THE JAM: A recent post

About The Young Idea is the story of The Jam. It charts their career from formation in the early seventies, through the heady days of chart success and on to their break up in 1982. The programme features extensive, brand new interviews with Paul Weller, Bruce Foxton and Rick Buckler alongside archive performance footage and […]

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VARIABLE DYNAMIC COMPRESSION

Are you unfamiliar with the term Dynamic Range? Okay; dynamic range, explained simply is the distance between the loudest and the softest parts of a piece of music. I don’t find that description entirely satisfactory and so before reading more of this post you might want to glance at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_range Whatever the description though, the […]

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Two Classic Albums from Jazz’s Elder Statesmen, and a Zappa High-Res Remaster

Charles Lloyd & the Marvels – Tone Poem 83-year-old saxophonist Charles Lloyd has actually had several careers as a musician. Born and raised in Memphis, Tennessee, he grew up surrounded by blues, jazz, and gospel musicians, but left Memphis in 1956 to study classical music in Los Angeles at the University of Southern California with noted […]

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FAILED FOLLOW-UPS: What is a band that had a brilliant first album and a shockingly bad second album?

Timm Davison, studied Media Communication at University of Washington (2017)Answered Dec 24 In the past, lots of bands had what could be considered ‘bad’ second albums – and this was due as much to the way bands got signed, and what was expected of them in the ‘old’ (pre-internet) recording industry. In the ‘old’ system, […]

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NOT HOPELESS: Retrieving both music and data from CDs scratched apparently beyond usability – Howard Popeck

Introduction This series, written by features editor Howard Popeck is designed to, in jargon-free terms, explain, introduce, educate and otherwise assist anyone who is interested in learning more about how music in the home is produced. Thank you. Neil McCauley / editor in chief Preliminary note: I didn’t try any of this on cherished CDs. […]

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MOZART: Clarinet Concerto … which recording is best?

Mozart’s last concerto presents unique challenges to those recording the work, finds Nalen Anthoni Valedictory or visionary? Is there a choice? Could Mozart, who finished this concerto about eight weeks before he died, have been anything other than valedictory? Yet in his letter from Vienna to Constanze in Baden, written at midnight on October 7, […]

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A major disconnect between the audiophile magazines and their readers

Howard Popeck writes: Greetings from the UK. There is in my view a major disconnect between the audiophile magazines and their readers. It’s an understandable one but in my view an important one – and that the focus of this thread-starter.Although I’m a UK-based high-end retailer I am, curiously despite 34 years on and off […]

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PINK FLOYD WATERS / GILMORE FEUD: The long read

THE INDEPENDENT The row between former bandmates David Gilmour and Roger Waters has roared back into life after an extraordinary attack from Gilmour’s partner and Floyd lyricist, Polly Samson. Ed Power delves into a decades-long feud that’s incorporated everything from liner notes to Russia’s war on Ukraine Brick by brick, the feud between Pink Floyd’s […]

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UNDERSTANDING: “Dust My Broom” ….. The story of a song

The passionate, hard-driving blues song “Dust My Broom” has been filling dance floors and exhilarating listeners for more than 60 years. The song’s been covered by countless performers – a quick search on youtube turns up versions by Robert Johnson, Elmore James, Howlin’ Wolf, B.B. King, The Yardbirds, Fleetwood Mac, Johnny Winter, Canned Heat, Ike and […]

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From the archives: Twang twang: “Woke up this mornin’ and ….” (should be sung is adown-home blues wailin’ voice) – writes Howard Popeck #00

From long ago …. So anyway, I woke up this morning and decided in one nano-second or less that it was no longer fun running simply-STAX and Listen Carefully. So I have decided to close both of them down with immediate effect. Impulse? Well – probably. But then again, it might have been bubbling away […]

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