Free video on Amazon Prime - making of "So" by Peter Gabriel

[KEW]

I really tremendously enjoyed watching this!
Link to "So" video on Amazon
It is hard to know how much or whether I should recommend it because if you are not a fan of the album, it would probably be pretty boring!
I will say I realized it was going to be a great time within the first 5 minutes, so if you are not hooked, you might not commit to the full ~80? minutes. Naturally, much of the documentary had the music from "So" playing.
A little trivia - Gabriel definitely has a streak of OCD and spent one year of his life devoted to making this album at a country farm house/cow barn he rented and equipped for the purpose. The shadow voice he uses for Mercy Street was recorded early after he slept in the studio before he was up long enough to lose his "morning voice" (the shadow voice vocal is an octave below his normal voice vocal). In "Don't Give Up", the drums are mixed in at 10% below recorded speed which gives them a unique character, and Tony Levin used a diaper under his strings (bass) to dampen them! I don't think I'm spoiling anything by mentioning these. Hell, I enjoyed the heck out of watching the guy playing with the mixing board on the various tracks from "So" as he was talking about it!

PS- Prime is offering this as one of a series of documentaries on the making of several important albums (all free with Prime),so you might see what else is available! The series is called "Classic Albums" and here is a link to a list (currently 201 search results)!
Search for "Classic Album" under Prime Videos

 

[ryanosaur]

Awesome! Thanks for the heads up. When I think about albums that are well produced, He's one I think of. I'll be checking that out for sure!

 

[KEW]

Awesome! Thanks for the heads up. When I think about albums that are well produced, He's one I think of. I'll be checking that out for sure!

Steely Dan Aja is the next on my list!

 

[KEW]

I was looking through the list and not all are straightforward free Prime offerings, but there are enough to keep me for a while!
The others seem to be free, but require Quello (which I know nothing about)!

 

[Old Onkyo]

Thanks Kew. Last night I found NPR Desktop Concerts, 680 concerts ~ 15-30 minutes in length. Great sound!

 

[KEW]

Thanks Kew. Last night I found NPR Desktop Concerts, 680 concerts ~ 15-30 minutes in length. Great sound!

Yeah, their "Tiny Desk" series is great!

 

[ryanosaur]

Just had the opportunity to watch that last night. Very cool. Even though I knew it to be a really good, well recorded and produced album, I hadn't listened to it since the new rigs been in place. Did that this morning!
To think, when I was a kid, I hated Sledgehammer and Big Time. They will probably never be favorite songs, but the other stuff on that album easily pushes it over the top as an all-time great!
Can't wait to check out the others, now.
Thanks again, @KEW !

 

[GrimSurfer]

Steely Dan Aja is the next on my list!

Well worth it. Even better sound quality than So.

I find this database useful for finding the best CD pressings. All versions of Aja appear to have high DR. This isn't always the case.

http://dr.loudness-war.info/album/list?artist=Steely&album=Aja

Steve Winwood, Back in the High Life, 1986 pressing, has fabulous sound quality too!

 

[GrimSurfer]

Just be careful interpreting the DR Database results. Dynamic Range is part of, but not only thing to consider in, a quality recording. Fidelity plays a big role too. Ditto for background noise (although the way the MAAT software used to compile the DR Database indirectly accounts for this).

An example of this is Radiohead's OK, Computer. All the releases have pretty low dynamic range. This is offset by pretty good fidelity... at least in the version I bought. So the result is decent sounding (musical taste excluded, though I like this album).

At least referring the DR Database prevents inadvertently buying an over-compressed recording. And there are lots of those out there, but often the good recordings are priced the same. So why pay more for something of lesser quality?