This site is about making your music sound fantastic. And in my last post I listed twelve of my favourite outstanding albums for sound. Lots of people replied with their own suggestions in the comments – so far, so good.
I agreed with many of the suggestions, but was interested in one album that was mentioned several times: “Rage Against The Machine” by Rage Against The Machine. Now, there’s no question that RATM sounds great. Let’s face it, it’s something of a classic. It sounds heavy, hooky, dynamic, hard-hitting, impactful and balanced.
But I wouldn’t have chosen it for my list, and I still wouldn’t. Why ? Because just sounding great isn’t enough – to sound fantastic, the audio needs to have personality.
Lots of people have asked me for albums I think sound great – so, here are some that spring instantly to mind. I should say upfront, this isn’t intended to be some kind of “top 12 best sounding albums ever” list, just some from my own collection that I love the sound of, for whatever reason.
If you take a listen, you’ll probably notice some pretty clear recurring themes – suggestions in the comments, please ! I’ve included the Amazon affiliate widget above so you can hear the songs, but if you live in Europe this Spotify playlist will be even better since you can listen to complete songs.
Here’s an intriguing episode of a 1997 BBC documentary called “Modern Minimalists“, combining two of my favourite musical things: Björk and minimalism.
I fell in love with minimalist music when I first heard Steve Reich’s “Different Trains” (video here) at college, along with the stunning “Electric Counterpoint“. This fed happily into my later appreciation of The Orb’s “Little Fluffy Clouds” (which samples Reich heavily) and on into techno and the “ambient revival”, savouring delights like Philip Glass’ awesome “Koyaanisqatsi“ soundtrack and the work of Michael Nymann along the way.
I discovered Björk a little later, when I heard her solo album “Debut” in 1993 – which is one of my favourite years for music, as it happens.
Close the curtains, switch off the ‘phone and prepare to lose several hours of your life.
Legendary Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich has launched a new website and it’s awesome. I tried to finding an equivalent British superlative, but I couldn’t ! “Awesome” is the only word for it.
The site is called From The Basement and features exclusive live performances (all shot in gorgeous HD) of artists like Beck, Fleet Foxes, Eels, Gnarls Barkley, Iggy And The Stooges, Jarvis Cocker, Jose Gonzalez, P J Harvey, Queens of The Stone Age, Sonic Youth, Sparks, Super Furry Animals, The White Stripes and Radiohead themselves, all produced by the inimitable Mr. Godrich himself.
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