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Audiophile songs you're sick of

I wonder whether the OP genuinely means audiophile recordings or those recordings that dem rooms seem to play repeatedly because they think they make their systems sound good? Not the same thing……

I’m with some others on here and dont understand what all the fuss is about re Miles Davis (KoB), Darks Side of the Moon , Steely Dan and others. In the case of music that dem rooms seem to play a lot and I’m sick of they include Diana Krell, Norah Jones, Tracy Chapman and Dire Straits. The last two I actually like but got fed up with them being constantly played. Miles Davis, DK and NJ are just plain boring (sorry). Steely Dan……. Just ordinary. DSotM - good but over-rated

Time to get my coat……..😀
 
You young whippersnappers have overlooked Amanda McBroom and “Growing Up in Hollywood Town,” the scourge of the Eighties.
 
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Long ago I went to a show where nearly every room was playing "Oxygene".
What is a tape loop generated album meant to demonstrate?
 
JezmondTutu said:
Well I’ve seen her live a few times, we regularly play her earlier albums and love them. Also love Norah Jones earlier output too.
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Diana Krall is used for demos because "Live in Paris" in particular is a very good recording with good music well played. It generally makes equipment sound good and Krall's voice is warm and expressive. Voices are good for demos because we easily relate to them.

What turns some music lovers off Diana Krall is that she isn't that good at digging down into the heart of the lyrics - many singers do it better from Billie Holiday to Ray Charles and many others since. The thing about jazz vocalists is that it isn't just the lyrics that matter, it's the improvisation around the melody, which Ella Fitzgerald was so good at. So the more they sing "like a sax or trumpet would solo" the less the lyrics may matter. If you want the most feeling out of lyrics, you're more likely get it with popular singers, soul and blues singers and singer-songwriters.

So ultimately Diana Krall doesn't quite satisfy. But she's a very good pianist and a total musician. Ginger Rogers use to quip that everything Fred Astaire did she did backwards in heels. And everything Krall sings she does while playing excellent jazz piano. She's not the only female singer-pianist though - long list here including Carol Welsman, Diana Schuur, Blossom Dearie, Nina Simone, Kandace Springs, Norah Jones, Eliane Elias, Tania Maria, Laufey, Aziza Mustafa Zadeh, Nilüfer Verdi, Patrice Rushen, Shirley Horn, Patricia Barber, Clara Ponty.....
 
les24preludes said:
Diana Krall is used for demos because "Live in Paris" in particular is a very good recording with good music well played. It generally makes equipment sound good and Krall's voice is warm and expressive. Voices are good for demos because we easily relate to them.

What turns some music lovers off Diana Krall is that she isn't that good at digging down into the heart of the lyrics - many singers do it better from Billie Holiday to Ray Charles and many others since. The thing about jazz vocalists is that it isn't just the lyrics that matter, it's the improvisation around the melody, which Ella Fitzgerald was so good at. So the more they sing "like a sax or trumpet would solo" the less the lyrics may matter. If you want the most feeling out of lyrics, you're more likely get it with popular singers, soul and blues singers and singer-songwriters.

So ultimately Diana Krall doesn't quite satisfy. But she's a very good pianist and a total musician. Ginger Rogers use to quip that everything Fred Astaire did she did backwards in heels. And everything Krall sings she does while playing excellent jazz piano. She's not the only female singer-pianist though - long list here including Carol Welsman, Diana Schuur, Blossom Dearie, Nina Simone, Kandace Springs, Norah Jones, Eliane Elias, Tania Maria, Laufey, Aziza Mustafa Zadeh, Nilüfer Verdi, Patrice Rushen, Shirley Horn, Patricia Barber, Clara Ponty.....
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I guess but I also love Ellla, Nina, Ray Charles etc…
 
I can take most things you hear at hifi shows and try to listen through them to get at what the kit is trying to do, but draw the line at things like Eva Cassidy, which was a staple for a while. So utterly middle of the road and bland. It was so inoffensive all I could was leave.

Not a show sound but I feel the same way about Coldplay these days. I will walk away from wherever I hear them playing, although I actually quite like the first two albums. What they became though... Just hideous.

Other show staples? Shelby Lynne's Just A Little Lovin' album got a lot of play, but I actually love that album, such great songs and so beautifully recorded.

Come to think of it... Aja, DSOTM, first Dire Straits album, Shelby Lynne... Oh god, I like hi fi music!!

Those are all great records though. It's the mawkish girl or boy with guitar or ultra bland female vocal smooth jazz that I really can't deal with. So dull.
 
As an aside, my phone does this thing of listening and identifying the titles of songs as I wander around, I'm sure other people's phone do it.

I'll have to dig out its list of "heard" songs when I visited the Bristol HiFi show.
 
Darren L said:
Or don't go to hifi shows or take you own LPs/CDs to demonstrations.
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Last time I went to demo equipment I brought Frankie Goes to Hollywood's Welcome to the Pleasuredome (for the title track and Trevor Horn's production), Underworld's Second Toughest in the Infants (for Banstyle/Sappy's Curry) , the Rain Tree Crow album (for Red Earth (as Summertime Ends) and it's astonishing good hand drums), Supertramp's Crime of the Century for School and the title track, Rush's Moving Pictures (just cos I know every note on that album). I will admit I also brought Steely Dan's Gaucho for Babylon Sisters, thus conforming to the 'audiophile' recordings standard.

I put on FGTH and the bloke in the shop smiled and said 'Thank God, yesterday I had a bloke who only listened to violin music... for two hours'. 😂
 
70s child here, and so my hifi purchasing in the late 80s from shops coincided with CDs, so there was lots of DSOTM, Dire Straits, and Phil Collins type stuff. I've been fairly free of the hifi shop experience since then, so i'm not sure I know what would be typical these days. Given it's an aging population of enthusiasts i'm guessing it's pretty much the same stuff :)

My preferred music for testing is something that I know, but not that well. You know the thing, an album you've got into recently, or back into and you're still really enjoying, but don't know inside out. I'd be pulling out some Boards of Canada and Portico Quartet at the moment, and the point is really to find whether you enjoy listening on the equipment without being too judgemental as to whether it sounds like what you are used to.
 
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