Loudness war or: How I learned to stop enjoying modern music

The final straw

Just last week, I picked up Hold on now, youngster..., the debut album from Welsh indie pop outfit Los Campesinos! Many reviewers have described them as Belle & Sebastian gone punk. Belle & Sebastian are one of my favourite bands; the last time I picked up an album by an unknown band who were compared to B&S was Neon golden by the Notwist (the love-child of B&S and German electro-pioneers Kraftwerk), and that album paid high dividends for me. So picking up the Los Campesinos! album at the relatively cheap price I saw it at seemed like a no-brainer to me.

Hearing an album by a band you don't know for the first time can be an exciting yet daunting experience. In this case, I had no idea what to expect. Male or female vocalist? Quirky or old-skool punk? The answer to these 2 questions was both and quirky respectively.

But what I wasn't expecting (although maybe I should have, in hindsight) was the wall of noise I was confronted with, within only a few seconds of the opening track. This is the audio waveform of what I heard:


Unfortunately, Los Campesinos! are not alone in the noise stakes. The crazy brick wall you see above is part of a disturbing recording industry trend which has become known as the loudness war.

The loudness war is associated with the perceived need for albums to be mastered louder and louder as each year goes by. The additional loudness is achieved in the mastering process through excessive use of technology known as dynamic range compression.

I have been against the loudness war in all of its forms ever since I become aware of it. But this Los Campesinos! album was the first time that I have ever returned an album for a refund because the CD was too bloody loud to listen to.

Background reading

I'd like to thank Nick Southall, of the sadly departed Stylus Magazine, for his insightful article Imperfect sound forever. This article is essential reading for anyone who even remotely takes their music listening seriously. As an avid reader of Stylus Magazine back in the day, this was the article which enlightened me with information about dynamic range compression and its mis-use in the record industry.

Nick explains compression in a lot of technical detail, better than I could ever do. Nick has been a bit of crusader against the loudness war for many years, and I really respect his opinion on music.

My article will only gloss over the technical details, so please do some background reading if you are interested in further information.

My musical habits

I'm not an audiophile by any stretch of the imagination. Since I purchased my iPod a few years ago, 98% of my music listening happens on the iPod (the other 2% being on CD when I buy an album on the weekend and don't rip it until I come to work on Monday).

My music is ripped at 160kbps CBR AAC. While a lot of music fans would spit at such a low bitrate (and I'll admit that this is far from CD quality), this is good enough for me. Whenever you decide on a bitrate to use, you always need to weigh up quality vs. file size. Back in the day, I only had an 80GB iPod which was disturbingly close to being filled up. I made an executive decision (with invaluable input from MattT) to rip all of my music at 160kps; it was a happy medium between file size and quality.

Down in the music rut at midnight

Over the past few years, I have found myself much less excited about newer music. There are of course some exceptions, but my musical listening tastes have definitely headed towards music from the 80s and earlier (and I'm not just talking about the cheesy fluff here). On my shortlist of potential blog posts was one entitled Down in the music rut at midnight, where I was going to talk about how I was so sick of new music coming out and how old music brings so much more excitement to my ears. But that post will have to wait for another day.

There are many subjective reasons why new music may stop exciting you. After all, there's only so many ways that you can combine vocals, guitar, bass and drums in innovative ways before history will start repeating itself (obviously I'm focusing on rock music here). If it's been done before, it's bound to be much less exciting the 2nd time around; I've certainly alluded to this in previous posts.

But there are also objective reasons why new music may stop exciting you. When I compiled my top 10 albums of 2005, the Go-Betweens' last album Oceans apart made it into the 10th position. At the time, I said the following:

Robert finds a renewed energy in his songs Here comes the city and Born to a family, while Grant reaches the melodic heights that came so naturally to him during their golden years on The statue and Finding you. This album would be higher on the list if it weren't for what appears to be a mastering problem on some of the tracks, where they sound distorted (especially on the iPod). It's both unfortunate and frustrating that a great album has been tarnished by a technical problem.

I wrote this review in December 2005. This was before Nick Southall had published his article, before I knew about dynamic range compression and the loudness war. Back on those days, I thought the only war that was going on was in Iraq. It is only with the benefit of hindsight that I can look back at this post, and see how the loudness war was affecting my enjoyment of music.

From a pure songwriting perspective, Oceans apart was one of the Go-Betweens' finest efforts (only their masterpiece 16 Lovers Lane can beat it). It's only the disgusting production which lets it down. I'm now at the point where, if I feel like listening to a Go-Betweens album, I would choose any album but Oceans apart to listen to.

Excessive compression in music is a little bit like having a dead pixel on your brand new LCD television. You can wallow away in blissful ignorance, enjoying the entertainment and being none-the-wiser. But as soon as you are aware of it, you won't be able to ignore it. So on behalf of the readers of this post who are like me, I humbly apologise for (potentially) destroying your enjoyment of a lot of modern music.

What is dynamic music?

In its simplest form, dynamic music has quiet bits and loud bits. If we listen to an album that has a wide dynamic range, we'll often find that we need to regularly adjust the volume knob while we listen to it. This is because the quiet bits are a little too soft to hear (so we turn it up to hear the subtle details). Then the loud bit comes in, and the new volume we adjusted it to is now too loud so we quickly turn it down again. You may especially notice this while listening to dynamic music in a car, where background noise also interferes with your listening experience.

Let's compare this with music which is generally played on the radio, or through PA systems in shopping centres. Music which is transmitted on the radio is compressed so it fits into the frequency band allocated to the station. Music played on PA systems is hardly an intimate experience, and its purpose is often for background music. Neither of these types of music would generally be considered dynamic.

Let's get (a little bit) technical

Okay, I'm gonna try and keep it fairly simple here. I'm not an expert in sound recording techniques and I'm not going to pretend that I am. There are great articles on the web that could explain this much better than I can. Treat this more as a Dummies guide to dynamic range compression™.

Over the course of the past 15 years or so, the loudness war has lead to albums becoming progressively louder as each year goes by. Why? Well, record company big-wigs seem to think that loud records sound better and will sell more records:

"If my record isn't as loud as your record, it will sound less powerful, less punchy and less impressive. This means it will also get less radio play. And this will result in less record sales."

So what's the solution? We'll have to one-up you and make sure ours is even louder than yours. It's the musical equivalent of the bully in the playground picking on the little guy with glasses, just to make sure that he shows him who is boss.

So what does dynamic range compression have to do with loudness?

Unfortunately, the maximum amplitude of a CD audio waveform is fixed. Trying to increase the sound of the quiet bits will cause the loud bits to exceed the maximum volume. If the waveform exceeds the maximum, it needs to be chopped off to keep it within range. This results in a square wave at the peak, and when a square wave is played back through a CD audio player, it "clips" or sounds distorted. Have you ever tried to play a data CD through a CD player? It's the same sound you get from that, but a bit more subtle as the clipping may only last for a fraction of a second.

To prevent clipping but still maintain the loudness that is desired, the entire sound wave is compressed to a similar volume, and then the compressed signal is adjusted to the new loud volume. The idea is that the whole sound wave is flattened into a homogenous block, which can then easily be adjusted to increase loudness without the fear of distortion or clipping.

In practice, it doesn't always work out. Many modern recordings, despite the "best" intentions of the engineers, still end up suffering from clipping and distortion. This has become disturbingly more prevalent in the past few years.

Compression has proper and tasteful applications during the recording process. For example, individual instruments within a recording can be compressed to make them sound more punchy, or reduce their sustain. This is what producers and engineers do; utilise the studio as another instrument to help make the end result (the album) sound as good as possible.

The problem with compression is that the music industry has been mis-using this technology for the past 15 years or so. Instead of compressing individual elements within a mix, the engineer takes the (already mixed) recording and compresses the entire mix again before it is pressed to CD. This practice completely narrows (and sometimes eliminates) the volume gap between the quiet bits and loud bits, so that everything ends up at a similar volume.

What about data compression?

As I said earlier, I compress all my my music at 160kbps. This is what is known as data compression, and it is completely different to dynamic range compression.

MP3 (and other similar) data compression algorithms are concerned with reducing the overall size of the file so you can fit more information on to your portable listening device. This is achieved by removing the inaudible (to humans at least) portions of the music - mainly the very high frequencies (which only dogs can hear), and very low frequencies.

Data compression also involves other smart techniques. If the compression algorithm detects two waveforms being played simultaneously, one quiet and one loud, it will remove the quiet waveform as it will be drowned out (and thus inaudible) by the loud waveform anyway.

While some data is lost forever in data compression, if you choose a decent enough bitrate, most listeners (except the keenest audiophiles) will find it difficult to tell the difference between a compressed MP3 and the original CD audio.

Most importantly, data compression is designed to preserve the dynamics of a recording.

Musical enjoyment

Dynamic range compression sucks the life out of music. The excitement that you get from a snare hit is gone in a compressed recording, because it is the same volume as the rest of the recording. That funky bassline that seems to come out of nowhere becomes part of the furniture. The beauty of a quiet, whispered vocal is lost because the volume of the vocal is the same as the rest of the mix. It's just not musical.

The disturbing thing is that, to the untrained ear, loud and compressed records do sound better. INITIALLY. It is only with subsequent listens that the listener realises that there is absolutely no depth to the recording. No hidden details, no subtle layers, no instruments buried under the mix.

Why not just lower the excessively loud volume by using the volume knob? Sure you can do that, and it's probably a good idea if you respect your ears. But thinking that this will improve the sound is completely missing the point. The signal has already been compressed, which means the dynamic range has been lost forever. All the volume knob will do is reduce the overall amplitude; the variation (peaks and valleys) have already left the building.

Have you listened to any music from recent years that has given you a headache? It's probably a victim of the loudness war. The human ear can be fairly tolerant to loud music and noises, but its tolerance is inversely proportional to the length of time it is subjected to the noise. When the music has a wide dynamic range, the quiet bits give your ears (and head) a break and a little bit of time to recover. This prepares them for the loud bits when they come.

WHEN THE MUSIC IS MASTERED AT A CONSTANT AND LOUD VOLUME, LISTENING TO IT IS SIMILAR TO READING AN EMAIL OR WEBPAGE WRITTEN ENTIRELY IN CAPITAL LETTERS. IF EVERYTHING IS LOUD AND IN-YOUR-FACE, IT GETS PRETTY TIRING AFTER A WHILE DOESN'T IT? THERE'S NO RELIEF.

But I like my music loud!

So do I! A lot of music sounds much better when played at a loud volume. So if the CD you want to listen has been mastered at a quieter volume to preserve the dynamics of the recording, how do I enjoy it loud?

There's a very simple solution to this problem. Reach for the volume knob and turn it up. This will increase the overall loudness of the entire waveform, but keep the new waveform in proportion with the original, quieter waveform. The peaks and valleys will be maintained and the dynamics will be preserved. Music can be both loud and dynamic, as long as the dynamics haven't been compressed out of the CD.

Some examples

Here is the audio waveform of I'll regret it all in the morning, a tender ballad by Richard & Linda Thompson from their 1975 album Hokey pokey:


And here is the audio waveform of Cast no shadow, a tender ballad by Oasis from their 1995 album (What's the story) morning glory:


Think you can spot the difference? Note that these songs are both [supposed to be] quieter moments on their respective albums.

Look at the peaks and valleys in the Richard & Linda Thompson track. Notice the variance in the wave form. Even if this song isn't to your taste, you get a pretty good feeling from looking at that waveform that it will at least sound pretty good.

Now look at the Oasis waveform. It just looks like a wall of noise. There's very little variance in the track. There's no highs, no lows, and nothing in between. IT IS JUST CONSTANT NOISE. All of the emotional intensity, subtlety and nuance has been sucked out of the music by excessive compression.

Don't get me wrong - that Oasis album is in my top 10 albums of all time. I grew up with this music. But there's no denying that the production is absolute shite.

The brick wall you see above is not what Phil Spector dreamt up when he invented the wall of sound.

Remasters

Remasters are one of the most disturbing casualties of the loudness war. Why? Because they take an album from the past which probably had brilliant (albeit a little bit quiet) sound and "remaster" it for the purposes of selling it off to a new generation of music listeners who may have never heard it before. The record companies would lead you to believe that a remastered recording is superior to the previous one in every way.

Unfortunately, the reality is a lot less pretty than this. In the modern age, remastering is often not a lot more than making the CD a lot louder so it sounds good when listened to next to modern CDs. As described earlier, there are limits to how loud you can make a CD, which is where our evil friend compression comes in. And as described earlier, compression of this form is completely lossy - once a CD is compressed, the dynamic sound is gone forever.

Record companies try to argue this by saying that the majority of music listeners in this day and age listen to music on their portable listening devices, such as iPods. The justification is that if you put your whole music collection on shuffle, you should be able to listen to an old (quietly mastered) Beatles song followed by a new (over-compressed) Muse song without having to get up and adjust the volume.

As I said before, I do practically all of my music listening on the iPod too. And last time I checked, my iPod had a feature on it called Sound check which automatically normalises the volume across subsequent songs so you don't run into this exact problem the record companies are trying to avoid. I'm not sure if other MP3 devices have a similar feature, but I don't care. Maintaining a consistent volume across songs on an iPod is no excuse for over-compressing music on the CD itself.

I'm now at the point where I will actively track down the original CD pressings of old albums, even if it means having to buy them 2nd hand on eBay. This is coming from a guy who only a few years ago sold a few of his original CD pressings to "upgrade" to a remastered version.

One thing to be aware of is that there are always exceptions. Some remasters are done tastefully, and with respect for the music. This is where the power of the Internet at your fingertips is a great thing. Read reviews, and not just from professional critics (who I suspect are often getting kickbacks from record companies). Read user reviews on Amazon and similar websites. You'll quickly find out whether a "remastered edition" is an improvement or butchering of the original album.

The good, the bad and the ugly

Bob Dylan was recently quoted as saying the following:

"I don't know anybody who's made a record that sounds decent in the past 20 years, really," ... "You listen to these modern records, they're atrocious, they have sound all over them. There's no definition of nothing, no vocal, no nothing, just like ... static."

While this is largely true, there are luckily still a few artists and bands out there who have the balls to stand up against the evils of the loudness war. These musicians have my utmost respect for standing up against this disturbing trend.

Manchester band Elbow have stood up against the loudness war, refusing to over-compress their music like many of their contemporaries, including Coldplay. Their latest album even has the Turn me up! logo on it, a non-profit organisation campaigning for the release of more dynamic records.

Ben Harper's latest album Lifeline proudly boasts that it was recorded entirely on analog equipment, with no use of Pro Tools. And you can hear it on the recording - rich, warm and dynamic. This is how music is supposed to sound; when listening to this album (from 2007) next to other albums from the same year, it sounds like a real musical experience and not a manufactured one.

Other recording artists with integrity, like Tom Waits and Augie March, have also maintained a high degree of dynamics in their recent releases.

I wish I could say the same about Oasis, R.E.M. and You Am I; despite the fact that they have written some great songs on their albums this year, the over-compressed sound doesn't make me want to listen to them again in a hurry. No matter how good the songwriting is, bad production can still ruin it. Even the (usually reliable) Elvis Costello went a bit too loud on his recent effort, although not as bad as some of the others.

Metallica are where it gets ugly. Their latest album Death magnetic is considered by many to be one of the loudest albums ever released. Take a look at this wave-form analysis. It's a monstrosity of music production, and it also suffers from excessive digital distortion or clipping. Which is a real pity, because apparently the songwriting and performance on the album is some of their best in years.

Most people will get a headache after listening to Death magnetic for longer than 10 minutes. You only need to listen to Master of puppets or Metallica (the "Black album") to know that music doesn't have to be compressed to the max to be powerful. Quite the opposite really.

The good news about the botched production job on Death magnetic is that many fans have noticed it and complained. Metallica are a very popular band, and I hope the flood of complaints will lead to some sort of revolution against the loudness war.

It must stop!

Conclusion

Thanks for reading my ramblings. While I am definitely not the first to write about the loudness war and dynamic range compression, I hope you found this article informative. If you find that newer music isn't exciting you as much as it used to, I hope this helps to shed some light on why this may be the case.

Further reading (and viewing)

The Loudness War - A great YouTube clip demonstrating how compression is affecting music
Imperfect Sound Forever - The article that started it all for me
Loudness war - Informative Wikipedia article
Top 10 worst sounding records, 1997-present - Nick Southall's list of poorly mastered albums...
Top 10 best sounding albums, 1997-present - ...and his list of the best sounding albums
Turn Me Up! - Organisation aiming to bring dynamics back to music

Confessions of an 80s music fan

I was born at the tail end of the 70s, at about the point where generation X meets generation Y. I guess you could say I belong to the XY generation, which is kind've appropriate considering my chromosome makeup.

Due to my point of entry in this world, I'll always refer to myself as an 80s kid. Most of my younger years were spent in the decade of the big hair, and I still have the acid wash jeans somewhere to prove it. This was before the days of the Internet (at least in widespread popular usage), before the putrid slop of reality shows (what we now call entertainment), and before we made people famous for the sake of being famous. I'm looking at you, Paris.

I grew up with matchbox cars, marbles, MAD magazine, Garbage pail kids and You can't do that on television. I was always afraid to say I don't know, lest a bucket of slime land on my head. One of my first memories of seeing a movie was seeing the original Back to the future with my parents when it first came out. I was so restless and annoying that I pretty much ruined the movie for them. It was only years later when I finally watched the movie and understood it. Of course, 1.21 gigawatts!

And of course, there's the music.

One of my earliest childhood memories was dancing to Van Halen's Jump in my next door neighbour's living room in the mid 80s. I also remember (in the latter half of the 80s) seeing Perfect by Fairground Attraction and The only way is up by Yazz and the Plastic Population on the music show of the day.

These were more innocent days; or, I was younger and more innocent. Before music clips consisted of scantilly clad women grinding against a pole. Sure that kind of stuff would be exciting for a teenager, but I'd like to think that 7 year olds could be shielded from that kind of stuff for a few more years.

Music from the 80s was without inhibitions. It was daggy, it was flamboyant, but in an ironic sense it was more real than most popular music released nowadays. It also made you happy. I challenge anyone not to smile when they hear the opening of The final countdown by Europe.

Yeah, I know it's the rose coloured glasses talking. We always look back fondly at our youth, forgetting the bad things, and romanticising the rest. It's human nature I guess.

It was my 2nd wedding anniversary last week, and my beautiful wife Lorin kindly bought me the following CD set (ok, I hinted that I wanted it):


I'm normally against compilations of this ilk. I almost put them in the same category as those 50 best songs to listen to while driving around with a truckie and eating a meat pie with sauce and the sauce has just fallen all over your shorts type compilations.

These decade-based compilations are not quite as bad, because at least they have some objective merit and aren't entirely based on what a record company hot shot thinks an Aussie bloke likes to hear at a BBQ. After all, there's probably a lot of Aussie blokes who dig classical music, and a lot more who never need to hear Khe sanh again.

Back to my point about objective merit - it's more difficult to argue with the choice of what songs to include on a CD called 101 80s hits. Firstly, a song should only be included if it had been released between the years 1980 and 1989. Secondly, the song should be a hit of some sort. I guess this term is a bit more subjective, which is where so many compilations fail.

When browsing these sorts of compilations in stores, there's a commonly recurring sneaky record company practice which I have noticed over the years. They put a few corkers at the start of the compilation, with slowly diminishing returns over the rest of the CD(s). The careless buyer will see the first few songs, think they are on to a winner, and buy the CD. It's only when they get home later that they realise it's an EP masquerading as a long player.

But this 5-CD set is not like that. Here's a sample of 5 great songs from each CD. Notice the tracks numbers of the selections:

CD1
1. Blondie - Call me
5. The B-52s - Rock lobster
8. Men At Work - Down under
13. J. Geils Band - Centerfold
17. Survivor - Eye of the tiger

CD2
2. A Flock of Seagulls - I ran
5. David Bowie - Modern love
13. Nena - 99 luftballoons
16. Limahl - Never ending story
20. Dead Or Alive - You spin me round (Like a record)

CD3
7. Philip Oakey & Giorgio Moroder - Together in electric dreams
9. Simple Minds - Don't you (Forget about me)
14. Huey Lewis & The News - The power of love
16. A-ha - Take on me
19. Starship - We built this city

CD4
2. Divinyls - Pleasure and pain
3. Mr. Mister - Broken wings
10. Cutting Crew - (I just) died in your arms
13. Europe - The final countdown
18. Rick Astley - Never gonna give you up (the Rick Roll himself)

CD5
5. Robert Palmer - Simply irrestistible
7. Fairground Attraction - Perfect
11. Fine Young Cannibals - She drives me crazy
19. Martika - Toy soldiers
20. Deborah Harry - I want that man

And that's just a sample of 25/101 songs!

I wouldn't expect those from generation Y to have have the same emotional attachment to some of these songs. And if I was coming to these songs fresh, without having grown up with them, I would probably laugh in the face of their 80s production awash with drum machines and synths. But for someone born in the same era as me, this 5 CD set is a treasure chest of memories.

Those who know me well know that I don't download music, even from legal online stores like iTunes. Everything that's included in my iPod has to be legitimately purchased in physical CD format. It makes acquiring new music so much more fun - downloading is just too easy. The thrill of the chase, etc.

I used to be more of a purist, and never would have considered buying a compilation CD set like this. Which is kind've why I have been getting more into soundtracks lately - they feel less dirtier than a compilation like this, as they have more of a conceptual unity to them (they were all in the same movie!). But to get this many great songs from the 80s through the purchase of single artist compilations or soundtracks would be a massive expense in both time and money. Considering that many of the songs on this compilation are from one-hit wonders, it would be a pretty fruitless task as well.

These songs and me will be together in electric dreams for many years to come. I look forward to them coming up in the shuffle on my iPod.

MP3: Philip Oakey & Giorgio Moroder - Together in electric dreams [Link removed]

P.S.

The most notable omission for me in this set is Come on Eileen by Dexy's Midnight Runners. I may have to buy one of their albums to get that song. As Homer Simpson once said, we haven't heard the last of them.

P.P.S.

I also would have liked to substitute Drive by The Cars for Tonight she comes. I already have Drive on their 1984 album Heartbeat city. Tonight she comes is more difficult to get hold of, as it's only available on their Greatest hits CD (which is redundant for me now) and possibly some soundtracks as well.

P.P.P.S.

Amazingly, I only had 6 of the 101 songs in this set already. Considering I always been an 80s music fan, having such a small overlap with the rest of my collection is pretty amazing.

Update: Song links removed.

The art of a great compilation CD (Part 2 of 2)

As promised in my previous post, I will now provide a list of my top 10 favourite compilations of all time. All of the compilations in this list are pretty close to perfect in my opinion; please don't hesitate to pick them up!

10. Cold Chisel - Chisel

For 73 minutes of fantastic Aussie rock, it really doesn't get much better than this superb disc. If you have any relatives or friends who live overseas and want to know what popular Australian music is like, this is the disc to give them. It starts with a bang with the classic cock-rock radio staples Standing on the outside, Rising sun and You got nothing I want. There's a few ballads around the middle of the disc (Breakfast at Sweetheart's, Choir girl) which show that these guys could write beautiful melodies as well. It keeps a few classics for the latter half of the disc, including Flame trees which is possibly my favourite Chisel cut. And, knowing that they wouldn't be able to top it, they saved their most well-known song until the end with Khe sanh. A gutsy move.

9. Madonna - The immaculate collection

The only compilation in this list that I don't have in my personal collection (although my wife has it); I felt it would be a travesty of justice if I left this one out. Say what you want about her as a person, and her more recent musical endeavours. The fact remains that this is a note-perfect collection of some of the best pop that the 80's and early 90's had to offer. Even the "never before released" tracks of Justify my love and Rescue me sit comfortably alongside her earlier classics such as Like a prayer, Borderline and Holiday. This is the template for how good pop compilations can be.

8. Tom Petty - Greatest hits

I was surprised when I picked this CD up recently how many of these songs I knew. It's a great feeling when you buy a CD expecting that you only know 2-3 songs and you end up knowing 5-6, and liking them too! This chronological ordered CD of Mr Petty's greatest hits is probably the only CD of his that you need to get; the melodies never end and you can't help but smile as it gets you caught up in its groove.

7. Creedence Clearwater Revival - Chronicle

The finest swamp-rock/blues fusion band released their fair share of great albums, but no disc is more satisfying than this stupendous collection of 20 classic old-skool radio station staples. Starting with a few songs from their traditional blues debut album, practically every song on this album screams out "classic" to the discerning listener. So many bands have tried to emulate the sound that these guys perfected on their fantastic run of singles, all of which are collected here. These guys are almost up there with the Beatles in terms of their sheer consistency, which is represented perfectly on this compilation. My only gripe with this album (and many other critics have commented on this) is including the 11-minute version of I heard it through the grapevine which unfortunately disrupts the flow of the CD, considering that most of the other tracks hover at around the 3-4 minute mark. But it's a small gripe relative to the beautiful tunes contained within.

6. Elvis Costello - The very best of Elvis Costello and the Attractions

Declan McManus has released many compilations throughout his career, but this one (now unfortunately deleted) tops the list. Why? Because it ticks that one "great compilation" box I mentioned in my previous post: it focuses on his golden years. Elvis changed record labels halfway through his career, recording with Columbia 1977-1986 and Warner Brothers from 1986 onwards (he changed record labels a few times more recently as well). With the record label change came a change in his sound as well, and this compilation wisely (in my opinion, anyway) focuses on his golden years from 1977-1986 (okay, so Goodbye cruel world wasn't so golden, but luckily there is only one track on here from that overproduced mess of an album). Like the Tom Petty compilation mentioned earlier, you may be surprised at how many of these songs you know. And as for the ones you don't know, well isn't about time you were introduced to the genius of Elvis Costello? This is also a great entry-point into his vast discography, and the songs you like on here will help steer you in the right direction when purchasing some of his proper albums which you will inevitably want to do. Pick it up on eBay if you can.

5. Crowded House - Recurring Dream

I absolutely envy anyone who hasn't yet heard anything by this Aussie/Kiwi band (although it's unlikely as they had some pretty big international hits early on in their career). Before getting this album, I knew a few of their songs: Don't dream it's over, Better be home soon...and a few others as well. But really, how can one band write so many fantastic songs and so many memorable melodies? This compilation, while not chronological, does a great job at covering a great cross section of their first 4 albums (the only 4 albums until Time on earth was released last year); it includes 4 tracks from each album, and 3 never-heard-before tracks. In doing so, they didn't make any of their albums redundant which meant that there was so much more to explore when you inevitably fell in love with them. And the 3 tracks aren't poor quality cast-offs strategically included to make the hardcore fan buy the album; Not the girl you think of you are may actually be my favourite Crowded House song of all time. That, my friendly reader, is a big call.

4. Queen - Greatest hits I

I received the double disc set of Greatest Hits I & II as a birthday present one year. Greatest Hits II covers most of their 80's output, which includes some classics (Under pressure) and some less than impressive material as well (Radio ga ga). But Greatest Hits I, which focuses on their peak 70's output, doesn't really have a dud in the bunch (I'll forgive them for Flash, because that was specifically for a movie soundtrack). Freddie Mercury was a genius, one of the finest singers of his (or any) generation. And the other guys were pretty bloody good as well. You probably know most of the tracks on this compilation, and some of my favourite songs of all time are contained within this hour-long set.

3. Bob Marley - Legend

A perfect example of showing restraint when it comes to releasing a compilation from an artist as influential as Bob Marley. They could have so easily released a double-disc set of his material, but instead they kept it to a lean 14-track 62-minute compilation. All of his classics are here: opening with the lovely Is this love, moving on to the beautiful live rendition of No woman, no cry...the tunes roll of this album like one of his joints before he smoked it. This isn't only some of the finest reggae music of all time, it's some of the best music.

2. The Cure - Standing on a beach

While the Cure are also a great "album band", they have also released many fantastic singles, and this disc collects the singles from the early part of their career, 1979-1985. This is one of the compilations in the list where the singles are played chronologically, and it really helps for a band who have been through so many different phases as the Cure. On tracks 1-4, they showed us why they were one of the best post-punk bands. On tracks 5-10, they moved into their more well-known (and pigeon-holed) gothic phase. The rest of the disc showed them edging more towards pop territory, which reached its peak on their The head on the door album from 1985 (the last album represented on here). They mastered every genre they tried, and proved to be influential to many bands who formed after them. And because it focuses on their earlier period, you still get to hear Disintegration from 1989 (arguably their best album) untarnished by hearing songs out of their context.

1. Sly & The Family Stone - Greatest hits

Really, just go out and buy this one now. I don't care what music you're into; country, metal or techno. Just get it. You can buy this so cheaply now - I was lucky enough to get it for $5 which is easily the best value in terms of dollars per listen that I have ever had in my entire music collection. I almost feel guilty, and feel that I should send Sly Stone a cheque to compensate for how cheaply I got this disc.

Anyway, this is life-affirming music of the highest order. That sounds like a wanky think to say, but it's true. Sly & The Family Stone were a multi-racial funk/goodtime band who broke all sorts of boundaries when it came to music. This is a 12 track 40 minute compilation, which makes it pretty short by compilation standards. It borrows from their earlier albums up until 1969's Stand!, and includes a few tracks which are unavailable elsewhere including the absolute classics Everybody is a star and Hot fun in the summertime. By stopping at Stand!, it avoids some of their darker moments like those on 1971's There's a riot goin' on; that make this the ultimate party album.

Even if you end up buying all of their albums after hearing this (and believe me, you will), this compilation is worth getting just so you can get those tracks. Seriously, go out and buy it now and let me know what you think. You will not regret it, and you will have a new favourite band.

Honourable mentions:

The Police - Greatest hits
The Kinks - Greatest hits
Pet Shop Boys - Discography
Paul Kelly - Songs from the south
Badfinger - The best of Badfinger

The art of a great compilation CD (Part 1 of 2)

Greatest hits, The best of, The very best of...whichever way you put it, there's no doubt that compilation CDs play a big part in many music collections.

I have talked in previous posts about how I was never a big fan of compilation CDs. I have also talked more recently about how I've become more fond of compilation CDs even since I've been converted to the joys of the iPod. My fondness for compilations has grown even more over the past year, and I have started to appreciate the joy of a well-chosen compilation as an entry point for performers with a large discography.

This is a two-part post. This, the first post, will provide the ground rules about what makes great compilations great and bad compilations suck. My second post will provide some concrete examples of some of my favourites.

Part 1: Ground rules for a great compilation

For every great compilation, there are countless others where the artists/bands (or possibly record companies) just can't get it right. I have started to appreciate that, like an album, there is an art to a great compilation CD.

Here are some of my ground rules for a great compilation. Note that this article is strictly talking about compilations of songs by the same performer (artist or band), not those 100% hits or Songs for the aussie truckie who likes pies compilations that are so ubiquitous in this day and age (and which I avoid like the plague).

Don't spread the compilation too thin. Many artists have had very long careers spanning decades - some examples being Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones and Neil Young. These artists have always had their peak period, and periods where they were lacking in inspiration. There's a simple rule here: keep the compilation focused on their golden years! There's no point including dud uninspired tracks just for the purposes of covering their entire career, especially when you do so at the expense of more tracks from their golden years.

Track order matters. Many critics insist on compilations being chronological, so you can see how the performer progresses. I tend to agree with this, but I don't think this should be a strict rule. All I insist is that the compiler pays attention to track order. Make the compilation flow in a logical way. Don't just use the CD as a dumping ground for songs - show some care!

Don't fill the CD just because you can. This comment definitely applies to albums, but it also applies to compilations. Don't feel compelled to release an 80 minute compilation CD if you only have 60 minutes of quality material. I'd take a focused hour-long effort over a patchy 80 minute compilation any day of the week.

Keep the compilation to a single disc. This is sure to be a controversial point, but I stand by it. Why? Because you play a compilation CD to get a sampler of great songs by the artist. All killer, no filler. Unless the artist can truly justify a two-disc set (and there are some that could pull it off), I'd rather have a single disc. Otherwise the great moments will get spread over two discs, making my decision about which one to put on all that more difficult. Some examples of the 2 approaches: the Hoodoo Gurus' excellent and focused single-disc Electric soup vs. their patchy double-disc hits and rarities set Ampology. INXS also had a great single disc set, which I traded in for a double CD of some great and some less inspiring tracks.

Don't obsolete proper albums by the performer. A compilation should be an entry-point into a performer's discography, but it shouldn't include too many tracks from a single album, thus rendering that album almost obsolete. Save some tracks for the real fans who want to buy their albums and still experience the joy of hearing most of the tracks on the album for the first time. Some examples of this are Creedence Clearwater Revival's Chronicle (almost making Cosmo's factory obsolete) and The Police's Greatest hits (Synchronicity).

Keep the rarities off the disc. Following up from the last few points - a compilation shouldn't be about rarities. That's what albums and B-sides compilations are for! You have to reward the person who goes out and buys the proper albums by the performer. If you give the casual compilation purchaser these rare tracks, it feels like you are cheating the real fan. Also ties in with the previous point about not rendering albums obsolete with a compilation. Focus!

Include exclusive track(s) not available elsewhere. This is an interesting point which I may or may not always agree with, and it all comes down to order of purchase. If the compilation CD is the first CD I buy of the performer, having a track unavailable elsewhere is a great thing. It means that the compilation CD itself will never become obsolete if I end up buying all their albums anyway. But if the compilation CD comes out after I already have many of their albums, the exclusive track is a real slap in the face to try and extract more money from me even though I already have (almost) all of the tracks on it!

Avoid premature compilation. Maybe there is a nasal spray available for this one; I do recall reading something in my email about it. Coldplay released a best-of (in the UK only, from memory) after 3 albums. Silverchair did the same. Yes, it's usually not a decision made by the performer, but a greedy record company trying to cash-in on the Christmas buying season. But it just doesn't make any sense. If you've only got 3-4 albums of material to choose from, surely it isn't all going to be A-grade material. And the artists who don't make it past their 4th album? Well eventually their albums will go down in price, so why not just buy them all. There are some exceptions to this rule: The Smiths only released 4 albums, but had some great compilations. But that's because they had a lot of non-albums singles to include on there as well.

Thanks for reading, and stay tuned for part 2 in this series. What makes a compilation great for you?

B-Sides and Rarities compilations

On the way to work this morning I gave a listen to Nick Cave's B-Sides and Rarities compilation triple CD that was released recently.

Now normally I am an album guy all the way (which is one of the reasons I haven't purchased an iPod yet), but I definitely think there is room in any good CD collection for rarities compilations.

It's different to "Greatest Hits" or "Best Of" releases which essentially become redundant when you end up liking the band and buying all of their albums. Not only does it become redundant because you end up having multiple copies of the same track, but it can deter from the enjoyment of the proper albums when you get them, because you already know so many songs from them.

With classic British band The Jam, I made the mistake of buying two (!) compilation albums before buying any of their albums. The first one I got was Beat Surrender, a sub-par compilation of pretty average Jam tracks with a few exceptions like the brilliant A town called malice and That's entertainment. I should have gone for one of their albums at this point, but instead I stupidly decided to go for another compilation, The Jam Collection. This was a much better compilation, but by the time I got around to purchasing their best album All mod cons, I already had six out of the twelve tracks on it! Considering one of the remaining six tracks was a Kinks cover (David Watts), it definitely detracted from my initial enjoyment of the album. It's like seeing bits of a movie in a hotel room at different times, and then trying to watch it all from start to finish. Why not just watch it from start to finish up front?

But, I digress. I don't see B-Sides and Rarities compilations as having the same issues as best-of compilations. Firstly, there's generally the lack of redundancy. Even if there are album tracks on it, they are generally scarce and usually they give you a different version than the album track (e.g. a demo or acoustic version). Listening to the first disc of the Nick Cave set this morning, there were acoustic versions of two of his classic cuts - Deanna and The mercy seat. I have both of these on the Best of Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds CD, but it's great hearing these different versions of the songs. Whether they are works in progress, or just alternate versions, they give you a window into the artistic process that the artist goes through when recording music.

I think Nick Cave is one of those artists who suits the "rarities" compilation format really well. His music has such a rustic and shambolic feel to it, and hearing bits and pieces on a compilation like this is a great way to experience his music. There's also an alternate version of The moon is in the gutter from his debut album From her to eternity. I always loved this song when listening to that album even though I wasn't a huge fan of the album as a whole. But hearing the alternate version on the rarities compilation made me start to appreciate the song again.

Finally, here are some of my favourite "B-side and rarities" compilations:

Oasis - The Masterplan

Quite honestly, this B-Sides compilation has some of Oasis' best ever songs on it. Their B-Sides are better than many band's A-Sides. And the trilogy of Listen up, Rockin' chair and Half the world away could be the best set of three consecutive songs that I know on almost any album.

Suede - Sci-fi Lullabies

In hindsight, disc two is pretty shite (with a few exceptions). But disc one has many of the best Suede songs ever released. Some of my personal favourites are To the birds, and The living dead and the best of the bunch -- the utterly beautiful My dark star.

The Smiths - Louder than bombs

Amazingly this actually comes close to being the definitive Smiths "album". So many classics on this one, I don't know where to start. Of course, there's Please please please let me get what you want (which could have been a contender for one of the longest song titles until Sufjan Steven released his recent album Illinois), Half a person, Girl afraid, William it was really nothing, You just haven't earned it yet baby -- the list goes on. With only one dud in the bunch (the shocking cover Golden lights), and only one song that overlaps with their albums (a different version of Hand in glove from their debut) -- this compilation is a great complement to their four proper studio albums.

Crowded House - Afterglow

It was sad when Crowded House broke up, but luckily this compilation was released shortly afterwards to help ease the pain. Sacred cow, Help is coming and Recurring dream are all classic Crowdies songs. My telly's gone bung (written and sung by the late Paul Hester) is not without its charm. A very solid compilation.

Beatles - Past Masters Volume One & Two

For conservation of space I have only included the album cover from Volume One, but no list of classic B-Sides and Rarities compilations would be complete without mentioning these. Technically they don't really fit into this list, as they are a collection of non-album singles, but since they also include the B-sides of said singles, it can make the cut. Past Masters Volume Two almost reads like a Greatest Hits CD: Day tripper, We can work it out, Hey Jude, Revolution. Rain is a great B-Side, and Ringo thinks that this is his finest drumming performance.

Manic Street Preachers - Lipstick Traces
[A secret history of]

Looks like it isn't such a secret anymore, because you can buy this in CD stores now (and for a bargain price!). This compilation contains many underrated tracks in the Manics' oeuvre. Some of my favourites are 4 ever delayed, Socialist serenade and Democracy coma.

The Stone Roses - Turns into stone

Some stone-cold classics on this compilation of non-album singles and rarities. It's the only place you can get the definitive Roses cut Fools gold (unless you have the dodgy import version of their debut album). But there's lots of other great cuts on this compilation including Elephant stone, Mersey paradise and their paean to oral sex, the appropriately titled Going down.

Air - Premiers symptomes

Solid compilation of early non-album tracks from these French dudes who are more laid back than Paris Hilton was in One night in Paris. This compilation is notable for including my favourite Air track, the sublime J'Ai Dormi Sous l'Eau.

Thanks for reading!