Im not talking about his musical ability, I can appreciate that, hes got incredible talent. Im talkin about the material. My girlfriend's boss is Al's cousin and he lent an employee the demo of Flesh on Flesh to copy. I copied it for him and got a chance to listen to it. The production is awesome, you can tell exactly where the players are, but it lacks drive and passion. To me it sounds sterile, especially that cuban track at the end Senor Mouse. If you want to here Latin Music done right listen to Hector Lavoe's greatest hits. Great voice, funny, intelligent lyrics, and a great band. Too bad the recording isnt the greatest, which brings me back to the beginning of this thread. I enjoy the music more when Im doing other stuff, but when I sit down for some "serious" listening the poor recordings really distract and even annoy (tzzzz) me. Why cant there be more stuff made like The Flaming Lips "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots". The material is original and rockin and the recording is well done.
Speaker placement and good/bad recordings.
Check my system out, my newest components are the speakers(JmLabs706). These speakers replaced a pair of PSB Alphas. I now hear more detail and the bass is tighter. Vocals also stand out a lot more. I was listening to Dreams from Fleetwod Macs new greatest hits double cd. Its been remastered and sounds very good. It takes such careful speaker placement to get it to sound that good, that it is driving me crazy. One freakin millimeter left or right makes such a difference.Granted my room isnt set up ideally, but...ah well ignorance is bliss. Anyway its a very good recording but when everyone joins in and sings "...players only love you when theyre playin..." I hear a tzz coming from the right speaker. I started freaking out because I heard the same thing with my old PSB speakers. I thought I had blown the tweeter thats why I bought the JmLabs in the first place, that and I craved better detail. I switched l/r speakers and heard the same thing and when I played it through another stereo I heard the same tzz. So I happily deduced that its the recording and not my speakers. This brings me to my second point:
Great pop music is so poorly recorded and bland jazzy crap is recorded so well, its soo disappointing. I was listening to a friends Al Dimeola and my jaw dropped. Damn did my stereo sound great, awesome soundstage and detail. Then my eyelids began to follow suit and drop as well. Damn is this stuff boring, homogeneic, uninspiring, unnnh. Which brings me to this frustrated point most of my collection is great rock/pop/r&b/hiphop and it sounds like crap. So what am I to do? What choice do I have but to listen to crap?
Great pop music is so poorly recorded and bland jazzy crap is recorded so well, its soo disappointing. I was listening to a friends Al Dimeola and my jaw dropped. Damn did my stereo sound great, awesome soundstage and detail. Then my eyelids began to follow suit and drop as well. Damn is this stuff boring, homogeneic, uninspiring, unnnh. Which brings me to this frustrated point most of my collection is great rock/pop/r&b/hiphop and it sounds like crap. So what am I to do? What choice do I have but to listen to crap?