I gushed about these guys on other occasions so there’s no reason to repeat all the reasons I think they’re great. But I do want to share another of my favorite Blackfield songs so…feel my “Pain”.
When modern-day prog rock’s leading light, Porcupine Tree’s Steven Wilson, and Israeli pop rock legend Aviv Geffen get together they make a mesmerizing brand of shoegazing catharsis. As I’ve said before, if you can appreciate this kind of thing, you can appreciate that no one does this kind of thing better. Blackfield’s first two albums should be considered classics of their time.
It’s easy to let yourself get caught up in the happy vibe of this one. Plume Giant came together as students at Yale University and began making a fresh sound built on harmonies, whimsical humor and a willingness to play an unusual array of instruments (viola, harmonium, melodica). They graduated in May and released their first full length CD, Callithump in August. “We Got it Made” has a dash of dixieland, a pinch of Pink Martini, and loads of simple joy.
Here they actually bring something new and pleasant to “Strawberry Fields Forever”, although it looks like they picked a crappy spot for busking.
The answer lies in the difference between analog and digital recordings. A vinyl record is an analog recording, and CDs and DVDs are digital recordings. Take a look at the graph below. Original sound is analog by definition. A digital recording takes snapshots of the analog signal at a certain rate (for CDs it is 44,100 times per second) and measures each snapshot with a certain accuracy (for CDs it is 16-bit, which means the value must be one of 65,536 possible values).
Comparison of a raw analog audio signal to the CD audio and DVD audio output
This means that, by definition, a digital recording is not capturing the complete sound wave. It is approximating it with a series of steps. Some sounds that have very quick transitions, such as a drum beat or a trumpet’s tone, will be distorted because they change too quickly for the sample rate.
In your home stereo the CD or DVD player takes this digital recording and converts it to an analog signal, which is fed to your amplifier. The amplifier then raises the voltage of the signal to a level powerful enough to drive your speaker.
A vinyl record has a groove carved into it that mirrors the original sound’s waveform. This means that no information is lost. The output of a record player is analog. It can be fed directly to your amplifier with no conversion.
This means that the waveforms from a vinyl recording can be much more accurate, and that can be heard in the richness of the sound. But there is a downside, any specks of dust or damage to the disc can be heard as noise or static. During quiet spots in songs this noise may be heard over the music. Digital recordings don’t degrade over time, and if the digital recording contains silence, then there will be no noise.
From the graph above you can see that CD quality audio does not do a very good job of replicating the original signal. The main ways to improve the quality of a digital recording are to increase the sampling rate and to increase the accuracy of the sampling.
The recording industry has a new standard for DVD audio discs that will greatly improve the sound quality. The table below lists the sampling rate and the accuracy for CD recordings, and the maximum sampling rate and accuracy for DVD recordings. DVDs can hold 74 minutes of music at their highest quality level. CDs can also hold 74 minutes of music. By lowering either the sampling rate or the accuracy, DVDs can hold more music. For instance a DVD can hold almost 7 hours of CD quality audio.
CD Audio
DVD Audio
Sampling Rate
44.1 kHz
192 kHz
Samples per second
44,100
192,000
Sampling Accuracy
16-bit
24-bit
Number of Possible Output Levels
65,536
16,777,216
DVD audio discs and players are rare right now, but they will become more common, and the difference in sound quality should be noticeable. To take advantage of higher quality DVD audio discs, however, you will need a DVD player with a 192kHz/24-bit digital to analog converter. Most DVD players only have a 96kHz/24-bit digital to analog converter. So if you are planning to take full advantage of DVD audio be sure to look for a 192kHz/24-bit DAC.
The world didn’t really know what to make of Was (Not Was). They weren’t so much ahead of their time as from another planet. Even the band’s own singers didn’t always “get it”. But one of the weirdest and most wonderful albums to come out of the 80’s was this genius rollercoaster ride of dance pop, retro soul and avant-garde beatnik poetry. Or something.
Was (Not Was) were David Was (actual name: David Weiss) and Donald Was (born Donald Fagenson) who were, of course, the “Was”, and R&B singers Sir Harry Bowens and Sweet Pea Atkinson, who accounted for the “Not Was”. Got that?
Don Was went on to become one of pop’s most sought-after producers after overseeing Bonnie Raitt’s Grammy-winning Nick of Time LP. The list of artists Was has produced is as impressive as anyone in the biz: The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Elton John, Willie Nelson, Brian Wilson, George Clinton, Roy Orbison…no room here to do it justice and, anyway, it’s not the point of this post.
In 1988 old school pals Don and David Was set up shop very much like Steely Dan did in the previous decade. Their band was primarily a two-man songwriting partnership and brain trust that employed (in addition to Sweet Pea and Sir Harry) a revolving cast of singers and musicians to execute their grand plans. Over the course of the band’s 1980’s four-album run they used as vocalists: Mitch Ryder, Mel Tormé, Doug Fieger (of the Knack), Leonard Cohen, The Roches, Iggy Pop, Downtown Julie Brown, Ozzy Osbourne and Frank Sinatra Jr. Oh, and if I’m not mistaken, Marshall Cranshaw sang exactly one word (“feelings”). Even reading the album credits for this band is a weird revelation.
But basically two overly clever white Jewish guys (one with a name, Donald Fagenson, weirdly almost identical to Steely Dan’s Donald Fagan) wrote soul and dance music with lyrics dripping with a slick sickness, and a multiracial lineup helped give it the necessary authenticity of performance. Each singer had a specialty: Sweet Pea sang the gritty Motown-style workouts. Smooth-voiced Sir Harry took the seductive soul burners. And David Was himself performed bizarre, stream-of-altered-consciousness freakouts like “Earth to Doris” and the title track.
This album produced two top twenty hits, the #7 “Walk the Dinosaur” and #16 “Spy in the House of Love”. They were two of the “safest” songs on an otherwise fairly absurdist collection. Chuckle-worthy lyrics pop up frequently, including the following from “Shadow and Jimmy” which was co-written by Elvis Costello:
For men without women are like fish without water to swim in
With their eyes bugging out they flop on the beach/And look up at the girls who are just out of reach
An average songwriter could have written the first line. The rest is lyrical genius.
Of course, this album is too great to still be in print. Nobody likes a smart aleck. But you can find used copies for pennies. Or wait and hope that it’s reissued by the heroes of the music world, the respectful reissue labels.
From the acoustic duo known as Hapa. The original version of “Olinda Road” appeared on their 1995 debut album. This slightly reworked version is from a Putumayo compilation of a couple years later.
These guys play an interesting mix of contemporary and traditional Hawaiian music alongside covers of artists such as John Lennon, U2, Santana and Santo & Johnny, as well as instrumentals that stretch the Hawaiian guitar pop sound a dozen different, appealing ways.
(I bet you can guess which Santo & Johnny song they covered)
Just thought you may have missed the Gin Blossoms’ last stab at the pop charts, since it only peaked at #75 in 1996. They broke up in ’97, then reunited in 2002 and have released two albums since.
Funny how you can love a song and totally not get it. Sometimes a lyric is everything. And other times it’s the music that has more to say to you than the words. This one is in the latter category for me.
Every Moment Has A Song 