Mike Mettler

A new spatial audio option for headphones from Amazon Music Unlimited offers yet another Atmos experience that everyone can wrap their head around.

"I'm just very grateful we're allowed to, by grace, manifest some really, really high-standard, quality music. We do not have to be victims of static."

That's rock legend Carlos Santana, succinctly summarizing two things at once: a) the fine art of making music worth listening to, and b) being able to hear that music as clearly as the artist intended. (To that end, Carlos and I wound up switching phone lines during the front end of our conversation in order to hear each other with a much better-sounding connection, but that's another story.)

It only took Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith, a.k.a. the twin towers of Tears For Fears, 18 years to follow up what was thought to be their final album (September 2004’s Everybody Loves a Happy Ending), but February 2022’s The Tipping Point might just be the release that resides at the apex of four decades’ worth of their creative push-pull partnership. (Incidentally, you can head on over to The S&V Interview later today to catch my deep-dive conversation with Orzabal about the making of the new album and his thoughts about TFF’s long penchant for serving up great surround sound releases.)

All-channel mixing maestro Giles Martin shared some truly key insights during his sitdown with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe in a global virtual live event this past Monday, in celebration of the Atmos mix Martin had recently completed for The Beatles’ November 2000 collection of (count ’em) 27 U.S. and U.K. chart-toppers oh-so-appropriately titled 1—as well as for their groundbreaking double-A-sided February 1967 single, “Strawberry Fields Forever/Penny Lane.”