

The Next Track
Doug Adams and Kirk McElhearn
Doug Adams and Kirk McElhearn discuss music and musicians, and how we listen to music, whether it be analog or digital, downloaded or streamed, audio, or video.
Episodes
Mentioned books

Sep 13, 2023 • 33min
Episode #264: The Heyday of Album Artwork
A new documentary about Hipgnosis, the design team that is famous for covers of albums by Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, and many others, looks at the period when album artwork became an important element of rock albums.
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Show notes:
Vinyl. Album. Cover. Art. - The Complete Hipgnosis Catalogue
Squaring the Circle
Dave Harrington of DARKSIDE and the Dave Harrington Group on Music Between Genres
Our next tracks:
Darkside
Mud: Use Your Imagination
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Aug 30, 2023 • 30min
Episode #263: More Thoughts on Dolby Atmos
It's been a while since we've talked about Dolby Atmos, so we decided to discuss how much it has changed the way we (well, Kirk) listen to music. (Doug doesn't have an Atmos setup yet.)
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Show notes:
Episode #214 - Chris Connaker on Music with Dolby Atmos and Spatial Audio
Sonos Arc
Sonos Sub mini
Gerard Cousins: The Poet Acts
The Dark Side of the Rainbow
Brian Eno: FOREVERANDEVERMORE
Grateful Dead: Reckoning
Our next tracks:
The Necks: Sex
Talking Heads: Stop Making Sense (Deluxe Edition)
Note: I've listened to Sex, by The Necks, several times recently. When I went to prepare the show notes, I couldn't find it on Apple Music any more. For some reason the artist has removed this from streaming.
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Aug 16, 2023 • 28min
Episode #262: Personal Music Players
Doug bought a Sony Walkman (not one that plays cassettes), and we discuss personal music players, as well as boom boxes, which were collective listening devices.
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Show notes:
The Zen of Everything, Buddha Basics 02: Dukkha Sucks
Rude Boy (don't watch this movie)
Our next tracks:
Sugarhill Gang: Rapper's Delight
ABC: The Lexicon of Love
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Aug 2, 2023 • 28min
Episode #261: Three Chords and the Truth
Classic rock is back. Its influence is extending, in part because of its presence in movies and TV shows. It is the lingua franca of popular music.
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Show notes:
Rock’s Resurgence
Fred Jacobs
Simon Reynolds's Notes on the noughties: The musically fragmented decade
Yacht Rock
Our next tracks:
Eraldo Bennochi & Harold Budd: Music for "Fragments from the Inside"
Apple Music Alternative - Post-Punk Deep Cuts
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Jul 19, 2023 • 26min
Episode #260: Live Albums Redux
Live albums are very different from studio albums, but also sound very different than what we hear when we attend concerts. We talk about how live albums work, what sort of artist makes live albums, and whether anyone would want to hear a Taylor Swift live album.
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Show notes:
Episode #19 – Live Recordings and Studio Recordings
Rolling Stones: Four Flicks
Bob Dylan: Supper Club, 1993
Our next tracks:
Grateful Dead: Here Comes Sunshine
Frank Zappa: You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore, Vol.2: The Helsinki Concert
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Jul 5, 2023 • 31min
Episode #259: Music Festivals
It's summer, and there are music festivals. We discuss the Glastonbury Festival, attending live concerts, and more.
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Show notes:
Glastonbury Festival
Glastonbury Festival on the BBC iPlayer
MUBI
Annette
Our next tracks:
Pat Metheny: Dream Box
Beck, Bogert & Appice: Live 1973 & 1974
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Jun 21, 2023 • 30min
Episode #258: Opera
Doug and Kirk don't know a lot about opera, but they discuss it anyway.
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Show notes:
King of the World: The Life of Louis XIV
Mezzo
Carnegie Hall+
Berlin Philharmonic Digital Concert Hall
OperaVision
Audience member banned from Royal Opera House after he loudly booed child singer during aria
Our next tracks:
Lully: Atys
Motorbike: Motorbike
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Jun 7, 2023 • 29min
Episode #257: The Smart Home and Music Listening
We discuss home automation and using music listening music devices around the home.
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Show notes:
FreeForm
OmniGraffle
Philips Hue light bulbs
Eve Energy
Our next tracks:
Succession
Curved Air: Air Conditioning
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May 24, 2023 • 25min
Episode #256: You'll Never Have to Watch the Woodstock Movie Again
Doug re-watched the Woodstock movie. He'll never have to watch it again.
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Show notes:
Woodstock - Director's cut
Episode #254: Remastering, Re-Recording, and Standards
Woodstock – Back to the Garden: The Definitive 50th Anniversary Archive
Boston Calling
Our next tracks:
Manchester Gamba Book
Eli "Paperboy" Reed: Come and Get It
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May 10, 2023 • 1h 12min
Episode #255: Timo Andres on Classical Music that Doesn't Sound Like Classical Music
Composer pianist Timo Andres joins us to discuss the Apple Music Classical app and Kirk's article about classical music that doesn't sound like classical music.
Help support The Next Track by making regular donations via Patreon. We're ad-free and self-sustaining so your support is what keeps us going. Thanks!
Guest:
Timo Andres
Show notes:
Timo Andres on Wikipedia
Apple Music Classical (Mostly) Plays the Right Chords - TidBITS
The Next Track: Episode #253: Apple Music Classical
Classical music recommendations for people who want to discover classical music that doesn’t sound like classical music
Takemitsu: Spectral Canticle
Merlin Bird ID
Terry Riley: In C, Shanghai Film Orchestra
Timo Andres: Shy and Mighty
- Brian Eno: Everything Merges With The Night — Timo Andres
Sufjan Stevens: Reflections
The music
Steve Reich: Music for 18 Musicians
This 1976 work is one of the foundational works of minimalism. Its driving beat, or pulse, as Reich calls it, makes it a toe-tapper. This recording, on the ECM label in 1978, is the first recording by Steve Reich and Musicians. There have been many recordings since then by Reich and by other ensembles.
John Cage: Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano
You can't talk about 20th-century classical music without mentioning John Cage. His music, mostly created using chance operations, was revolutionary. The pieces on this recording were composed between 1946 and 1948, before Cage adopted his Yi Jing influenced compositional approach. The revolution here is the "prepared" piano, in which screws and bolts, pieces of plastic and rubber were wedged between the piano strings, turning into a percussion ensemble.
Morton Feldman: Piano and String Quartet
Morton Feldman was a close friend of John Cage, but his music was very different. Many of his pieces are long - this one lasts 79 minutes - and quite. His music has slow, soft, slowly morphing phrases, and you can get lost in his sound world.
Toru Takemitsu: From Me Flows What You Call Time
Strongly influenced by western classical music, notably Debussy, Tour Takemitsu created unique music that doesn't fit easily in any boxes. This 1990 work is a concerto for five percussionists and orchestra, and lasts about 36 minutes.
Philip Glass: Einstein on the Beach
Philip Glass is one of the foundational composers of New York minimalism, and is well known for his operas and film scores. His first "opera," Einstein on the Beach, lasts about five hours, and is a summation of his various composing styles in the 1970s. This recording is from the 1984 revival at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, which I attended, and which has left its mark on me. If you like this, you may want to see the opera staged, and this Blu-Ray of a 2014 production in Paris is excellent.
Olivier Messiaen: Catalogue d’Oiseaux
My only atonal selection is this group of works by the French composer Olivier Messiaen. He lived in the French Alps for many years, and in this series of piano pieces, Catalogue of birds, he presents his take on songs of the different birds heard around France. Much of Messiaen's music is "difficult," but if you take the time to get into this recording, you may find it enjoyable.
Arvo Pärt: Tabula Rasa
Estonian composer Arvo Pärt was "discovered" in the west in 1984 when ECM released this album. The title work, from 1977, is an example of music that deconstructs, and other works on the album are also fascinating.
Terry Riley: In C
One of the first true minimalist works, In C "consists of 53 short numbered musical phrases, lasting from half a beat to 32 beats; each phrase may be repeated an arbitrary number of times at the discretion of each musician in the ensemble. Each musician thus has control over which phrase they play, and players are encouraged to play the phrases starting at different times, even if they are playing the same phrase." (Wikipedia) This is the first recording, from 1968, led by the composer, but it has been recorded many times since.
Frederic Rzewski: The People United Will Never Be Divided
This work consists of 36 variations on a Chilean protest song ¡El pueblo unido jamás será vencido! which is both highly musical and extremely difficult to perform.
Timo Andres: Home Stretch
Timo Andres is a young composer living in New York City. This recording is probably the most classical sounding of my selection. At its center is a "reconstruction" of an incomplete Mozart piano concerto, which is "an almost entirely new-sounding piece, which I hope will be an antidote to the studied blandness of most existing completions." This is bookended by Home Stretch, a piece "in three large sections which gradually accelerate: beginning in almost total stasis, working up to an off-kilter dance with stabbing accents, and ushering in a sturm-und-drang cadenza which riles itself up into a perpetual-motion race to the finish," and Paraphrase on Themes of Brian Eno, where Andres orchestrates some of Brian Eno's songs from Before and After Science and Another Green World. (Notes from Timo Andres's website.)
If you like the show, please subscribe in iTunes or your favorite podcast app, and please rate the podcast.Support The Next Track