Qobuz has both also, with the latter in hi"res.
🎵 AotW Classics Sergio Mendes & Brasil 66 LOOK AROUND SP-4137
- Thread starter Harry
- Start date
Yeah anyone who makes fun of me for buying a CD or DVD..... I'll be getting the last laugh when they either can't find stuff, or have to pay extra for it, while I'll still have my physical media.
Heck, I think I have about 3 or 4 copies of Look Around, counting all the various CD releases.
Heck, I think I have about 3 or 4 copies of Look Around, counting all the various CD releases.
Bobberman
Well-Known Member
Also true if you own a download of the album secured in your devices whether it's Hard Drive or SD card etcAnd when you own the record or CD or tape - any physical format - it's *always* available, and not at the whim of some contract somewhere.
Right you are Mike. Out there in the cloud, that is, the internet, stuff happens with recorded media. I am old school, but I know that there are millions of people like me who prefer the physical media. Just look how in the last 10 years the sales of vinyl has soared to amazing heights. Besides if handled carefully vinyl still sounds better than anything you can get from the cloud.
I reread the liner notes from the Look Around album. They are absolutely incredible--fittingly written by the amazing Bergmans. You couldn't find more perfect lyrics to Like a Lover--fittingly written by the Bergmans.
Don't forget, though--some of us don't always cart around our 5,000 LP/CD collection when we travel, which is bloody inconvenient, so it's important to many of us to have the streaming option for that reason. It has saved me a lot of time and money having streaming when I travel or am not at home and staying somewhere else. I have the "hard copies" ripped to my network storage, the original CDs stored away, and the only place I carry portable files now is in the car (only lossless FLAC). I use streaming for a lot of other purposes, but it has its uses, and not owning a physical copy of some items I may listen to only once or twice in my life makes a whole hell of a lot more sense than buying a "disposable" CD that nobody will buy anymore.
Of course there are plenty of good reasons for streaming. My view is that for my purposes and happiness, owning physical product brings me the greatest joy. Seeing the little things and quirks about a particular pressing is a great part of this hobby, sometimes moreso than the actual music that's found in the grooves, or pits and landings, 1's and 0's, or patterns in magnetic particles.
There's a joy that I experience in learning that a particular copy of RUBBER SOUL that came from Canada has some mixes that are unique, or that indeed, "Like A Lover" as it exists on FAMILY PORTRAIT is a unique mix not found anywhere else. I cannot get that joy from a streaming service. Yes, I maybe can hear a version of the recording I'm wanting to hear, but it'll be someone else who decides which version that is.
Everyone has different uses for the music in their life. For many, it's a passive experience and that can be a wonderful thing in and of itself. I get more joy out of the active role of finding, collecting, and enjoying the many forms of physical media. I can get just as much euphoria from 12-inch slab'o'wax as I can from a long-sought-after CD. It's a lesser experience just listening to a stream or a radio or even a music system in a restaurant.
No, I don't cart around my full collection of music - only some carefully selected bits that I think I'm interested in hearing on that trip. (The reason that we do DESERT ISLAND discs!) There's always that small part of me that might wish to hear a song that I don't have with me - but with today's Internet and a quick check of YouTube, I can probably find what I'm looking for. Certainly not in the car, but I'm patient enough to wait for the opportunity.
But that's what makes places like this forum fun. We aren't all alike, and we all have our likes and dislikes, and we all listen to "our" music in many different ways.
There's a joy that I experience in learning that a particular copy of RUBBER SOUL that came from Canada has some mixes that are unique, or that indeed, "Like A Lover" as it exists on FAMILY PORTRAIT is a unique mix not found anywhere else. I cannot get that joy from a streaming service. Yes, I maybe can hear a version of the recording I'm wanting to hear, but it'll be someone else who decides which version that is.
Everyone has different uses for the music in their life. For many, it's a passive experience and that can be a wonderful thing in and of itself. I get more joy out of the active role of finding, collecting, and enjoying the many forms of physical media. I can get just as much euphoria from 12-inch slab'o'wax as I can from a long-sought-after CD. It's a lesser experience just listening to a stream or a radio or even a music system in a restaurant.
No, I don't cart around my full collection of music - only some carefully selected bits that I think I'm interested in hearing on that trip. (The reason that we do DESERT ISLAND discs!) There's always that small part of me that might wish to hear a song that I don't have with me - but with today's Internet and a quick check of YouTube, I can probably find what I'm looking for. Certainly not in the car, but I'm patient enough to wait for the opportunity.
But that's what makes places like this forum fun. We aren't all alike, and we all have our likes and dislikes, and we all listen to "our" music in many different ways.
Bobberman
Well-Known Member
I would agree with you in a a way only because I've only in recent years ripped my hard copies to my laptop storage that's my version of streaming but I now limit CD buying to just the occasional new Herb alpert release or blank Cd-r s for my Radio production purposes I find I'm buying download albums more than physical products because my physical media storage space is pretty much full to capacity and as I mentioned elsewhere there are many digital albums being released that either haven't been reissued since their first issue or not Availible in any physical media format
It's a high-quality streaming service out of France, serving the EU and UK. They made a big entrance in the US early this year, after a couple years of planning and negotiating, and beta trials. (They still don't have the selection of someone like Spotify yet, but negotiations with labels and distributors is ongoing.) Their claim to fame is high quality sound, and being the first to stream true lossless high-resolution music. With the three account levels, we can choose from MP3 at 320kbps for $9.99/month, CD-quality* lossless (16-bit/44.1kHz) for $19.99/month, and high-res up to 24-bit/192kHz for $24.99/month. They offer a yearly prepaid "Sublime" package for $299 that lets us purchase high-res downloads at about half price in most cases--the extra $50/year pays or itself after six or seven purchases, making the high-res downloads cheaper than buying the CD.
Tidal and Deezer offer up to 16-bit/44.1kHz lossless, but over time I found some of Tidal's sources to be suspect. Deezer's sound was OK, but they don't integrate into players like Roon. (That is what I like about Roon--I could own two or three albums by an artist, and just below on the screen, I have access to all of that artist's albums on Qobuz. It makes everything very seamless.) I have yet to find any fault with their sound quality--it is essentially the same as owning a physical copy. It can get expensive, though, if I start exploring too much other music.
* Some companies claim "CD quality" when they are in fact pushing only lossy MP3 streams. Very misleading!
That is one thing about Qobuz that is attractive--there are some out of print titles I could purchase from them, including a couple of releases that never will be released on physical media. (Like the Salty Peppers release I posted elsewhere--it was a group that was the precursor to Earth Wind & Fire, so it really is obscure.) I'm good with that, though. I'm over owning CDs--I also store mine here on a network box after ripping, and freed up valuable wall space for things that were only collecting dust. It feels weird to buy something, rip it once and then stash it away forever, but I don't even have a disc player in my system anymore. And it's pretty cool to be able to play the music throughout the house on different devices without scattering discs all over the place.
(It's a shame that Google discontinued the Chromecast Audio...$15, when on sale, was a great way to add playback to just about anything.)I wish a few of these labels would wake up and get some back catalog released digitally. Verve still has a handful of Tjader's albums to release. There's a lot of old A&M stuff in the vaults. I can think of a lot of things I have on vinyl that have never seen a CD release. It's a great way to monetize that old back catalog...as long as you don't set fire to it every decade or two like Universal does... *cough*
That is one thing about Qobuz that is attractive--there are some out of print titles I could purchase from them, including a couple of releases that never will be released on physical media. (Like the Salty Peppers release I posted elsewhere--it was a group that was the precursor to Earth Wind & Fire, so it really is obscure.) I'm good with that, though. I'm over owning CDs--I also store mine here on a network box after ripping, and freed up valuable wall space for things that were only collecting dust. It feels weird to buy something, rip it once and then stash it away forever, but I don't even have a disc player in my system anymore. And it's pretty cool to be able to play the music throughout the house on different devices without scattering discs all over the place.
I wish a few of these labels would wake up and get some back catalog released digitally. Verve still has a handful of Tjader's albums to release. There's a lot of old A&M stuff in the vaults. I can think of a lot of things I have on vinyl that have never seen a CD release. It's a great way to monetize that old back catalog...as long as you don't set fire to it every decade or two like Universal does... *cough*
Thanks for the info on Qobuz.
I agree about back catalog. The costs of making it available are minimal. It would take relatively little action to make some of this dormant music profitable---if only on a small scale.
For instance, the Sergio Mendes album Quiet Nights. It's not a groundbreaking album, but it is an interesting and entertaining curiosity in his catalog. The way the Japanese and other countries are fascinated with his music, I'm surprised some reissue label hasn't gotten ahold of it yet. Unless the masters are lost. (Philips = Universal...probably got roasted at some point, I'm sure.)
rockdoctor
Well-Known Member
This was also my first purchase for Brasil'66. I had heard the album in its entirety on 8 track tape while traveling with a friend. I was 14 when I bought this. It was the first album I ever purchased as well.
rockdoctor
Well-Known Member
The flipside of "The Look of Love" was "Like a Lover" and it did get some airplay in my area as late as 1972.
Aqua do Brasil
Well-Known Member
Here is an excellent "All Music" review of the Look Around album.
Look Around - Sergio Mendes & Brasil '66 | Songs, Reviews, Credits | AllMusic
Look Around - Sergio Mendes & Brasil '66 | Songs, Reviews, Credits | AllMusic
The reviewer also said the track ("The Look of Love") "just laid there on the album" until the Academy Awards telecast. The album was released in early March of 1968, the Oscars broadcast was April 10, and from what I can tell "The Look of Love" was released as a single the week of or the week before the telecast, so it was a whole lot more intentional than that.
That review was written many years after the album came out so those kind of mistakes are pretty common on AllMusic. Overall the Brasil '66 reviews are pretty solid...sometimes I violently disagree with their reviewers but in the case of Sergio (and Herb Alpert, too) they're pretty spot on, usually.
There is one pretentious AMG reviewer (won't mention his name) that I can't stand reading. Beyond that, I pretty much respect the other opinions even if I don't necessarily agree with them. I did find an error in one of the reviews, and reported it--they got in touch first saying they would look into it and then, a day or two later, let me know they made the edit. (It was a personnel listing for a band I work with.) That's a first, though--I've pointed out errors in the past and never had feedback.
With some of the errors, too, I figure that some of the regulars have probably reviewed hundreds if not thousands of albums, and they can't be expected to remember every little detail. And I can tell a difference between an error, and ignorance--someone who is clearly biased will not take care with details or pick apart an album unnecessarily. I do find AMG helpful, though, when discovering a new (to me) artist and need to find out which are considered the key albums in their catalog. That is where I usually start after hearing a few songs by the artist on one of my Pandora stations, and I'll use Qobuz to check out the albums to see if I like them enough to purchase.
It could have been something along the lines of a dead microphone, I'm thinking. Or just a poor mix for TV.
I was a teenager back in April 1968 when I saw the Academy Award broadcast on ABC TV from an old black and white TV set. I was anxious to see Brasil 66 perform the Look of Love, in light of their magnificent Equinox album from '67 and their nifty recent 45 release of "With a Little Help." in early '68. Well the report of a sonic disaster wasn't the only time I read similarly critical reviews of B66 at the Academy show. I was anticipating their original tight combo sound. Boy was I disappointed and my Dad grimaced after their performance. Well 1968 was a long time ago and I thought maybe through the fog of history their performance couldn't have been that bad, and so I drove up to Hollywood about seven years ago to where the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences had an archive of all the televised Academy Awards shows. And so I saw a color replay of the 1968 show with B66 performing. As a bad omen, the host Bob Hope butchered the pronunciation of Sergio's last name as Mendeeez per the group's introduction. Johnny Green was the conductor with seemingly a full symphony orchestra at his disposal. I presume it was his arrangement, and the orchestra blasted away making Dave Grusin's orchestration from the the Look Around album seem tame in comparison. So yes, I would call it a sonic disaster. Also Lani and Karen's vocals I would say were hard edged and seemingly forced trying to keep up with the loud orchestra blasting away.behind them. It made me yearn for Janis light, breathy sensual vocal interpretation of the Look of Love from the album version. But it was fun to watch--sort of a time capsule. But it was B66 at their worst with Johnny Green having a lot to do with that. It made me wish that B66 would just have done a lip sinc version of the Look of Love from the Look Around album for the Academy show. But it just goes to show you about personal taste--the general public must have loved the B66 performance from the Academy Awards show as Brasil 66 record sales soared afterwards and as they say--the rest is history.
I forgot to add that my disappointment with Brasil 66 per their Academy Award show performance was short lived, as shortly thereafter I was hooked on their classic album version of the Look of Love and in awe of all the tracks from their Look Around album --music that will stand the test of time.
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