What are you listening to?

[charliechaplinfan]

I love Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet. My knowledge of classical music is patchy, I often listen to excerpts in movies or on TV and really enjoy the music.

I got a 70 cd set off amazon marketplace of Maria Callas studio recorded operas released by EMI. I've often liked opera, I know I like Puccini but have very little experience away from Puccini, I'm using these a lesson in opera.

[movieman1957]

A 70 cd set? That is a lot. That sounds like it will teach you more than you may want to know.

I love classical music but I never could get into opera. I don;t know whether is was the stories or the singing or both. Several years ago The Baltimore Opera company ran radio ads where an average guy would give you "cool" versions of the story. The tag line, which I always loved was "Opera, it's better than you think. It has to be."

[charliechaplinfan]

Oh I like that quote.

Undoubtedly there will be some that I'm not keen on but pricing the operas seperately on Amazon and they were selling at £17/£18 it made the price for 70 ridiculously cheap. Amongst the discs are the recordings she's most famous for and they have plenty of positive feedback on Amazon. So far I've listened to Tosca, Madame Butterfly and some of the compilations. It's going to keep me busy for a while.

[MichiganJ]

Happy 70th to John.

Happily eating a bit of crow about my comments about Yoko re-re-releasing John's albums. Unlike those released between 200-04, which were remixed and remastered by Yoko, the "new" versions are remastered versions of John's original mixes

So, which versions are better? Uh-huh. Yoko's mixes, to me, work best on Mind Games, Sometime in NYC, and Rock and Roll Music. I'm on the fence about Walls and Bridges.

Plastic Ono Band--remains one of the greatest albums ever, I humbly say. I prefer Yoko's mix, with one caveat. The album purposely sounds "murky" and raw (primal scream therapy and all) and that rawness is there in Yoko's mix. John's, though is more "murky", which becomes apparent in the one moment on the album where that murkiness is gone, and that's when John yells "Bea-tals" in God. It's still powerful in Yoko's mix; in John's it's a slap.

Imagine--The one album that I very much prefer John's mix. Throughout these new mixes, John's vocal is brought way out in front, and for whatever reason, Imagine is an album that benefits enormously from his heightened vocal presence. I Don't Want To Be a Soldier, always a favorite of mine, is pretty great.

Double Fantasy--Stripped Down--There's no reason not to pick this up, as it includes both the stripped down version and the remastered version of the original mix. This and Milk and Honey were two albums that Yoko didn't revisit so these are the first time for remastering for each. Stripped Down sounds like a really (really) great bootleg, and showcases Lennon's extraordinary vocals. It also really shows his playful side especially during the song's count-ins and fade out ad-libs. Yoko's songs, which I've always liked, sound pretty great, too.

Milk and Honey--still the hardest Lennon album for me to listen to, but well worth picking up if for no other reason than Nobody Told Me never sounded better. I wish Yoko had stripped this one down as well, but since the "official" version was never really official anyway….

[movieman1957]

So, is your line of work such that you get these to review or do you loads of extra cash?

As someone who still listens to my early Lennon on vinyl I have been waiting awhile. I am not as enamored with "Plastic Ono Band" as you but it is a powerful piece. Talk about unloading some pent up emotions.

"Imagine" is more enjoyable to listen to. I much prefer the production over "POB." I think "Jealous Guy" is as nice a melody as he ever wrote. This one and "Walls and Bridges" are the two I am looking most to getting. "Mind Games" had a few good tunes but too much is just sub-Lennon for me to worry about.

Christmas is coming.

[charliechaplinfan]

John Lennon 70, that sends shivers down my spine. What a musician.

When we had our mammoth 15 hour trip back from France with the kids we put a selection of our music on, the kids handsdown liked the Beatles the best and demanded they be turned up. That was great, me in the driving seat with the Beatles loud enough to drown out my singing along with them.

No matter who I listen to, whenever I turn back to the Beatles there's something there that's just a little better than all the rest.

[movieman1957]

Let It Be and Beatles For Sale. The clarity is amazing. Obvious separation in the channels on Beatles For Sale. The harmonies sound clear and better than ever. You can almost hear the contact on the acoustic guitar strings.

Let It Be is not my favorite Beatles album but songs like "I've Got A Feeling" and "Get Back" sound more lively. The strings in "I, Me, Mine" are more noticeable.

For how wonderful it is having a car stereo and an ipod (which is holding on for now) to listen to them on your regular stereo with a good pair of speakers should be revisited now and again. It's quite different.

Kevin:

I still refer back to your comments in Sept 2009 when you reviewed the albums.

[charliechaplinfan]

I've suddenly discovered the joys of downloading CDs and making my own CDs. Most of the music I want is public domain and quite cheap to get hold of plus I can listen before I buy. I have loads of CDs of 'proper' albums, created by artists to be listened to as a whole but I've lost count of the times I've bought compilation collections or the best of someone only to find that I like a handful of songs.

[MichiganJ]

I still refer back to your comments in Sept 2009 when you reviewed the albums.

Hard to believe it's been over a year. Yikes but it goes fast.

I'm still having a good time with the new masters, too. Let It Be, never my favorite album, is one that I enjoy much more now. "I've Got a Feeling" and "Two of Us" are in high rotation.

I'm currently making my way through the new Dylan Mono set. Like The Beatles' Mono recordings, the acoustic guitar really sounds brighter, cleaner and has more range, which seems counterintuitive except to remember that the recordings were originally mixed as mono, with stereo as the afterthought.

I've always liked the energy on Dylan's self titled first album, and in the mono recording the standouts are Baby, Let Me Follow You Down, See That My Grave is Kept Clean and he practically kills his guitar playing In My Time of Dyin'.

Freewheelin' is as great as it ever was, only greater. The guitar on Down the Highway has more presence and Bob Dylan's Blues sounds as if he's in the room with you. Actually most of the songs sounds as if Mr. Z if right there with you.

Times They Are A-Changing should be next, but I cheated and jumped through the rest of the collection to one of my favorite Dylan albums, John Wesley Harding. Frankie Lee and Judsa Priest is a standout, and in mono, he nearly reclaims Watchtower from Hendrix. Well, maybe not, but it's pretty great.

Bob is playing downtown this Sunday and I'd love to go. But it's Halloween and we have a neighborhood filled with kids who love to play in my wooded backyard (they ask very nicely if they can build forts and there are red stickers stuck on some trees with various rules as to how to enter their "club house" [hopping on one foot, etc.]) Gonna have to miss Bob, I think.

ccf: While I've yet to download any music, I love making my own CDs, too. The iPod allows for all kinds of "playlists", but I still prefer to burn a CD. It's kinda fun finding those I've burned in the past to see where my head was at at a given time. Heck, I'd still be making mix-tapes if I had a player in the car.

[pvitari]

I interrupted my musical theater and opera listening for something a bit different. I recently discovered Jack Guthrie, Woody Guthrie's cousin. He grew up around horses and music and was skilled at both -- he rode bucking horses in rodeo and also was a working musician. He had a big hit in 1945 with Woody's Oklahoma Hills. Unfortunately, he soon grew ill with tuberculosis, but ignored it to follow his musical career until it was too late, and he died far too early at age 32. He did leave behind a legacy of recordings and radio transcriptions which are available on CD, and you can also go to youtube to listen to his music. He had a cracking good band and his brand of country-western is pure delight.

[MichiganJ]

Of the few songs I have by Jack Guthrie, I really like him. But I have to admit that I tried to do the "Oakie Boogie" once, but it drove me wild. Guess it wasn't in the Oakie style.

This weekend my wife and I went to the Indianapolis Symphony who performed two works, Wagner's Siegfried-Idyll, which has some special meaning for my wife and I, and Mahler's 5th, the final movement being a personal favorite.

At the moment I'm listing to Uffie's Sex, Dreams and Denim Jeans and getting no work done.

[movieman1957]

At long last ( and without me hearing a word of it) itunes finally has The Beatles. Not that I need it because I have all I need but after years of fighting and negotiating and court and who knows what else it finally is there. I found out on Facebook of all places.

Or did I just miss something?

[MichiganJ]

You didn't miss anything, the fabs are now on iTunes. So far they have all of the stereo albums, including Past Masters and the Red ('62-'66) and Blue ('67-'70) albums. Each single album is $12.99 with the double albums at $19.99. Each single tune is $1.29.
I may actually download A Day in the Life from the blue album. It would be my very first music download, but I'd really like the remastered version without the "inner grove" tag on the end found on the Sgt. Pepper version.

iTunes does have a number of free streaming videos of the fabs, too, including the concert Live at the Washington Coliseum, 1964 (the one in the "round" where Ringo has to keep spinning his drum kit around.)

Yea, yea, yea.

[movieman1957]

I have been a frequent buyer on itunes. (Of course, frequent is relative.) I have bought some of the Moody Blues remasters there. Quite a few individual songs (that is the way I started) and several contemporary jazz and new age albums because they were almost to good to pass up. Some of those were as little as $7. I even bought a collection of Rachmaninoff Piano Concertos.

I guess there is a distinction in sound quality but 'm not sure I'm good enough to pick up on it.

What I have found odd over at Amazon is that buying the CD is sometimes cheaper than the downloads. I have been looking at getting some Alan Parsons remasters and the CD is about $7 but the download is $10.

Download away. It is very easy to do.

[MichiganJ]

Download away. It is very easy to do.

Maybe too easy. I can see myself becoming quite addicted to it.
When you download albums, do you also get a digital representation of the CD booklet, or is it just the cover artwork? I like to know who composed and played on each tune (which, granted, is often difficult to find even with the CD booklet.)