search

Painfully Obvious

This Wall Street Journal article asks: "Are MP3s and the iPod ruining pop music?"

Included are comments from recording engineers such as New Jersey's own Alan Douches, who has worked with Fleetwood Mac and the Multi-Purpose Solution, and hi-fi scribes such as Stereophile's own Michael Fremer.

Also included is a little listening test that you can try at home.

Friends:
The difference in sound quality between MP3s and full-resolution audio files is painfully obvious. Really.

All
you have
to do
is
listen.

But, be careful. If you've…

Oh the Ironing

I think this is a not so subtle ruse to get guys to iron. If so, good job.

Hat tip to Nancy Friedman.

Survivor's Story

Stevie Nicks would like her forties back. "'It was eight completely wasted years of my life.' Here's the irony, she says: the 'powers that be' had sent her to the psychiatrist in order to keep her working, but the 'treatment' he gave her made work almost impossible. 'It's very Shakespearean. It's very much a tragedy.'"

Dark Star

Universe Today has posted a photo of a pulsar eating a star. Well, I'd never seen that before.

Bees on a Drowsy Day

Chet Raymo manages to coax an entire essay out of a description of a kiss: "The way bees on a drowsy day suck honey from fuchsia."

I recognize deadline flopsweat when I read it—and I also recognize that Raymo has delivered a graceful, lyrical gem. And on time, too, I'll wager.

Welcome Back My Friends

ELP As Christmas approaches, the reissues have begun to trickle in. Today's bounty was Emerson, Lake and Palmer's Brain Salad Surgery or what the notes call "Prog Rock's masterpiece."

Listening again after 20 years reminded me what an overblown bunch of jackasses those three truly were. The only three guys in England who could make Rick Wakeman look disciplined. But as soon as I pushed play, the odd pleasures of this record all came rushing back: the bleeding chunk out of Ginastera's piano concerto, the sacrilegious bit of William Blake to open the record, the gongs, the moogs; those…

The New Bold

Linguist John McWhorter casts a kindly eye on quotation marks conveying emphasis. Fine, but when he defends "impact" used as a verb, I suggest he goes too far. "Quite simply, the verbs view, silence, worship, copy, and outlaw all began as nouns. No one has a problem with them."

Hmmph. I say it's spinach and the hell with it.

You're Still Here?

Huckleberry thinks I don't have sufficient respect for nap time.

Is It Safe?

Bagheera thinks the space between the preamp and the upper shelf is exactly cat-sized.

Booker Little on Pure Pleasure

Pure Pleasure Records is a British audiophile-label that—like the stateside Analogue Productions, Classic Records, and Cisco Recordings—reissues blue-chip jazz albums on pristine virgin vinyl. Pure Pleasure’s focus is the catalogue of Candid Records, an adventurous label that lasted only from 1960-61, with critic Nat Hentoff in charge of A&R. In the past few years, PPR has released such essential works of modern jazz as The Newport Rebels, Charles Mingus Presents Charles Mingus, and Max Roach’s We Insist! But its latest reissue, trumpeter Booker Little’s Out Front, is a revelation.…