A somethings extra post

With apology to the marvel that is Stevie Wonder's songwriting abilities, seeing it was the Bank Holiday and I has been playing a few of his albums here (see the Music Posts for a selection of his discs I have) here's an extra edition.

Those who follow the album charts can't helped to notice Tom Petty recently topped it in the States with Hypnotic Eye that came on cd in late July but it wasn't until last week I got my copy because it is the 140 gram German lp pressing simply cos it sounds a bit better (and has more dynamics) than the cd version plus came with a free download code for 24bit (48K) High Definition lossless digital audio and regular slightly more compressed Mp3. Amazon did also give me a free Mp3 but I didn't think it sounded too good personally.
Being the sort I am I downloaded the 24bit and downsampled myself a Mp3 from that using the Batch Format convertor in my cd copying program which sounded much better.
Favourites from this altogether really good comeback album are Burnt Out Town which with American Dream Plan B  and Power Drunk are good examples of Tom Petty drawing from current affairs to write spirited songs about the World we live in.

As some of you are aware, I do buy specialty reissues that offer better sound than the originals and one that recently landed my was this, the late 1989 Presto album by ace Canadian rockers, Rush that I bought when it first came out. 
I felt around the time they issued Hold Your Fire! in 1987, they were losing their way, sounding too close to bland 'Stadium  Rock' for a band who impressed me from a very early age with more complex lyrics and musicianship but This had what was missing - 'bite' in the lyrics.
It also helped some of the songs used childhood settings such as playing Rock,Paper,Scissors in Hand Over Fist and examining self deception and vanity through play in War Paint  to make their points clearly.
This copy sounded warmer and less brittle than the original.

Earlier in the year, this rather more longer Progressive rock inspired opus from 1978 was re-issued that not only completed the space fantasy story of Cygnus X1 started in 1977's A Farewell To Kings album, give us a parable on forced equality in the form of The Trees but gives us La Ville Stranglato a marathon over 9 minute totally amazing work out just showing how accomplished at playing their instruments the band really are.

 I also picked up the 2013 issue in this series of Counterparts from 1993 which includes Animate, Cut To The Chase and Cold Fire.
All three of  these discs are super audio compact discs  (sacd)  designed to give better sound on suitable players that also  have a regular cd player for the rest of us.