Video of the Week: The Truth About Popular Music

These Are the Songs a High-End Audio Company Uses to Test Its Speakers

From Leonard Cohen to Eva Cassidy, here’s how the audio experts at Sonus faber ensure the best sound for their line of speakers

(via Rolling Stone} by Tim Chan

WHEN PAOLO TEZZON puts his Sonus faber speakers through the paces at the company’s headquarters in Italy, he has a very specific checklist of things he’s looking for, to make sure they’re sounding their best.

“There are many things I try to address any time I test a loudspeaker system,” Tezzon tells Rolling Stone, on a recent visit to the Vicenza factory where all Sonus faber audio systems are still designed and manufactured today. “First and most importantly, at least to me,” he says, “is the overall ‘tonal balance,’ meaning all the frequencies must be present and well-harmonized.”

“Sonus faber tailors the sound of our creations,” Tezzon explains, “so that our speakers will never sound artificial to human ears, but rather replicates natural sound as best as possible.”

Other things that can affect the way your speakers sound: “transparency,” a.k.a. “a speaker system’s ability to reveal every detail, down to the smallest ones, contained in the recording,” Tezzon says. To wit: during a listening session, Tezzo demonstrates how a speaker should reflect not just the main voice, but every background vocal and harmony too. Listening to a rock or jazz track? A good pair of speakers should let you hear the drum beat down to the distinction between hi-hats and snare…

Read more: https://www.rollingstone.com/product-recommendations/electronics/sonus-faber-speakers-review-1242267/

Video of the Week: Chico Marx Plays the Piano with an Apple

See also: https://edcyphers.com/2021/07/11/video-of-the-week-chico-marx-plays-beer-barrel-polka/

See also: https://edcyphers.com/2021/07/11/video-of-the-week-harpo-marx-plays-serious/

“Blurred Lines,” Harbinger of Doom

How Robin Thicke, Pharrell, and T.I.’s cursed megahit predicted everything bad about the past decade in pop culture

(via Pitchfork) by Jayson Greene

“Blurred Lines” wasn’t supposed to be a meaningful song. It was, by design, a trifle: Pharrell, in imperial-superstar mode, goofing off with the white soul singer and textbook sex idiot Robin Thicke and tossing in a tongue-twisting T.I. verse later for good measure. It’s safe to assume that no one involved in the making of “Blurred Lines” assumed anything legacy-defining was happening in the room where Pharrell wrote the lines “I feel so lucky/You want to hug me/What rhymes with hug me?”

Now, 10 years since its March 2013 release, “Blurred Lines” is a poisonous time capsule. In many ways, all of them unfortunate, it could be considered the song of the 2010s. Pick any disheartening pop-cultural trend of the past decade and chances are it applies to “Blurred Lines”: The hollow outrage cycle in news, increasingly reliant on hot takes tossed out with superhuman speed, often without a speck of human logic? The predatory power dynamics of the entertainment industry, and American society’s ongoing dismissal of consent? The increasingly litigious pop landscape, in which lawyers and music publishers fight for scraps, and every pop song feels safely Xeroxed from the last one? Every decade gets the songs it needs and the songs it deserves…

Read more: https://pitchfork.com/features/article/robin-thicke-blurred-lines-10-years-later/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=pocket_hits&utm_campaign=POCKET_HITS-EN-DAILY-SPONSORED&HUNGRYROOT-2023_04_01&sponsored=0&position=7&scheduled_corpus_item_id=2e6c1538-da09-4edf-a07a-31621526dc9d

Video of the Week: Vocal Analysis of Electric Light Orchestra’s “Telephone Line”

See also: https://edcyphers.com/2023/08/27/video-of-the-week-electric-light-orchestra-strange-magic-livin-thing/

Video of the Week: Classical Composer Reacts to The Moody Blues’ “One More Time To Live”

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