It's about the music

[Pencey]

Less time on forums ruminating about gear, more time listening to music.

Life is short!

3 more for young & old:

Little Feat - "Dixie Chicken"

Pink Martini - "Hang on Little Tomato"

Squirrel Nut Zippers - "Perennial Favorites"

[douga]

"Dixie Chicken" is ... well, it's a great album, perhaps Little Feat's best. The title track is also one of my wife's favorite demo tracks. She has vetoed the purchase of equipment that couldn't handle the rhythmic complexity of the tune.

While I'm here...some of my favorite music, some of which also serve as great demos. I've picked these tunes out because I like them, but also because they show what a system is capable of at the extremes of what I listen to. They're also representative of my everyday listening.

"Maria Catena" by Carmen Consoli, from the "Eva Contro Eva" album. Luscious vocal.

"Red" by King Crimson. Ok, maybe not a great demo track, but a great tune. Many of the instrumentals from "Thrak" are also good.

"La Iluvia" from "Chancullo" by Ruben Gonzalez. Great complex percussion, beautiful piano.

Almost anything by Susana Baca.

"Misadventure" by Squeeze. Not a great demo, but what a great pop tune.

"In Good Company" by Kevin Crawford. Irish flute. Just a great album.
.
"White Man in Hammersmith Palais" by the Clash. If your equipment makes this atrociously recorded tune more listenable, it's a plus. But it's a great tune in any case.

"Watching The Detectives" by Elvis Costello. Distorted percusion, screeching organ, great bass line.

"Singin' The Blues" by Bix Beiderbecke. One of the great melodies of all time. Now that I think of it, it's hard to care about sound quality when this tune is playing.

There's more, but that's a good sampling.

[tozen]

Anyone who like me loves choral music should take a listen to "Dreamland" on the Hyperion classical label. It is an inexpensive sampler of some of Hyperion's contemporary choral catalogue, and much of it is quite simply sublime. Listening to this sort of music is when I appreciate my Harbeths the most - the purity and interplay of the voices and the acoustic of the recording space really shines through.

[Pencey]

"La Iluvia" from "Chancullo" by Ruben Gonzalez. Great complex percussion, beautiful piano.

My late wife loved Ruben's music. She went out of her way to see him in person in Miami, and Ruben wrote a nice comment to her in the CD liner notes of a Gonzalez recording she brought along.

[Pencey]

Anyone who like me loves choral music should take a listen to "Dreamland" on the Hyperion classical label. It is an inexpensive sampler of some of Hyperion's contemporary choral catalogue, and much of it is quite simply sublime..

Dreamland is beautiful. A personal favorite Hyperion disc of mine is: Godowsky "Strauss Transcriptions & other waltzes" w/ Marc-Andre Hamelin on piano.

[jonydepp]

Aussies hip hop is some of the most horrible shit I have heard. I love hip hop music. There are so many elements used in a hip hop.