Emil Stoica

June is a great month for Hi-Res

With all the bickering going on, just wanted to show everyone what a great month June is for Hi-Res. Just look at this list:

Peter Gabriel - UP (SACD)
Steely Dan - Everything Must Go (DVD-A)
Norah Jones - Come Away With Me (SACD)
John Coltrane - Ultimate Blue Train (SACD)
Bob Beldon - Black Dahilia (SACD)
Heart - Alive in Seattle (SACD - First US Sony Hybrid)
Donald Fagan - Kamakiriad (DVD-A)
Chicago - II (DVD-A)
Roger Waters - The Wall (SACD)
B.B. King - Reflections (SACD)

and several more.

In addition, we have more titles to look forward to over the next several months from artists such as: The Who, Roxy Music, Spandau Ballet, Marvin Gaye, Bob Dylan, Steely Dan, Sly and the Family Stone, Styx, U2 and more (SACD) : Chicago, Beach Boys, Flaming Lips, Cars, REM, Fleetwood Mac, Frank Sinatra and more (DVD-A).

It will be difficult enough to afford what has been announced. Throw in surprise releases and all of our wallets will be hurting.

Take a look at where these formats were even a year ago. I would never have believe I would have Peter Gabriel, The Police, REM in Hi-Res. The pointless "format war" threads do not really serve any purpose. There has never been competing formats that could still play on the same machine. So people, just enjoy these discs before they disappear into the world of $0.99 downloads. JMHO.

Mike Broadman

Amen, bro.

I only regret that my budget is way too tight right now to afford more than just a couple of these.

My awesome music collection

Ken Stuart

I like a good portion of the artists in the left column, but hardly any of the albums in the right column.

This seems to symptomatic of both High-Res formats so far, at least in my viewpoint. Normally, I hesitate to make such criticisms, since music is primarily a question of personal taste. But, in this particular case, since you have made a point of characterizing these releases as being particularly great, I have to say - not IMHO.

For example, I find Giant Steps to be far more desirable than the more mediocre Blue Train.

As someone who first saw Peter Gabriel perform live almost 30 years ago, I find "Up" to easily be his worst effort ever. I could live with the fact that his voice is totally shot if the music itself were more inspiring and challenging, but unfortunately it isn't.

As far as Steely Dan goes, the two new albums sound like a Steely Dan cover band.

While I like most of REM's albums, the first three were on a level above all the later ones - and, of course, those three are conspicuously missing from the many REM titles on the release list. Neil Young's "After the Gold Rush" is almost embarrasingly bad relative to almost any other album of his (such as "Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere" and the hugely influential "Rust Never Sleeps").

Norah Jones is so typical of the existing DVD-A and SACD catalogs. If you read through reviews of Norah Jones, you won't find one that doesn't include the word "soothing". And, there's nothing wrong in that. But that tends to be the audience for audiophile music - someone who works long hours to make the sort of money necessary to buy good audio gear, and after a long and tense commute, wants - Norah Jones. Pleasant dreams!

PS I am eagerly awaiting DVD-A's of Pet Sounds and How The West Was Won.

Scott O'Keeffe

Ken,

Pretty funny stuff.

Justin Lane

Ken,

Thank you for showing me the light on these new Hi-res releases. You have saved me alot of money on bad music.

Greg Johnson

Emil,
You mentioned U2 in your list of upcoming titles. This is news to me. Big news. Great news. Could you please elaborate. I'm stoked if this is true.

Greg

Emil Stoica

Ken,

You are entitled to your opinion. I will only disagree on "UP". I hated it the first couple of times I listened to it. But it has grown on me and I like it more than "US". Feels more pre-"So" Gabriel to me. IMHO.

Justin,

And they say that sarcasm is difficult to express on the web.

Greg

I have read several times that Universal is working on getting the U2 catalogue out on SACD. Now, it should still be considered "rumour" for now. But the sources have proven accurate in the past.

Mike Broadman

Musically, this is like comparing apples to oranges. Blue Train is a straight-ahead hard bop, bluesy album, and appropriate and beautiful early album with Trane as leader. Giant Steps is a chord-heavy, explorative musical landmark. Each are the finest in what they tried to achieve.

The only "regret" about Blue Train being on SACD is that I already have it on DAD, so I personally would have prefered any Coltrane album that I already didn't have on high-res.

But as for Blue Trane being "mediocre"- well, that's pretty funny.



Gabriel's entire catalogue is on SACD. It only makes sense that if one album gets the multi-channel treatment, it's his latest.

And it's a great album.



I don't even know what that means.

My awesome music collection

Ken Stuart

What I said was that it was more mediocre than Giant Steps - please no straw man arguments (even though they are the semi-official HTF pasttime).

To me, that's the problem (and the problem with Steely Dan as well). It sounds like specific Gabriel songs, albums, riffs. Just as an example, the bit at 3:00 into the album I could create from a sample from an earlier song (except that the lyric would be different, of course).

Even Radiohead is doing this. I'm not the only one who characterized their previous album as "Volume Two", and this new one sounds like "Volume Three" to me.

While it is natural for musicians to sound like themselves, I wonder how many identical albums we need?

Compare the progression of the works of the above musicians to:

Hard Days Night->Revolver->White Album->Abbey Road

or

Surfin USA->Pet Sounds->Holland

or

Birth of the Cool->Walkin'->Kind of Blue->Miles Smiles->In A Silent Way->Bitches Brew->Tutu

or

any two Neil Young albums (even though some are distinctly better than others)