Music Reviews

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Music Reviews
The Mahler Symphonies on SACD — and Vinyl LP
Robert Ripps  |  Jun 22, 2011

Back in September 2002, I interviewed Michael Tilson Thomas about the launch of a bold new project with the San Francisco Symphony: a complete cycle of the Mahler symphonies to be released on hybrid multichannel SACD via the orchestra’s fledgling in-house label, SFS Media. At the time, Thomas already had clearly formed ideas about the sound he wanted:

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Music ReviewsMusic and Soundtrack FeaturesStreaming Movies and TVSpecial Features
The Making of The Beatles' Let It Be and Peter Jackson's Get Back
Matt Hurwitz  |  Dec 03, 2021
1968 was a busy year for The Beatles. They had traveled to India to study Transcendental Meditation with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, launched their own record label, Apple, and spent months at EMI's studios at Abbey Road recording their mammoth double-album, The Beatles (aka The White Album). But even before that album was released, they were planning what would end up as their post-breakup album and film, Let It Be. That disc was recently reissued by Apple/Capitol/Universal in a super deluxe edition, remixed by Giles Martin and engineer Sam Okell, complete with previously-unreleased bonus tracks, and the film has now been given a reimagining by Oscar-winning director Peter Jackson, in the form of The Beatles: Get Back on the Disney+ streaming service.
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Music Reviews
The Police: Synchronicity Super Deluxe Edition Box Set
Mike Mettler  |  Nov 14, 2024

Synchronicity is the album that vaulted the blended British/American trio The Police into the megaplatinum global-phenomenon stratosphere, itself a 10-track master class of envelope-pushing pop songwriting, clever and sometimes challenging song arrangements, and truly elite musicianship. To properly fete the band’s studio swan song, A&M/Polydor/Universal Music Recordings has issued several expanded multiformat editions of Synchronicity, including an 84-track 6CD box set and a more abbreviated 43-track 4LP box set. Read Mike Mettler’s review of both super deluxe editions to see if you should add either, or both, to your collection and listening rotation accordingly. . .

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Music Reviews
The Raconteurs: Consolers of the Lonely
Rob O'Connor  |  Jul 22, 2008
Third Man/Warner Bros.
Music ••• Sound ••••

To Jack White, everything is a concept.

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Music Reviews
The Replacements: Pleased to Meet Me - Deluxe Edition
Mike Mettler  |  Oct 09, 2020
Performance
Sound
"The Replacements are self-destructing right in front of me."

That's what I was thinking to myself as I watched these four Minneapolis-bred indie-rock stalwarts attempt to play through their rag-tag set while opening for Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers on August 19, 1989, at the Brendan Byrne Arena in East Rutherford, New Jersey.

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Music Reviews
The Replacements: Sorry Ma, Forgot to Take Out the Trash; Stink; Hootenanny; Let It Be
Brett Milano  |  Jul 15, 2008
Sorry Ma, Forgot to Take Out the Trash; Stink; Hootenanny; Let It Be

Twin/Tone/Ryko/Rhino

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Music ReviewsAudio Video News
The Rolling Stones Catalog Comes to HDTracks.
Stan Horaczek  |  Mar 03, 2011

It was kind of a big deal with The Beatles finally made their way onto the ever-growing digital music behemoth that is iTunes, but we find this news just as, um, satisfying. Starting this week, 27 Stones records will be finding their way onto the audiophile music service, HDTracks.com. The tracks have been pulled from remasters that were originally created for and released on SACD in the early 2000s.

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Blu-ray Movie ReviewsMusic Reviews
The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus - Limited Deluxe Edition
Mike Mettler  |  Aug 23, 2019
Performance
Sound
The rock and roll circus was coming to town. In 1968, Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger, The Who's guitar wizard Pete Townshend, and Small Faces bassist Ronnie Lane had collectively decided to organize a perpetual traveling show that would consist of equal parts live performance, grand spectacle, and mobile art installation, all rolled into one never-ending carnival bacchanal.
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Music Reviews
The Rolling Stones: Goats Head Soup Super Deluxe Edition
Mike Mettler  |  Mar 05, 2021
Performance
Sound
Show of hands, please—how many of you rate August 1973's Goats Head Soup as your favorite Rolling Stones album? Anyone? No? Can't say I blame you. Any record following The Stones' May 1972 career-defining double-album masterpiece Exile on Main St. would have an impossibly high bar to overcome, no matter what made the final cut. Fact is, Goats Head Soup had a master chef's menu stacked against it from the outset. And time has very much not been on its side, as Goats Head Soup has long served as a relatively underappreciated entry in The Rolling Stones' somewhat uneven mid-1970s studio-album canon.
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Music Reviews
The Rolling Stones: Remastered Series
Ken Richardson  |  Oct 21, 2002
THE ROLLING STONES Remastered Series ABKCO Music: SACD Sound: SACD Series:
We interrupt our program of covering multichannel music to take you back to the days of stereo-and even mono! But this isn't just any old stuff, it's the (one-time) greatest rock & roll band in the world, the Rolling Stones.
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Music Reviews
The Rolling Stones: Sticky Fingers—Super Deluxe Edition
Mike Mettler  |  Aug 07, 2015
Performance
Sound
The Rolling Stones are at it again. The world’s greatest band has rolled out the big guns for its 15-date North American stadium run that’s been dubbed the ZIP CODE Tour, a 19-song walk, stomp ’n romp through a half-century of impeccably unimpeachable classics. That taut live set places an emphasis on digging deeper into cuts culled from the perpetually seminal 1971 album Sticky Fingers, which has just been given the Super Deluxe box-set treatment by Polydor/UMe. A club gig at The Fonda Theatre in Los Angeles on May 20 saw The Stones rip that joint up 16 times, including their first stabs at Mississippi Fred McDowell’s “You Gotta Move” since 1976 and the dreamily soothing “Moonlight Mile” since 1999, both Sticky tracks having since made their way into regular rotation as part of the stadium set lists. (Longtime fans like yours truly feel The Stones should do intimate clubs gig like the Fonda outing more often, as it helps loosen up the vibe of songs that often become broader and less adventuresome in stadium settings.)
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Music Reviews
The Roots: Rising Down
Parke Puterbaugh  |  Jul 21, 2008
Def Jam
Music •••½Sound •••

For the second album in a row, this long-lived Philadelphia crew has branched into more strident, politically mi

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Music Reviews
The S+V Interview: Brann Dailor of Mastodon
James Rotondi  |  Jan 01, 2012

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Music ReviewsOther Tech
The S+V Interview: John McCrea of Cake
Mike Mettler  |  Jan 20, 2011

So I've been basking in the sounds of Cake's new chart-topping album Showroom of Compassion (Upbeat Records; cakemusic.com), and have to say that I'm really loving it.
Oh good. That would be horrible if it was a nightmare for you. [chuckles]

And it's a great album to listen to on vinyl. The bass lines on "Got to Move" and "What's Now Is Now" have real impact.

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Music Reviews
The S+V Interview: Mikael Åkerfeldt of Opeth
James Rotondi  |  Jan 05, 2012

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