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLx4xJdCcZ4&list=FLDZswku4mKJJBxF_GDrFs8g&index=222
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZt1xKtPbUQ&list=FLDZswku4mKJJBxF_GDrFs8g&index=226
And if I haven't lowered the tone enough, try this (although with over 7 billion views there's a good chance you already have ;-)My partner tells me it's nothing more than sex-on-a-stick, but if that's not going to provoke shivers........what is?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJQP7kiw5Fk&list=FLDZswku4mKJJBxF_GDrFs8g&index=101
Malia and Boris Blank collaboration on the album “Convergence”. One of my reference albums to test sound.. many songs that would fit the bill. Celestial Echo for example.. 
Allman Brothers. On Blue Sky the guitar work between Duane and Dickie is unsurpassed. 
Take Five - Dave Brubeck
You and Your Friend - Dire Straits
What it's like - Everclear
A Thousand Kisses Deep - Leonard Cohen
Ode to the Glimmer Twin (acoustic live) - Nils Lofgren
Bolero - Ravel
Sleeping Sun - Nightwish
Nutcracker suite - Tchaikovsky 

It has been great visiting or revisiting the wonderful music suggested by everyone above. I love these kinds of threads. It almost always leads to the discovery of a musical treasure.

Mark

I'll give a quick "second that" to Mike Oldfield, Tubular Bells, outsanding album.

..but my first is Widespread Panic April 3, 1996...as loud as you can stand it.

Another vote for "The Lark Ascending", that is what I thought of when I read the post. It's rural England in late spring, set to music.

Other Classical offerings: Albinoni's "Adagio"

                                       Richard Strauss's "Metamorphosen"

That is his response to the end of World War 2 and I believe, finding out about the Nazi Camps.

For non classical:  Sara K, "Water Falls"

                               Mark Murphy, "Love is what it Says"

The last two are both beautiful music and the best quality recordings I think I have.

Hello - 

Everything sounds AWESOME on my system because I've been working at "searching for the sound" now for 40+ years and I think I've finally nailed it (yay)! I was listening to Pink Floyd's Wish you were Here (just the basic pressed CD, not the Mobile Fidelity version) and I heard things during that session that I've never heard on the CD before and I've been listening to that CD/album since I discovered it in the early 1980's!! And to ensure I hadn't ingested something by accident prior to listening, a week or so later I invited a friend over and had the same experience in addition to watching my friend experience it for the first time. First things first. The pre-amp (preamplifier if you will) is THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF YOUR SOUND SYSTEM!! The pre-amp is the brain and if your brain cannot process a signal correctly and/or accurately, what do you think the end result will be? Inaccurate and/or poor sound recreation of what the artist/band/symphony/sound engineer/producer intended you to hear. I'm a firm believer in not being able to hear the person sitting next to you talking when I listen to music. Besides, it's also the only way I can listen to music without having to hear the ringing sounds caused by the bilateral tinnitus I experience (which really stinks to begin with!). So I use a Mark Levinson #38 as my pre-amp (which was at '52' for the "Wish you were Here" event). And from there, the signal runs via Cardas XLR to a pair of self-powered Meyer Sound MTS-4's (yes - google them). Each cabinet contain an 18-inch woofer; a 15-inch woofer; a 12-inch woofer and a 2-inch throat (4-inch diaphragm) horn. And each driver/horn has it's own 620-watt amplifier to draw from (2480-watts per cabinet and each cabinet retailed for $17,000), not to mention they're made to travel. I grew up with a pair of Bozak 410b Concert Grands that were way under powered by a McIntosh 2200, but hey, this was my dad's stereo, not mine (although I inherited and still have both the 410b Bozak Concert Grands [which I would love to update and tweak with new drivers and crossovers not to mention some sound deadening materials] and the McIntosh 2200 - although I now have a McIntosh MC-2300 driving the Bozak's and they're much happier but they are all original and all from the 1970's). And I have a PS Audio Perfect-Wave CD Transport going into a Mark Levinson #36 (which also receives a signal from a BlueSound Node II - and that sounds great as well!). I'd put this system up against anything costing $100,000 or less! I also own a pair of Merlin International Excalibur's (and prior to that, a pair of Signature 4's that I sent back to Bobby P., to have bi-wired - although I did not care much for the TSM/VSM era, they did sound incredible for what they were. Bobby P., is like a Jedi Master in the audio industry - at least to myself and many others his genius electrical/sound engineering skills touched!). And there it is. The system that has the ability to send shivers down my spine! It's as if I'm getting the opportunity to listen to every thing I own for the first time! It's beyond my vocabulary to articulate any further how good my system sounds. You just have to experience it to believe it.     

 

 

 

 


What a great thread!  Some terrific suggestions, lots of new music to try - and very little off topic techno-twiddle and sniping.  Thanks OP for starting this.

My nomination is Rebecca Pidgeon’s Spanish Harlem.
Eva Cassidy - Over the Rainbow - Nightbird
not so much shivers as just tries to rip something out of me
and this by Amy Winehouse, never heard it anywhere other than on the computer, still moving on a couple different levels.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuanbnnzXQ4
Never realized what a popular work “Lark” is.  I have a version by Previn and the Royal Philharmonic on a Telarc CD I am giving a spin (or more accurately:  streaming)
Almost anything gives me shivers....

Almost anything i liked or will like if it is a good recorded music for sure and created by geniuses in any style...

When your audio system is able to reproduce a natural instrument timbre any great musician will give you shivers....

But when i owned only a mediocre audio system a decade ago for example, ONLY the music which was already known and loved by me gives me shivers...i was not able to discover many new sounds qualities at full speed on the same level of ectasy that i already feel with Bach for example.... Bach is sublime on any medium anyway....

In a good audio systen any new great musician in any style gives shivers....

I love music, and always loved it, but with a very low grade audio system the discovery of something out of our known horizon is less appealing that what is our natal musical turf.... For me for example : Bach and some few others composers or singers....

With my new audio system anything great gives me shivers.... For example try gong music on a very ordinary audio system or a bad one..... No shivers here..... And no way to compare gong music with Bach....

But with the fullness of sound which is given by a good audio system , a theremin music or gong music can rival Chopin piano....WHY?

Because music is not only melody, harmony and rythm, it is also the fullness and complex depth and variable densities of timbre, and the holographic spatialisation of these sounds in relation with one another....

There is more images in a music piece than in a cinematographic film or at least the same numbers, with also the colors and geometrical varieties.... But to taste that we need a good reproduction audio system....If not i will listen only Bach well temprered Klavier on my Edison cylinder or from my smartphone.... One of my absolute favorite opus in all music.....

:)

« Music is sounds seeing»- Groucho Marx

«Music is sounds tasting» Harpo Marx

« It is all cenesthesia turtles, way up or down brothers» Chico Marx

« Bach is not one of your turtles brother, it is all mathematic way up and down» -Gummo Marx

«But mathematic can also be perceived cinesthesically brother»- Zeppo Marx

« Music is numbers and numbers are music»- Pythagoras

« Music is poetic language traveling near silence» -Anonymus
There are many, but these are some that stand out: Just about everything on MFSL's 1972 Original Master Recording of Neil Diamond's "Hot August Night" Live at the Greek; Van Morrison's "Avalon Sunset" especially the last track "These are the Days"; everything of Eva Cassidy, especially "Songbird". 

Jim
Steely Dan - Almost Gothic
Joni Mitchell - Blue hotel room
Jonas Stark Bach - Suites for Solo Cello; Sonatas in G & D Major the Philips Mercury Living Presence recordings. It sounds holographic and hypnothic you hear Jonas working.to get it this intimate. Used gear NAD C370 - Vandersteen model1c - Topping D10 DAC - silverwire interlink & Mathaudio room eq.

Vaughan Williams' Lark Ascending is indeed beautiful.  Also try his Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis--the Barbirolli version is my favorite.  And Grainger's Irish tune from County Derry (Danny Boy), in any form but especially orchestral, can always get me.
+1 Spanish Moon

Old Love--Clapton Unplugged
Walking in the Wild West End--Dire Straits
Beatles- Nowhere Man (the combination of harmony vocals, soaring fluid bass lines and dual guitar solo played by John & George just blows me away every time)
John Denver- Back Home Again
Led Zeppelin- When The Levee Breaks
David Bowie- Suffragette City
Rush- Entre Nous
Uriah Heep- The Wizard
Deep Purple- Burn
Lynyrd Skynyrd- Gimme Back My Bullets 
Mahler 1-5 symphonies
Moussorgsky/Ravel - Pictures at an Exhibition, Chicago/Giulini
Vaughn Williams - Fantasia on a theme by Thomas Tallis, ASMF/Marriner
Huey Lewis and the News - The Heart of Rock n Roll
Handel - Messiah, Hallelujah chorus
Barber - Adagio for Strings
Cherubini - Requiem
Beatles - Abbey Road
Satie - Gnossiennes, Gymnopiedes
Pentatonix - Mary Did You Know?
Stravinsky - Rite of Spring
Big Phat Band - Sing, Sang, Sung on Swinging for the Fences
Bach Cello Suites - Janos Starker


Off the top of my head ... :)
Fantastic songs with fantastic guitar (youtube)

Phil Collins - First of frith (live)

Derek Trucks Band - Midnight in Harlem (live)

John Mayer - Gravity (live)
Some jazz for some educated soul:

Shivers on my spine indeed....


Kenny Wheeler :  The widow on the window

Supremum artistry akin to any of the best jazz album there is....

:)
@justmetoo

I just had a listen to several cuts from Allan Taylor's "Hotels & Dreamers"
and completely concur. Very nice!

@steviewunda  And if I haven't lowered the tone enough, try this 
:-0 Can't understand anything he's singing, but love the music, the beat and the 
scenery is really nice too. Make that 7 billion and 5 views, I couldn't stop at just 1 :-)

A few others I thought of that give me shivers: Just about anything from Amos Lee's album of Mission Bell especially "El Camino" first cut and again, last cut with Willie Nelson; about everything on Ray LaMontagne's "Gossip in The Grain" and (on the classic side) the 45 RPM Reference Recording of Tafelmusik, "Popular Masterworks of the Baroque" 

Jim