FLACs sound better than CDs because they never have to error correct fingerprints, dust, or scratches.

I'll see your 8-track and raise you a R-72

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https://www.stereophile.com/content/audiophile-music-server-project

Musicians are making way less, adjusted for inflation, than they did back in the 70s.

Anytime someone says to me "Today's music sucks", without fail, they tell me they only listen to 50s rock or 70s rock; always some form of music that went out of style 50 to 70 years ago .

But, today's bands are much better recorded and the singers can actually deliver the goods live.

There are a bunch of "Led Zep" style bands out right now that are much better than Zep.

1. Live, the singers can actually hit the high notes with ease - not just croaking along.

2. The songs are recorded well and don't sound like they were recorded under a bog.

3. They actually write their songs, instead of stealing them uncredited from old bluesmen.

Scorpion Child would be one example. Better than Zep in every way - especially live:

Hip Hop is only 2% ahead of Rock in 2017 Nilson totals (25% of all music played).

23% of all music played in the US for 2017 was rock.

So it's not like the sky is falling on old white guys.

In fact, the #1 selling album of 2017 was Ed Sheeran.

(picture for grandpa "Ed who????")
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The #2 selling album for 2017 was Taylor Swift.

(Picture for grandpa)
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The reason streaming sucks is the low bitrate.

If you have the hacked Pandora that saves your upvoted songs, you can see that the Pandora files are only 64kbps (most normal Mp3s are 320K).

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Spotify is just as bad.

Again, the hacked client that lets you save tracks in your Android "Music" folder shows that they are only 96kbps.

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So if you ever wonder why streamed music is so fatiguing to listen to, and why even with good headphones it sounds like tinfoil......

I have.

$240 a year is a pretty big ticket.

And their search sucks. If you can't spell it exactly, Tidal can't seem to find it. Really sucks in the car, when you are sure to misspell something.

When it first started, it had a pretty lame catalog, but nowadays it's fully stocked.

Some artists have put Tidal Exclusive songs on Tidal (because Tidal pays a larger royalty to artists than any other streamer).

It's FLAC quality, so that rocks; and if your player can handle it, Tidal can even do MQA encoded files.

The only drawback is the search and the cost.

The problem is that Windows re-encodes everything to 48Khz on the fly.

That's why when you try to play a DTS encoded CD on a Windows machine, it just blasts out noise. When you play it in a CD player, it plays.

If you listened on a Windows computer, they were all the same resolution.

You would need a good set of headphones, a quiet room, and driver software to bypass windows native sound driver.

The only way to hear the difference is:

http://www.asio4all.org/
.

I was just pointing out that the "see if you can hear the difference" website was a scam.

Especially with Buckethead on lead guitar.

That guy is 50x better than Slash.

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They have the #9 song in the country right now....

https://www.billboard.com/charts/hot-mainstream-rock-tracks

and the #3 rock album:

https://www.billboard.com/charts/hard-rock-albums

In the old days, Billboard would call (you know, on a phone) a group of record stores and ask them what they sold that week.

This of course allowed employees to report higher record sales to bands they liked, or allowed the mob to alter the reports in some markets.

But in 1990, Nelson switched over to Soundscan, and using barcode readers, tracked the actual unit sales. This brought Alternative, Hip Hop and Country music way up in the ranks. Suddenly all the **uncool** music was selling!

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Fast forward 3 decades, and Nelson now tracks EVERYTHING it's human drones listen to.

When you see someone wearing a Pager nowadays, that pager is actually a Nelson tracker that is listening to the person's entire life.

Listen to Greta on Youtube for more than a few seconds? It's tracked and counted.

Go to a movie, or even watch a pirated movie? It's tracked and counted.

Watch CNN in the morning? They count it.

Listen to the one Country song you like on Spotify? Counted.

It's been like that since the dawn of time, it did not just happen today.

#1 songs:

1973 "Tie a Yellow Ribbon 'Round the Ole Oak Tree"

1974 "The Way We Were" Barbra Streisand

1975 "Love Will Keep Us Together" Captain & Tennille

1976 "Silly Love Songs" Wings

1977 "Tonight's the Night (Gonna Be Alright)" Rod Stewart

1978 "Shadow Dancing" Andy Gibb

The worst music of all time, and imagine, that was when sales were being reported by phone - think how bad the actual #1 songs were!

Even if we switch to 1990 when Soundscan cleaned up the joint:

1990 "Hold On" Wilson Phillips

1991 "(Everything I Do) I Do It for You" Bryan Adams

1992 "End of the Road" Boyz II Men

1993 "I Will Always Love You" Whitney Houston

1994 "The Sign" Ace of Base

1995 "Gangsta's Paradise" Coolio

1996 "Macarena" Los del Río

Again, the worst songs of all time, and those are based on real sales figures.

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So when people talk about "how good music USED to be" or other nonsense, remind them that Led Zep, KISS, Bruce Springsteen, The Who, Jimi Hendrix or Bob Dylan; never had a #1 song.

Easily KISS's worst song with the original lineup

Terrible song, made worse with that terrible synthesizer playing the melody. Bruce went from a Dylan wanabe, to a working class poet, down to assclown sellout (note the entire front cover is his ass). The absolute worst album ever made.

2nd worst VH song. Again the synth makes it so dated, so sucky. The end of the band, mercifully.

#1 worst Van Halen AND worst Sammy Hagar song, a career milestone for both of them. Lamer than 2 retarded kids fighting under a blanket.

~probably the worst of Floyd's popular songs. So banal. The one good this is that the howl at the beginning gives you just enough time to to change the station before the monotone voice starts droning.

One of Zep's worst rip offs, sanitized lyrics and all. Has absolutely no groove compared to the original

You got to put in the card that makes the bridge pickup into a single coil for that one.

Muse would be an example of a popular band that still does the Concept Album gambit.

When the apocalypse comes, everyone who did not buy all their music on vinyl media is going to be sad.

"This was a recording from my band, Clutch."

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This is Pinside.

There are no gray areas.

DRC bombed as a single, in fact, the song sucked so bad, it did not even chart.

Beth was starting to be played in a few markets, so KISS re-released the single, with Beth as the A side instead.

The single with DRC as the A side is much more valuable today.

I remember them being the biggest band in the world in the 70s, but I don't remember regularly hearing them on the radio until they became a classic rock act.

You would hear "New York Groove" on the "American Top 40" show, but I never heard it in heavy rotation - and it was #13 on the charts.

Just like when "Ride the Lightning" was on the top 40 charts, they NEVER played Metallica on the radio (too bad we can't go back to that).

Highest charting KISS song, evah.

All the big storage iPods, Pono, 2017 Walkman, tablet away from wifi

At least it warns parents of incoming stranger danger

That's because MJ only had sleepovers with little boys.

Don't forget the perversion the cops found when they came to drag his corpse out of the bedroom:

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I'm so glad he's dead.....

I did not see the BBC doc, but I'm remembering him marrying some girl who was 15 a few years back.

If the record company is making money, they will sweep everything under the rug for you.

Remember when the FBI discovered that MJ paid off 23 sets of parents so he could have sex with their little boys?

I don't like shlt like that at all.

That's me.

I'll do just about anything, man, woman, animal....but not children.