My taste in music made me an audiophile, what about you?
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- Опубликовано: 1 окт 2024
- Steve shares the music that formed his tastes, the most important music in his life. Please share yours in the comments!
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The video covers my journey, yours will likely differ! Please share your “greatest hits.”
Great picks Steve, in the vein of gloriously strange; there's the Sensational Alex Harvey Band, Ian Dury and the Blockheads, Bird Songs of the Mesozoic and the, Canadian greats, the Rheostatics. Music is the crazy quilt that makes life worth living!
Oh wow Steve fantastic! I got about a third of them..... And in no particular order these great sounding albums come highly recommended too:
Bette Bright - 'Rhythm Breaks the Ice" 1981, Ex Deaf School. Right up there with the best Pop records ever.
Dragonfly - 'Almost Abandoned' 1974. All killer, solid songs and state of the art unmessed with recording. Unfortunately the CD release has the track listing completely arsed about.....grrr. Can msg the correct order.
Bonnie Raitt - 'Home Plate' 1975. Her younger voice and the emotion.... Her first self titled album is a beauty too.
Jacques Loussier - 'Play Bach No 1' 1959 on Decca. The vitality and the nuanced drum sounds on this album still gets to me.
James McMurtry - 'Too Long in the Wasteland' 1989 His first album. A lively and spacious recording. He kinda sounds like Lou Reed in his delivery.
The first two David Sylvian albums 'Brilliant Trees' 1984 and 'Gone to Earth' 1986. Incredible flugelhorn solo from Kenny wheeler on the latter.
Los Lobos 'Kiko' 1992. State of the art with each track beautifully, yet differently, mixed.
Taj Mahal self titled 1968. Became a musician and formed my first band after hearing this!
Please do more of these. I watched all the way through with great interest. It reminded me of listening to Top 20 hits around 1966-67 on AM station WOWO out of Cleveland to songs such as Incense Peppermints, Nowhere Man, Born to be Wild, and others with a "new sound".
Curved Air - Second Album, Velvet Opera - Ride A Hustlers Dream, Wishbone Ash - Pelgrimage, Soft Machine - Third-
The Moody Blues- In Search Of The Lost Chord, The Strawbs - Grave New World, Curved Air - Phantasmagoria.
I have a wide variety from the 60's up to 90's its a disease
You were a "curious child" .
How has it panned out since?
Here's to the curious, the weird ,the eccentric and the strange.
Without which there is only the consistency of mediocrity.
Thank you. : )
“I could go on for hours but I don’t want to bore you guys”.... Please go on for hours! I love this. Enjoying music is what it is all about. I share a lot of your musical taste. It all started with the Velvet Underground for me. From there I got into New York rock in general - first Sonic Youth and then I worked backwards (Television/Talking Heads/Richard Hell). When I heard Aphex Twin, I got into electronic and ambient music - Susumu Yokota being a favourite. I generally work backwards when I hear someone was influenced by something else so through modern electronic music, I discovered older electronic/rock or “Krautrock” (Harmonia, Cluster, Can, Neu, Kraftwerk), minimalism (Steve Reich, Philip Glass, Max Richter) and other weird pop/rock artists (Todd Rundgren, Pere Ubu, XTC). I also go through phases where I will get obsessed with a genre (Post punk - Chameleons, The Sound being favourites) or a record label (Flying Nun or Leaf). Maybe I shouldn’t admit it here but I also love the sound and inventiveness and humour of “lo-fi” artists - Ariel Pink, Cleaners from Venus, Sebadoh. Basically I am open to everything musical.
I could listen to Steve all day. Maybe I'm a Steviophile?
Ariel Pink- The Doldrums, Worn Copy... right?! Before he had a band when he was making Rundgren in a cardboard box. Magical
I also enjoyed listening to music. My favorite band growing up was, and still is, Pink Floyd. And Steely Dan, Chicago, Billy Joel, Bob Dylan, Doors, Zeppelin ,Sly & The Family Stone and many more. Although I still really enjoy disco! Now it's mostly jazz and vocals. Once I was making a good living I went looking for better components. I wound up at Ensemble, a great audiophile store in NH, and John Rein took his time to take painstaking time to walk me through the various levels. Unfortunately, I was able to hear all of the subtle nuances progressing through all of the rooms up into the $20,000 room. Though I couldn't afford that yet, I still left with about $7,000 in components/speakers, which I still own and enjoy. I would love to revamp my system, but now that I'm retired the funds are better spent elsewhere since we now travel a lot. Thanks!
Hey Steve, just wanted to let you know that I find your videos to be very calming, and they help with my anxiety.
Same here
Steve, this is a great episode, thank you! I could listen to you speak on this topic more. Listening to you speak so passionately about your love of sound and music is inspiring me to check your suggestions out.
FIrst live concert was Deep Purple 72 Machine Head Tour....they opened with Highway Star.
You should do more videos like this! Tell us about specific albums from both musical and recording-quality perspectives. Like what are the best Live albums in all genres? Thanks.
As for my music journey, I am very fortunate because I have brothers who are 10 years older than me, so I was sitting on the floor of their rooms as a small child, listening to Led Zeppelin, The Beatles and The Who. Then as a teenager and young adult, I was listening to REM, U2 and The Cure. I was also exposed to a lot of classical music. And of course, I was a teenager when MTV was launched, which presented bands that the local radio stations would have never played. And for some unknown reason, I also became a massive jazz fan as an adult.
So...Beatles Abbey Road, Led Zeppelin II, The Who Tommy, Frampton Comes Alive, Rush Moving Pictures, REM Murmur, Talking Heads Stop Making Sense, Radiohead OK Computer, Dave Brubeck Time Out.
My record collecting began in 1964 at the age of 8, with the Beatles 45rpm "I want to hold your hand". First LP I ever bought was the Beatles "Something New" which I played to death. The first 45rpm I ever bought that wasn't the Beatles was "Get Off My Cloud" by the Stones.
Wow, what a great conversation. I always go right to sampling the albums and got sucked in by The Residents. The music really sunk its claws into my brain. And Jamming With Edward by The Stones - what a treasure! Thanks Man!
King Crimson, of course
I was lucky to have been bought up in Dorset... King Crimson was the local band saw them so many times.... A real eye opener
@@ChrisJones-ri2jx Chris, got to see King Crimson and Peter Frampton at the Chicago kinetic Playground in 1973. It was memorable ! You were sure fortunate to grow up in Dorset with King Crimson.
In the60's Dropping Acid & listening to In search of the Lost Chord By the Moody Blues was a out of body experience for me.
For me it was Miles Davis, Sonny Rollins, Clifford Brown and Dave Brubeck.
Jazz is the “gimme” definite path to audiophile. Adds so much to any analogue setup.
Reggae/dub/soul is there but pressings are variable, jazz is where you get without a doubt audiophile step up to amazing
Boston's first album for me. A lot of 70's rock was just so much more cleaner then the past but that album took it to another level. Not saying there was not clean great music before but imho Joe Cocker's version of the Beatles Little help was sacrilegious. He turned a great song into a mess and that was my impression of music up to that point. Play it loud and proud then clear rock and roll perfection came out and I was hooked into the audiophile world. I didn't know it at the time but I found myself listening to more and more acts like Clapton, Dire Straights, Rush, SRV, etc. Acts that were more then the average 3 minute song. At the same time I also gravitated to female singers because of the harmonies like B52's, GoGos, Blondi, Pat Benatar. Another thing I have always liked is Bluegrass and fell in love with AKUS which always sounded so good on my system.
I think Sweetheart of the Rodeo, the Byrds with Gram Parsons put hardcore country/honky tonk into the main mix for a generation of rockers who wanted to go in another direction and made C/W cool, especially by the major introduction of pedal steel guitar as a predominant sound in the music. I remember starting to listen to honky tonk radio stations after that, opened up a whole world of new music unexplored by rock bound radio heads. As Dylan said in Visions of Johanna about country radio stations....There’s nothing really nothing to turn off.
I think it all started for me with The Nutcracker, The Grand Canyon Suite, and Peer Gynt, which my father would play for us on his old mono tube record player. Walt Disney had a hand in things too. This was followed at school by Benjamin Britten, Leonard Bernstein and violin lessons starting in 1959. Exposure to, and being in an orchestra set the bar pretty high for sound quality. Then came that 6 transistor radio, Chicago DJs, and bands like Paul Revere and the Raiders - totally different but mesmerizing. The Beatles hit shortly thereafter and dragged my educated ears down the rabbit hole.
What a great topic. I'd love to hear more! I took notes on some bands you mentioned that I haven't checked out yet. My background follows much of the same path with the Beatles, Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin. Nazz was a fantastic band from that time period too. I never thought I could ever pin down one album as my all time favorite but eventually I did and it's Frank Zappa's Hot Rats. That album gives me goosebumps to this day! I hope you'll expand on this topic again some time. Thanks!!
I was a huge Grateful Dead fan as a kid and they were all about perfect sound reproduction at live concerts. It rubbed off on me. Given the impact that the GD has had on live sound reproduction I'm surprised that Steve never mentions them. Obviously, he was not on the bus.
I'm with ya....my first time machine stop would be the Dead at one of the Fillmore East shows!
The good; the Dead's sound system, state of the art. The bad; the music sucked. A friend went to see them, after someone told him you have to see them live to really appreciate them. He went to a concert of theirs, TRIPPING, and fell asleep! Now, that's the band for me! Ok, Deadheads, you can attack me now, I'll be listening to Zappa, Todd, w/or without Utopia, Mahavishnu Orchestra, you know, REAL musicians!
@@michaelware1649 yeah that's why they're still going strong after 50+ years and that's why most music schools with any esteem teach courses on Dead improv. Maybe Zappa will be remembered in 100 years. The others you mention aren't even remembered by younger people even now. they are nobodies in the history of music. The Dead will be appreciated like the classics FOREVER. I guess that ignorance is bliss. So, rock on with your appreciation for technical, busy, high gain fusion oriented, and contrived music.
The Dead also cared about sound, more than most bands. Their recordings are mastered with HDCD, which if you have the player, sound like hi-res. Their music is timeless and well-written, as much so as any band ever, from country like Workingman's Dead, to experimental jams as inspired as any jazz musician's.
Mr. Steve, It would seem that you are a real Lover of DRUMS!! Every album you have put up for an example, has/have some of the purest drum sounds in recording. Drums are the instrument that I judge a recording by, as well as the ambient room sound. Drums the most honest instrument when being recorded, and they dont lie to you! Thanks for the Video! Great opinions and passion.
I'm 36yrs old. Started with typical 80's Funk und Disco, Michael Jacksons Off the wall und Thriller, to Soul with Roberta Flack, some years with german Rap-music, back to Blaxploitation sound, Stax und Motown stuff. A friend of mine showed me after bis year in the US classic rock like Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Allman Brothers, We kept on discovering the Blues and Americana. For some time I was deep into electronic music (Kraftwerk, Eno, some Krautrock). I listened to Dubstep, Deephouse. Actually I dig some great sounding Jazz (Hancock, Coltrane, Miles Davis) und classical records (Mahler, Beethoven, Brahms, Schubert). I love the Beatles, I love Queen, I love David Bowie, I love George Michael, Grace Jones!
In fact I'm interested in good sound. Anything that takes me deep in the grooves of my record/ CD-collection. Each day I discover great new and old bands through channels like yours, Steve, or John Darkos.
Keep on, Steve. It's great, what you're doing. Throughout your channel I know, that I'm not the only music-crazy guy :D
Thank you!
Great show today Steve!!
Music is so pesonal.
Everyones tastes are different.
Very interesting listening to your musical journey.
Cheers
The '70s were transformative for every genre` of music. And just about anything from '77 is gold., as it were.👍
Michael Kiske from Helloween become me an audiophile :)
For me it was the debut Dire Straits album at my friend's house when I was 17 (with lots of weed), and listening to Mark Knoffler play guitar like a surgeon. For me it was the notes he wasn't playing that seemed as important as the ones he played. Damn Steve, thanks for making me feel old this morning. Oh well I have a smile remembering back.
For me it was the dials and switches on my Dad's Yamaha CR-1020.
Just listen to white noise thru a 100000 dollar system. Who needs music :)
Can’t tell you what made me an ‘audiophile’ but reading an article in THE ABSOLUTE SOUND circa 1980 comparing ‘high end audio’ to large format photography made me choose a career in photography! Audiophilia had been the overwhelming force in my life, affecting all kinds of decisions!
Steve, it is cool that you could actually experience all this music as it was created and released, in real time. So much of what we are involved with daily (science, commerce, art etc) comes from the distant past. But growing up with a band as they release new music adds an extra dimension, makes it more personal.
In a similar vein as Eno, VU and Television, the Feelies are a very important band to me. Credited for inspiring the sound of early R.E.M., they are still active with a solid release as recently as 2017 and occasional live performances (when we still did that). From the experimental side of things, Laurie Anderson has created many interesting recordings, often with excellent sound.
Hey Steve! Congratulations on another great video. I just felt that I traveled in time with your memories. You should think writing a book about your personal musical trip!
Great insight ! Came late in the Pink Floyd, Genesis, LED ZEP. Going backwards, but also looking for new stuff...
Excellent presentation. I’m slightly younger than you, so my beginnings in music started during the progressive rock era; however, we have found common touch points along the way. When I was in my early teens, the guys at Speakerlab (Seattle) would let me play records in their listening rooms, after hours. Curiosity is a big part of it, and the gear is there, so as to make it easier explore the depths (if they exist) in the underlying music and sound.
It all started out for me was , BTO,Elton John, Steppenwolf,many more until led zeppelin 4 I heard around 76 and fell in love with them and today still like putting on their music . Now I like jazz and blues music more than ever , just yesterday I found 4 of Jeff beck albums and one of them was with the yardbirds for 9 dollars and the album was vg+ . Iam still a 2 channel lister and just sit for hours going back in time with my foot tapping and head bobbing.🙃
Ok I wasn't sure about you as a recent subscriber but you got Bob Dylan and Tom Waits in there so you ok with me.
Love hearing you talk about music! Hope to see more videos of you talking about music you love!
No mention at all of Frank Zappa. Steve must not be a Zappa fan.
As a child of the 90s, I first really got into music with the grunge movement, but I got even more into the classic rock of my dad's generation. Ever since then, Jimi Hendrix has been my favorite musical artist. What he was able to do with the guitar--both the soundscapes he created by manipulating feedback and with studio advances, as well as his actual guitar playing, are still inspiring and amaze me to this day.
"There are simply two kinds of music ... good music and the other kind." ... Duke Ellington
Yes, Doobie Brothers, Pink Floyd, Rush, Queen, Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Bowie, Chicago, Joe Jackson, Steely Dan, Diana Krall, Jeff Beck, Stanley Clarke, Mandolin Orange, Chris Botti, Dave Matthews, Nick Drake
Though I turned fifty this year I realize I'm of another generation. The big records for me were from Jackson Browne, Van Halen, early U2, Talking Heads, Prince, REM
Hi Steve, really enjoy your channel. After hearing you talk today I’m surprised you are not a musician yourself!! Im a similar age as you and have had very similar experiences and passion for music as you .. I’ve been a pro drummer and saxophonist since the late seventies! Steve, Sydney Australia.😊👍
I got my start on a cheap Sears stereo listening to my parents Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole records. When the Beatles surfaced my listening world exploded into the Beach Boys, Rolling Stones & almost any rock n' roll I could get my hands on. From Italian western movie soundtracks to Michae Nesmith & the Monkeys I couldn't get enough. Today I'm a total Tidal maven. New artists & music is still my life blood.
Thanks Steve. Loved it. Duke Ellington, Dylan, Bach Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, Miles Davis, John Martyn, RIchard Thompson .......................
The first album I bought as a kid was James Taylor's "Sweet Baby James". Still a great album.
My parents played a lot of classical music when I was a kid. Such as Leonard Bernstein conducting "Peter And The Wolf" and "Scheherazade".
It was AM radio and whatever dross they forced me listen to until I discovered my mom's radio that had that mysterious FM dial. One evening I tuned into WNEW in NYC and found Allison Steele "The Nightbird". The doors were flung open and I've never looked back.
I was with you until you said "Led Zepplin made Hendrix sound small".
It's probably a little bit controversial to say, especially if, like me, you love Hendrix. I also love Led Zeppelin, and I'd say pretty much every band/musician sounds small compared to Led Zeppelin when you compare their entire body of work.
@@PDCRed compared to Frank Zappa’s entire body of work, Led Zeppelin sounds tiny.
As more of a Hendrix fan my take was that Steve was simply comparing production quality of the records released by LZ and Hendrix and not making qualitative judgements about musical ability. " Whole lotta love " from LZ 2, for instance, does sound a lot more thunderous and epic than say Foxey Lady which, despite being an equally epic tune, lacks the weight and breadth of the Zep recording. I don't think Jimmy Page is given enough credit for his production chops.
He didn't say that at all. Steve was discussing Jimmy Page as a producer not the music of either artist.
When I was much younger, I started to listen to music outside the popular chart music genre's of the time and discovered a whole new world of music.
This happened about 5 years after buying my first basic HiFi ... I just wanted to hear things better so started buying audiophile level HiFi ... Bug bit and that was it.
It also opened the door to the world of recording technology (early 80's) which eventually became my job. Still just as excited today, but a lot wiser 😅
Amen ta that!
I remember going into record stores as a teenager, looking over all the bins and bins of records, and thinking, Who are all these people, and why have I never heard them on the radio?
After that, I realized that if music were a skyscraper, what you heard on the radio represented the carpet on the first floor.
My taste in music made me a guitarist!! :-)
Hey wow, I know Cosmo Sheldrake, I have met him and passed him the guitar at an after gig party. Great to see him mentioned here, he's amazing.
Terrific, I made it all the way through. Having older sisters and an older brother growing up our house was filled with 45s of the early Beatles, Stones, and the latest Motown releases. I was transfixed with the Jimi Hendrix Band of Gypsys record which turned out to be his last before a deluge of post death recordings over the years. Made it through all the 70s rock as it grew to arena sized proportions. A favorite from that time was Love You Live by The Rolling Stones with the Warhol cover. From the punk era Never Mind the Bullocks by The Sex Pistols stands out and Sandinista by The Clash. The Scary Monsters record by Bowie was in that time. Lately a lot of electronic music and ambient seems to have captured my attention.
As a trumpet player, I always loved:
Bill Chase - Chase (Side B is amazing)
Blood sweat and tears
Miles Davis
Bill Evans
Sergio Mendes and Brasil 66
Tower of Power
From there I really listen to a lot of 60's and 70's rock and then moved on to more obscure stuff too like:
Eno
Klaus Schulze
Aphex twin
Tangerine dream
Now I am listening to:
Flamingosis - Bright moments (or anything mixed by Flamingosis)
I agree with @Steveguttenberg that audiophiles should love sound and tone for the character that it is and can be. Music is a lovely additional layer, but not always necessary to invoke emotion.
Is that the Chase band that died in the airplane crash?
Tower Of Power is amazing!
Well, trouth is: we are getting older ;)
BTW: 155,000!
I started writing the music I listen to then found it impossible. Way too much stuff to list. There’s so much music in the world you will never get through it all.
......1973....Elton John "Daniel" ....Supertramp, Billy Joel, Neil Young, The Eagles, The National, Nick Drake, Cat Stevens, Leonard Cohen, Fleetwood Mac,Joan Armatrading,Pink Floyd, David Bowie, Rod Stewart, Dire Straights, America, Gerry Rafferty, Barclay James Harvest,Peter Gabriel, Tracy Chapman., Genesis, Gurrumul (Australian).........So many more.........
It was not music for me, but it was the equipment. 😁
Yes!..... I hate that people seem to think it's more virtuous to be "all about the music". I love both. Equipment is an expression of the art of engineering & manufacturing. Gear is beautiful, and can make music sound amazing.
Moving to London and falling in love with the new wave of jazz artists definitely lead directly to my current interest in sound and audiophile equipment. That, and Japanese listening bars.
I think it started with my father requiring speakers that could faithfully reproduce organ music. Not that I liked the music but when playing my own music on it, it definately did something with me on an emotional level that I never experienced before or anywhere else. Then I started with headphones and it really took of.
Almost no overlap. I'm with you on Live At Leads, and Tom Waits at least. I was firmly on the Deep Purple / Uriah Heep track early on, Led Zeppelin was too bluesy for me. Donavan instead of Dylan - other than Ballad of a Thin Man, which was awesome. Then a lot of British Progressive Rock, only now getting into later Pink Floyd, never liked earlier stuff. Classical over Jazz, a few exceptions like that wonderful Chick Corea piano trio. Wendy Carlos, Ambrosia's first two albums, some Alan Parsons. Later Beatles, Jethro Tull, Yes, Gentle Giant, Gabriel era Genesis. Devin Townsend, Evanescence ... oh, that West Side Story music was arranged into an instrumental suite by Bernstein, highly recommended.
When you’re talking about sound. I was waiting to hear, - In this context you gotta mention sonic youth no? Maybe not your thing or generation but you were selling top notch gear in the late 80 90’s. Weren’t they a force then? In NYC? I remember demo-ing stuff at the exchange with daydream nation and getting looks of estrangement. Yeah the sound. That’s what it’s all about- gotta have it
Motown girl groups on my 45 records. Family friend Pete Seeger would have concerts to save the Hudson River. The roster of folk singers of our day were playing with Pete influenced me greatly. Then came the British invasion of the Beatles and Stones. Living near a college town the college concert circuit was another big influencer. Part social event and music exploration. Music was a vital part of your social life.
The single album _the sound of which_ transformed me was John Coltrane's Giant Steps. I was a decent, young jazz musician in high school. I brought home the record from my teacher's collection, and from the very first 5 notes, my whole life changed. I mean, completely changed. As you say - that sound: the sound of the horn, the sound of those first five notes, the percussion section. It was revolutionary.
Born in London, so Reggae....
Gary Numan, John Foxx, Joy division , Human League, Japan, Holger Czukay etc in the 80s....
Came to jazz thru Grover Washington, Earl Klugh...
Then a Reggae friend of mine gave me a Monk pressing...loved it! Found the riverside LPS and fell in love with 1957 recordings.
Miles, Sonney, Cannonball, Gill and KoB....More MILES!
Ornette Coleman.
World music.
Reggae & Dub always....
Joe strummer...
Became a bass player from some reason...
Jack Johnson (family favorite:-)
Ben Harper
Fat Freddy's Drop
Groundation
JBB etc
Tinariwen!
Baroque in the morning...
Now listening to Ibrahim Maalouf.
The journey continues on Qobuz;-)
From MAYall (but not for all, just a few of the elites) to a very really DARK side of the MOON (not liked Abram my friend) ; to the Stones with Ry Cooder (isn't he of the "BUENA VISTA" not of today, but of only pre 60s stuff); to those Big Eyes ROCKers (but could they see though?)so cold as "ESKIMOS'' with like you said ," a well of..." (are you sure about that Philiac?) ; to all that toxic strangeness on Television's Marquee MOON, the Velvet Underground with Nico, and Film Noir ( and music) on the other side of the pond with all its famous characters ; to the ALien nature of COSMOS (more of its Creator though) of DrakeSHELL in love with birds (so you are not much into birds, yet like to be around them, you said...? Baiting me? Hope not!) WITH THAT GREAT ALL SEEING, ALL KNOWING OWL ( hunting and eating the vermin at night, when few can see, and most can't understand how) ,to that Galapagos' bird ( "a wake up call" like you put it, indeed) I ' VE BEEN THROUGH THEM ALL(listened and experienced them) PHILIAC; AND HAVE LEARNED WHAT TO LOOK FOR , HOW TO LISTEN , AND WHAT NOT TO LISTEN TO WITH DISCERNING SPIRIT...HOPE YOU PHILIAC AND YOUR MANY FRIENDS HAVE DONE SO TOO , AND STILL ARE ON THAT SAME ROAD AFTER FIDELITY FROM ON HIGH , IF ONLY FOR THE GOOD OF THEIR SOULS AND FOR US TWO.
By the way , haven't really heard the "Mule Variations" yet. I am WAITEing for a better sounding record...Praying it won't take Two long in coming. Shema!!!
For a child of ten in '58, the wide STEREO console seemed like MAGIC. Didn't matter the music genre. My parents were Dixieland & classical, here lies the genesis of my audiophile journey.
Best Polish songs (so you didn’t know them yet): 1. Marek Grechuta ‘Korowód’ (1971) (and all others) 2. Ewa Demarczyk ‘Grande valse brillante’ (1964) 3. Czesław Niemen ‘Dziwny jest ten świat’ (1967) 4. Breakout ‘Na drugim brzegu tęczy’ (1969) or ‘Kiedy byłem małym chłopcem’ (1971) 5. Dżem ‘Kim jestem jestem sobie’ (1986) 6. Brygada Kryzys ‘To co czujesz to co wiesz’ (1992) 7 . Maanam ‘Krakowski spleen’ (1983) 8. Republika ‘Biała flaga’ (1982) 9. Czerwone Gitary ‘Historia jednej znajomości’ (1966) 10. Hanka Ordonówna ‘Miłość ci wszystko wybaczy’ (1935).
Results of poll in polish radio by listeners (about 20 000 people):
Polish all-time-hits (245 songs) (broadcast 1-2.05.2020)
ruclips.net/p/PLmRTSpNn3aWMAp0Ftpq6WioSrITxRWJee
www.polskieradio.pl/9/3516/Artykul/2502346,13-Polski-Top-Wszech-Czasow-SPRAWDZ-WYNIKI
World all-time hits (100 songs) (broadcast 31.12.2019)
ruclips.net/p/PLXopp1T5F4jHZ9ow-a_EqOvNmWTMEyy60
www.polskieradio.pl/9/29/Artykul/2429313,26-Top-Wszech-Czasow-Oto-wyniki
ROFLOL...The Stone's escapades. Quite the career and Soul Survivors.And then there was their revolutionary kick ass music.
After some early Stones, Beatles, Who, Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, i went on to be fan of Yes and Genesis (at age 15), music with a lot of classical influences. After buying my 1st classical record when i was 22, and after working at an electronic organ factory my taste went broader. then after living in a students house and started working in several venues (i saw Yes concert at 1997) my taste broadened to worldmusic also.
My hifi went with me. From a Pioneer 500A and Wharfedale Denton II's to Artephonos Energa (tubes) and Peitho 303 (semi open baffle speaker). Next thing?
Typical: this record of "West Side Story" is from 1957, same as the Quad ESL 57.
Some of my favorite sonically interesting sounding records would be Moloko's Statues, Ulver's Perdition City, The Gathering's How To Measure A Planet, Bryan Ferry's Boys And Girls, Porcupine Tree's In Absentia, Chris And Cosey's Trance, Deltron 3030, Global Communication's Pentamerous Metamorphosis and Locust's (Mark Van Hoen) Morning Light.
10 years behind you so it was the early 70's when it started for me and my 1st stereo @ age 12. It was Steely Dan for me and the song "Do it Again" to me was a collaboration masterpiece that got me started and is why Contemporary Jazz is #1 now in my Life and Yes I like Monk. And 1975 Led Zeppelin Physical Graffiti would listen to over and over.............................Pink Floyd was the album "Wish you were Here" was the one that got me and remember vividly 1976 when it started.
Steve, thank you for this inspiring and obviously heartfelt retrospective. The musical life is full with discoveries and revelations! I share quite a few of your "greatest hits" and here are a few of my own, and comments:
Me-too:
Meet the Beatles. Not only the amazing music, but the British-engineered sound that really seemed new and different, especially that huge round bass that sounded incredible on the tube amps of that era. I am still haunted by that sound and wondering if a restored vintage amp would bring it back.
Led Zeppelin I and II. Agree 100% -- sheer magic, which I finally realized at age 64! These were played to death on the "album rock" FM stations in the 70s which were so compressed that literally everything sounded the same. Ironically, these albums are themselves highly compressed but on more resolving modern equipment sound fantastic.
Some others:
V/A, Audio Fidelity Stereo Sound Spectacular. Blow your friends' minds, and maybe your speakers too.
Blood Sweat and Tears (Columbia 1968). Early crossover jazz, super-tight and superbly recorded.
Bloomfield Kooper & Stills, Super Session. Punchy recording with stingingly precise guitar lines from Bloomfield.
Debussy, La Mer etc., BPO, Karajan. One of the more spacious-sounding DG-Karajan recordings. A delight.
Stravinsky Conducts Stravinsky: Rite of Spring etc (2xLP Columbia). Amazing presence and clarity in these recordings.
Miles Davis, Bitches Brew and many others. As a long-time Miles listener, the newer Columbia CD remasters were a revelation to me, to the point where I felt i was listening to the real music for the first time. They show the vast difference between the sound on the original tapes and the mediocre quality of some of the LPs and early CD transfers.
Weather Report, Tale Spinnin'. This one stands out for dazzling blend of acoustic and electric instruments.
Groove Collective, Groove Collective. Excellent recording of one-of-a-kind live gig. Jazz with beats, transcends genres.
Roy Budd, Get Carter OST and many others. Innovative genius, top-notch orchestras, strikingly dynamic recordings.
V/A, House of Loungecore. Opens up the esoteric world of British orchestral pop. And in Hi-Fi Stereo too!
V/A, Unusual Sounds (2018). A generous survey of Library Music, another world reanimated by the internet. Obsessive record collectors: abandon hope all ye who enter here.
Steve, there's multiple different versions of Are you experienced in 2022.
We don't know what you're talking about. You haven't said enough information yet.
What about all the other versions of Are you experienced?
The modern versions have subwoofering included.
Where's your subwoofer?
Explain WHY you don't have all the other versions.
Funny that I always hear the same names mentioned by American music fans. I don't know why I went in a different direction (maybe I was dropped when I was little). I loved the Beatles, but never bought a Stones or Zeppelin record. I listened to pop groups like the Ventures and Herman's Hermits as a kid, then expanded my palette with groups like Chicago. One day, I was counting my quarters and I decided to buy something really different just to see if I'd like it. I bought the LP "Moving Waves" by the Dutch band Focus, which was a true classical-rock-jazz fusion and it really changed my ideas about rock music. A few others stretched my imagination further, like Genesis' "A Trick of the Tail," Steeleye Spann's "Now We Are Six," and Kraftwerk's late '70's LPs. For romantic rock energy it was hard to beat The Jam's "Setting Sons" or Toyah's "Anthem." Most of those artists benefit from the best sound quality one can manage.
My journey has the same timeline, but is very different. In 1954 I was in the first grade and we lived on an Army base in Japan. My mother played classical recordings. I primarily recall piano concertos by Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff. We moved to California for my second and third grade, then to Paris, France for grades 4, 5, and 6. When Van Cliburn won the inaugural International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow in 1958 during the Cold War, my mother, who was a naturalized U.S. citizen and very patriotic, was so thrilled that I must have heard those vinyl In college in 1968, I read a review of Joni Mitchell's Song to a Seagull and bought what became my favorite record for years.
I started in 1977 as a 10 year old/young child with Genesis. My older brother brought me to them. Following by Pink Floyd and in the 80s with Depeche Mode and Kraftwerk. End of 80s / beginning of the 90s aa a Berlin guy I spend lot of Time in the Techno Szene in berlin, Germany. Since my new high end sound system, two years ago, I go almost complete into jazz (50-end 60s). Of course I listen to Bob Dylan and the Boss, John Mayall And Van Morrison
Thanks for the list. First I've heard of Television. Really liking the Marquee Moon album. Jammin with Edward and Thelonious Monk are next.
I had an old Victrola console - all mechanical, no electricity - from my maternal grandparent's furniture store. There was a handful of RCA Victor classical 78s with works by mostly Russian composers. I was six years old and fell in love with Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky and other Romantic European masters. A cup built into the top of the phonograph cabinet held an assortment of well-used needles and I would search through it to find the less dulled one. A few turns on the spring winding crank, the sliding of a lever, a careful lowering of the massive tone arm and, voila!, I heard scratchy, low-fi symphonic music for a few minutes before the platter had to be turned over and the whole procedure repeated. This was 1940 and we were in our new $10,000 two-bedroom Cape Cod home, after living in a remodeled garage through most of the Great Depression. I was born in the very bottom of this awful period - 1934. In 1948, I heard my neighbors' big console playing the music from "Oklahoma" from nearly a block away. I recognized it, because my grade school teacher played "Oh, What a Beautiful Morning"
on the classroom phonograph a few months before my neighbor blasted his recording from the hit show. In 1952, as a college freshman, I often listened to a console with fairly decent amplification, but it wasn't until I959 when I was stationed on governors' Island in New York harbor that I had experience with high fidelity equipment. I was library assistant on post and, after hours, would play vinyl on a sturdy Rek-O-Kut studio turntable connected to a upscale mono amp. The Frank Sinatra hit "Only For The Lonely" had just come out and I fell in love with that album and still love it today, along with millions of other fans around the world! After I left active duty and returned to my Midwestern hometown, I began the audio quest for the 'perfect' sonic system that remains with me to this day.
I started with an antique acoustic horn console and ended up with a fairly high-end (for me) pair of Klipsch Cornwall II speakers in American oiled walnut veneer powered by a vintage Marantz 2220B receiver, a Technics SL - 1401 turntable (only made one year) and a reliable Sony CDP-C545 disc player. The FM broadcasts in my area (Southern California) are so powerful and the Marantz's FM section so sensitive I only need a little dipole draped over the equipment table to pull in great signals 24/7. Los Angeles is nearly 100 miles away but I have a straight shot from my beach studio to the transmitters up north. Local San Diego jazz station from City College is right next door, so to speak. It's like listening to a hi-res CD, they use such sophisticated equipment. The only things I've done to the gear in all these years is replace the crossovers in the Cornies with Bob Crites' big, beautiful hand-wired circuits and switch-out the phenolic diaphragms on the tweets to Crites' titanium ones. Marantz still has all its original caps(!) but it's been periodically dusted-off inside and the pots spritzed with de-oxider. Every few years, I run a cleaning CD through the Sony, if it starts to sound fliffy. That's it. I keep hearing things on my recordings I've never noticed before with the Klipsch. Brushing all my old LPs with the Discwasher periodically makes a big difference. I try to keep it simple. My old ears aren't keen enough to benefit from DACs, bi-amping and expensive cables, etc. I'm lucky to be able to hear most of the bandwidth. My younger brother is deaf and can't even hear the phone ringing. He worked around noisy cars and machinery and was a gunsmith. As you say, we are in our "horn stage" and I know I will die horny.
For me, it sort of started with the Beatles, but very quickly diverted into King Crimson, Genesis, YES, PFM, Banco, Gong, National Health, Mahavisnu Orchestra, Return to Forever, Universe Zero, Art Zoyd, and a myriad other progressive musicians from all over the world.
And that lead me (via Universe Zero, and other avent-prog) to 20th century, avant-garde and contemporary classical.
All these types of music, have a lot of subtlety, which is inly repealed with high quality audio.
I was 12 yrs old bought my first single .99 cents plus tax Sugar loaf Green eyed lady followed by What is life G.Harrison, it dont come easy ,Ringo Starr
First album Deep Purple
Machine head now I was hooked! Listening on my Sherwood 7900
Receiver, Tecniques turntable
Excellent picks Steve, oddly parallel mine as well. Regarding Lucinda Williams CWOAGR is excellent but so is World Without Tears. Also in the late 70s when I acquired my first stereo, my buddy and I were obsessed with Pat Metheny Group's first album. Still have it in impeccable condition. I can remember as a young kid going to bed at night with my ear glued to a cheap radio and hearing KGO fade in and out from 600 miles away and drifting off to sleep. I thought that was so cool. Motown RULES.
What about 1976 Rush’s 2112? A side long futuristic story that should be listened with headphones. They aren’t everybody’s cup of tea but that record cemented this Canadian progressive rock band into the ultimate cult band. Rush have constantly evolved and created interesting music over 40 years. Albums to consider if you never heard of them would be “Permanent Waves, Moving Pictures, Snakes and Arrows and Hold your Fire”
Thanks for your time. All the best
We grew up in the same era except I stared listening before the Beatles(Chubby Checker) The most consequential album of all time is the "Meet the Beatles". My disagreement is Led Zeppelin. I saw Led Zep's 2nd tour of the U.S at the Singer Bowl. In retrospect I find them a bunch of thieves and Robert Plant to be a horrible singer. My main jazz guy and my first album was John Coltrane. The band that made alternative music acceptable to the mainstream was the Jefferson Airplane. In retrospect leaving out Cream and Eric Clapton is hard to believe. Layla is a much more listenable and far more interesting album than any Led Zeppelin album. I went to the Fillmore and saw the Who before Tommy was released. My high school friends were the back up band to Lou Reed right before Transformer "The Tots". I still talk to the guitarist and started guitar lessons with him. ( Eddie Reynolds) Finally, I will leave you with this quote from Bill Graham at the closing of the Fillmore East (I was there on Friday). We are going to end this with the best of them all "The Allman Brothers".
Thanks Steve. That's a lot of new music to check out. I really appreciate you sharing it all with us.
Have you ever heard Kitaro? He's a "Japanese musician, composer, and multi-instrumentalist who is regarded as a pioneer of New Age music." according to Last FM. I don't know much about him, or New Age music at all really, but I was looking for something peaceful to listen to the other day, and found him. While I was starting to enjoy it. The first thought that came to me was "this seems like something Steve Guttenberg would enjoy", because it's very much about "the sounds". And while some of it is more serious. There's a lot of fun sounding stuff too. ✌️
It's like we are having a conversation. We are about the same age. You in NYC, me in Philadelphia. I am nodding my head in agreement to almost everything you say. I saw The Who perform Tommy live just after it came out in 1969 at The Electric Factory, so Tommy is indelibly etched in my brain. When you mention early Neil Young, I would have to add the epic 3 albums recorded by Buffalo Springfield and the incredible influence they had on all music that followed. Yes... The Beatles. I would sit by my Dad's "German radio" every night and listen to WIBG in hopes of hearing a Beatles song. It's impossible to over estimate their place in modern music. Brian Wilson? You covered the rest pretty well, except for leaving out Spirit - or maybe that was just a personal favorite...
It was a friend who gave me the virus. He had a LinnLP12/Ittok/Asak, Naim pre/power amps and Isobarik speakers. My first listen occurred shortly after eating some of his wife's magic mushroom cookies. I have spent a fortune trying to recreate that sound.
I think we were listening to Gong, but I can't be sure :).
I would add Procol Harum Live with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra and Eno/ Phil Manzanera’s 801Live (import) which I can’t rave enough about since I first bought it in about 1977.
I absolutely agree!
Electronic music. BT, Front Line Assembly, Aphex Twin, Joey Fahrenbach. Electronic music gives speakers a wider spectrum of frequency variations. There is more of a test to what speakers and amplifiers can do when trying to play electronic music than the limited ranges of a trumpet or a snare or a guitar. Try some drumb and bass just to give your equipment an actual challenge. Higher highs, lower lows, faster switching from frequency to frequency, electronic music is where it's at.
You can buy stuff, you can read and learn, but this is lived out and one of the best journeys in audio filmed. Today, most of those bands became brands, kids wearing their logos all over the world but never heard a song of particular band - like Che Guevara shirts. But this is an unique example how that music had been lived through from the childhood to today without trying to sell or prove anything. One of the best videos from Steve, as far as I'm concerned. Steve, it is good to have you and THANK YOU SO MUCH for filming!
The earliest music memory I have, perhaps sparking my life-long love for music, was listening to Peter and the Wolf on a cheap record player in the unfinished basement at our house when I was in second grade. High school was when music exploded for me: Led Zeppelin, Kansas, Rush, Styx...
One of your best. Thanks for sharing your journey Steve. Scary how much we overlap...
Born in 1963 my older brother took me right into Prog Rock and Rock and then the wave of the 80’s. But with streaming music today I have went back and many of the Lite Rock that we would never listen to has opened up a whole new world of music. For instance I would never listen to Jackson Brown. Today, how did I miss The Pretender. It has been great finding these classics that I have overlooked in my youth. Steve keep up the good work.
Steve, you are looking pretty damned good for someone who was born in the *1850s* ;)
Seriously, if having a broad appreciation for different musical genres is one of the criteria for being an audiophiles, then once again I have to bow out. I consider myself a child of the 70s (b. 1959) and it was the era of punk vs disco - lets just say that I didnt hum along to the Bee Gees. Metal really kicked in from the late 70s, further narrowing my tastes and about the only mainstream artist of the day that captured my attention was The Boss. If Springsteen sat down to compare musical influences I expect that you would find a lot of commonality, but I cant lay claim to those same influences. Thanks for the video.
For me it was getting old, and chasing diminishing returns 🤣
Early on it was “if the CD master doesn’t cut it, leave it” and it was some time before I looked for “more”. LA Woman, Surrealistic Pillow vinyl masters...some of those started to change my mind about reproduction of sound and then, more.
Me too. From age three on. My father had a jukebox and I got the records that I wanted when the records were cycled out by vendor. But the first record that grabbed me was Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue with Oscar Levant. It came on four 78 rpm records. Later, about 1954 in was issued on a single microgroove LP. .
In 1959 a neighbor gave me his hifi system because he knew that I was interested in stereo and he wasn't going to double his system and hated that my "stereo" was a Columbia record player with the second speaker built into a detachable lid. I augmented his amp with a Sherwood channel and a half integrated amplifier and added another similar speaker. It's been add or change or start over ever since. I'm building a new system now around the Denon integrated amp that you liked so much - that high-current design has that amp punching well above its weight.
You know an artist or band is great when you go thru entire phases when you discover their body of work. I've gone for weeks or months at a time listening to nothing, but one band. I remember in my younger days going thru my Dire Straits phase, AC/DC phase, Zepplin phase, Stones Phase, Doors phase, etc all lasting for weeks on end before moving on. Now I just put all that music on shuffle and listen to what pops up.
Looking back at his career Bob Dylan claims that his songs came from divine inspiration. He claims that he has no idea where the words came from they just went from his hand to pen to paper.
@@johnsmith1474 I didn't say it Bob Dylan did on 60 minutes. Some research is necessary on your part.
Ha...I was living in Wales in 1970 when we first heard Led Zep 1....lucky me!
I already had quite a few records by the late 70s, and my friends had better systems in their homes. They convinced me that I needed a system to compliment my (already growing) collection. Through A-B listening tests, they were right. Never looked back ever since.
This is exactly the kind of focus on sound and music that I love about your show. Thank you
My grandfather played a triple neck fender steel guitar. I played a little Harmony classical. When I moved electric I got an old tubed silverstone guitar amp. I would pair that with my walkman. My sister was into 80s heavy metal and I had my parents collection. So I developed an ear for the language of music. The quality of sound is frankly a small percentage of music.
I would do the same when I three. I would strike a small xylophone and pay very close to the decay in different enviroments. When I heard music I would never even hear the words the singer sung only the sound. 25 years later I am a amatuer audio engineer/ very poor audiophile/ multi- instrumentalist.
My dad was a true audiophile growing up. Def had an influence.
Frank zappa is my main influence