Discs and downloads

It’s never easy to eat a huge slice of humble pie, especially when you’ve previously been so vociferous in your opinions, but I think that in my revision of views on the Beatles re-mastering, a particularly large slice is about to be served up, and, maybe even enjoyed, because to be fair, I’m happy to be proved wrong.

It was easy to be initially cynical about the whole scheme, especially given that we live in a digital age where the album, as a concept and a medium is losing ground to the method of merely picking and choosing an MP3 file from a long list, and my view, almost a real fear, was that these re-masters would swiftly be swept under the carpet, shedding, in their turn, the impact that their re-issuing deserves.

There was also the uncertainty of how they would fare under the re-mastering scalpel. We’re so used to the sound of the 1987 mastering and in two cases (Rubber Soul & Help!) remixes, that any change in sonic quality is going to sound like a revelation, and in the case of the first four albums, now available in stereo for the first time in 22 years, a completely different record.

The dangers of too much remastering
It could so easily have been the case, that an indifferent or hamfisted job would have given the music the blank stare of a Botox devotee, devoid of expression and emotion, with the warmth stripped away and a wind-tunnel, cleaned up, effect left in its place. Even worse, an over-analytical re-mastering would have exposed every flaw, every fault in the recordings, aiming the focus squarely on the pitfalls, and by-passing the quality of the music within.

So when the 14 albums arrived here this morning – 1988’s PastMasters 1 & 2 has also been given the same treatment, there was a definite feeling of bated breath. First impressions, though, are good – no we didn’t get the boxed set, but we did get the 14 individually, and mercifully, in the correct packaging – no horrid white promo covers.

It’s obvious that time and thought has been put into the look of the product. Whereas the 1987 issue had badly re-produced original artwork and little else, the 2009 issue features extended booklets, rare photographs, recording notes, a mini documentary on each album and even the  original vinyl label artwork appropriate to each album’s first release on the CD.

This looks, and feels, like a high-quality issue, and indeed, interest here has been rather keen, with each album fingered over, poked, prodded and looked at from every angle. So far so good, but what lies inside?

Seeing as this arduous task has fallen on my shoulders I started with my favourite album – Beatles For Sale. Flip onto what should be side 2, select track 11, Every Little Thing, two minutes and four second sof proto-Byrds chiming loveliness and harmonies and push the magic button.

Chiming Rickenbackers
It is, quite simply, glorious. All the warmth of your original vinyl is there, but with a crisp, solid bite that was missing from the previous release. When John Lennon sings ‘When I’m with her I’m happy’ I just want to roll over and kick my legs in the air, Rickenbackers chime and all’s well with the world.

This is the aural equivalent of being the kid in the candy store, it’s easy to go for my favourites – Rain, Yes It Is, If I Needed Someone but even tracks that I’d never really rated like Your Mother Should Know, Savoy Truffle and even, God help me, Maxwell’s Silver Hammer seem to take on new life and immediacy.

Chris, aged six...
All of a sudden I’m six and I’ve got my Dad’s battered to hell copy of Beatles For Sale (in a A Hard Day’s Night sleeve!) and I’m loving every second of what I’m hearing. That battered copy started a lifetime of love for The Beatles’ music (and music in general) and with this re-mastering it’s as if it’s all been leading up to this point.

Falling back to earth for a second, it’s time to discuss how these are being marketed. Today sees the release of two boxed sets – aimed squarely at the collector, both with a £170 price tag. One is the stereo set I have in front of me, the other is the mono re-issues of all the albums, plus the original 1965 mixes of Help! and Rubber Soul, which were substituted for the 1987 re-mastering.

If you know your Beatles mythology, the Rubber Soul mix is likely to be the fabled ‘loud cut’ mix, which is – allegedly – the best one available.

Sadly the mono re-issues aren’t available for the time being, and hopefully EMI will relent in the near future and press the LP’s with both sets of mixes back to back. This isn’t the time or place to go into that now, and it’s really a case of 'watch this space and keep your fingers crossed'.

In the meantime though, there’s more than enough to be getting on with here, and I have a sneaking suspicion what I’m going to be listening to tonight.

As the man said, “a splendid time is guaranteed for all”. Anyone for more pie?

The variety of sites and services for downloading or streaming music can be confusing. The best offer a huge library of songs, HD music and great value

 

The music industry is not what it once was. Gone are the days of trawling through the shelves of your local record store looking for the latest release or rarity by your favourite band. Instead we're living in the age of instant access to seemingly infinite, internet-based catalogues.

The release of the iPod saw take-up of portable MP3 players go through the roof almost overnight, and ripping CDs onto computer became an everyday activity. People wanted to share their music with others, and before long MP3s were changing hands for free, many via Napster, the first music sharing service which is still going strong.

Now, an industry that was once thought to be killing music is rightfully acknowledged as a legitimate and vital digital lifeline for artists, labels and retailers. Just take a look at how the UK Top 40 is now compiled: 98 per cent of single sales are digital and these contribute to the chart – and bosses are looking at ways to integrate streamed music as we speak.

But which online service should you choose? Well, it depends on a number of factors; primarily which media player or portable you use, how much you prioritise sound quality, and how much you're prepared to pay.

If you're an iPod owner you probably already use iTunes, and are a click away from the iTunes Store, where compatible tunes can be bought for 79p and transferred to your portable.

 

"There are 10 billion songs that are sold in the US every year on CDs. So far on iTunes, we've distributed about 16 million. We're at the very beginning of this" Dec 03
Steve Jobs, CEO, Apple

 

But there are now often cheaper alternatives available from the likes of Play.com and Amazon that are compatible with all players.

There are subscription services like the re-born Napster. You can now pay a small monthly fee for unlimited access to millions of tracks that can be transferred to a compatible portable.

Then there's Spotify, a service that lets you listen to tracks on the internet for free. The files are streamed, so you never own them, but then you aren't paying for them, either.

 

"Spotify lets users listen to whatever music they love, whenever - and soon wherever - they want to hear it, through a platform which is simple, clean and quick to use" July 09
Paul Brown, UK MD, Spotify

 

And what if you want proper hi-fi quality music rather than the compressed MP3s of stores like these? You're catered for, too, by services from Naim, Linn and B&W which all create original content which provides the best digital music around.

They each offer catalogues of unique albums at levels of quality that match and  even surpass those of CD. Below, we profile the eight major players when it comes to downloading the best quality and selection of music the internet can offer...

 

iTUNES STORE

The iPod would be nothing without iTunes. Who's going to enjoy a portable, regardless of how sleek and sweet-sounding it might be, if the software used for filling it with music is a pain?

A large part of iTunes' success is down to the iTunes Store, an online shop that sells music, movies, TV shows, audiobooks, games, apps and podcasts. In a couple of clicks you can buy almost any type of media, and it takes barely more effort to sync it to an iPod. When life's that easy, why buy your media anywhere else?

As successful as the iTunes Store's other offerings are, its original reason for existence was to sell music. Initially tracks were only available at 128kbps, and were DRM-protected, but now all tracks are 256kbps with no DRM.

Pricing has changed, too. Once, all downloads were 79p; now, there are 59p and 99p tracks, too. 79p is still the norm, though, and that means iTunes is a little more expensive than most rivals.

"Look out for the Single of the Week – a free track that's almost always worth a download"

It's also important to note that all tracks are in AAC format. If you use a non-Apple portable or streamer, it's not guaranteed you'll be able to play them. But if you can, you can take advantage of what is an excellent codec, offering improve-ments over MP3. We'd still like to see Apple Lossless files being made available, though.

Double-clicking any track starts a 30 second clip. Also look out for the Single of the Week on the Store's homepage. This is a free track that's been chosen by the iTunes staff and is almost always worth a download.

The most straight-forward way to pay for downloads is to attach a credit or debit card to your account. Or you can pick up prepaid cards from an Apple Store, places like HMV, WHSmith and some supermarkets. You can even set up an allowance for your music-loving offspring, letting them download a certain amount each month without the need for you to hand over your card.

Apple fans will find the slick operation of the Store and its integration with the rest of iTunes and their iPod makes it hard to resist making purchases, but if you're the owner of a non-Apple player, we'd still recommend looking elsewhere.

THE LOWDOWN
DOWNLOADS OR STREAMS  Downloads
MUSIC FORMATS  AAC
FILE QUALITY  256kbps
TRACK PRICE  59p, 79p, 99p
SAMPLE CLIPS  Yes
SUBSCRIPTION PRICE  n/a

 

SPOTIFY STORE

If the iPod was the catalyst of the revolution in music consumption of the early 2000s, Spotify could prove to be the iconic site of the latter-part of the decade. It has millions of songs – and they can all be listened to for free...

The system is simple: you play the tracks you like without paying a penny, and in return you listen to the odd advert. Your music is likely to be interrupted only every four or five tracks, but if that proves too much, you can pay £9.99 for a Premium subscription, which cuts the ads out.

Almost as impressive as the free-ness of the service are its features and usability. Type in the name of an artist and you're taken to a page with their back-catalogue of tracks, often accompanied by pictures, a biography and review.

On this page you'll also find a list of similar artists, and there's an 'Artist radio' tab, which takes you to a playlist using your selected band as a starting-point.

You can create your own playlists using simple drag-and-drop, and the artwork from the currently playing track is displayed in the bottom-left corner of the screen. In fact, so slick and flexible is the system, it's easy to feel as though the music is actually yours.
It isn't.

"You play the tracks you like without paying a penny, and in return you listen to the odd ad"

You can't download tracks, transfer them to a portable or stream them to a networked media player. That, though, is all part of Spotify's plan: discover and listen to music for free at your computer, then, if you want to keep it, you buy it.

You can even right-click on a track in Spotify and be taken directly to that same track's page at 7digital.com, where you can download a 320kbps MP3, complete with artwork, usually for 79p.

Track transferability isn't the only reason to pay for a download; there's also the matter of quality. Spotify streams Ogg Vorbis files at around 160kbps to standard listeners, and is in the process of adding 320kbps versions for Premium subscribers.

Both actually sound very good, but the nature of streaming means even the 320kbps files can be beaten for sound quality by a downloaded file at a similar bitrate.

We're not taking anything away from Spotify, though. We love it, and we know you will, too.

THE LOWDOWN
DOWNLOADS OR STREAMS  Streams
MUSIC FORMATS  Ogg Vorbis
FILE QUALITY  160kbps, 320kbps
STANDARD TRACK PRICE  n/a
SAMPLE CLIPS  n/a
SUBSCRIPTION PRICE  £9.99 for Premium membership

 

AMAZON MP3
Online retail giant Amazon has hit the market with the first service that might make iTunes Store users think twice. The DRM-free MP3s don't sound any better than Apple files, but are often cheaper, with 69p being the most common price. Frequent offers see popular tracks available for just 29p and albums for less than £4.

The download manager is impressive, too. This handles the downloading of your MP3s and adds them to Windows Media Player or iTunes. Open your chosen player and the tracks are there, complete with accurate metadata and artwork.

Tracks are encoded using variable bitrates, averaging 256kbps, and they sound just as good as the constant 320kbps tracks offered by the likes of Play. So you get cheaper prices, instant delivery and a 30-second sample. Honestly, what's not to like?

THE LOWDOWN
DOWNLOADS OR STREAMS  Downloads
MUSIC FORMATS AVAILABLE  MP3
FILE QUALITY  256kbps variable encoding
STANDARD TRACK PRICE  29p to £1.19
SAMPLE CLIPS  30 seconds
SUBSCRIPTION PRICE  n/a

B&W SOCIETY OF SOUND
Bowers and Wilkins' digital music service is more of a club than a download store. You pay for a membership, and in return you can download a number of albums from the back catalogue and a new album every month.

That may not sound a lot, but what makes the service so compelling is that each album is unique and specially recorded at Peter Gabriel's Real World Studios.

This is not about catering to particular genres or artists, it's just about great music, sumptuously recorded, and because the lowest-quality format available is 16-bit Apple Lossless (16 and 24-bit FLACs are also available), sound quality is superb.

If you're musically open-minded this is a terrific way to discover new artists and listen to their output in proper hi-fi quality. If you're still not sure, head over to www.bowers-wilkins.co.uk to sign up for a free trial.

THE LOWDOWN
DOWNLOADS OR STREAMS  Downloads
MUSIC FORMATS AVAILABLE  FLAC, Apple Lossless
FILE QUALITY  24-bit, 16-bit
STANDARD TRACK PRICE  n/a
SAMPLE CLIPS  n/a
SUBSCRIPTION PRICE  £23.95 (6 mth), £33.95 (1 yr)

LINN RECORDS
Linn specialises in classical, jazz and Celtic music, all of which is available from www.linnrecords.com. Very high-quality formats are available, including 24-bit Studio Master and 16-bit CD quality FLACs and WMAs, and they're worth every penny. You can even buy 5.1 Studio Masters for home studio setups.

The files are huge, but there's a download manager in development that handles all of the downloading in the background. It doesn't add the tracks to your music player, but this is a simple job to do manually. Also, although downloads include a booklet, inlay and cover art, you'll have to manually add this in your media player.

All this pales into insignificance, though, when you play the music. It has the kind of detail, dynamics and solidity that lower bitrate files can only dream of.

THE LOWDOWN
DOWNLOADS OR STREAMS  Downloads
MUSIC FORMATS  5.1 FLAC, 5.1 WMA, FLAC, WMA, MP3
FILE QUALITY  24-bit, 16-bit, 320kbps
STANDARD TRACK PRICE  79p+
SAMPLE CLIPS  30 seconds
SUBSCRIPTION PRICE  £23.95 (6 mth), £33.95 (1 yr)

NAIM LABEL
Naim's label can be found at naimlabel.com. It originally concentrated on classical and jazz, but has recently expanded with Naim Edge, dedicated to contemporary artists.

As seems to be the norm with the digital music offered by hi-fi companies, sound quality is superb. Formats range from 320kbps MP3 to 16- and 24-bit WAVs and FLACs. The higher the bitrate, the higher the price, but the extra cash is certainly worthwhile for stunning quality.

Users of Naim products such as the HDX will enjoy perfect reproduction of these downloads. The WAV files will also work with both Windows Media Player and iTunes as standard, although we could only get the downloadable metadata and artwork to work automatically in WMP. There's always a free sample available on the site for you to try the music in various formats.

THE LOWDOWN
DOWNLOADS OR STREAMS  Downloads
MUSIC FORMATS AVAILABLE  WAV, FLAC, MP3
FILE QUALITY  24-bit, 16-bit, 320kbps
STANDARD TRACK PRICE  69p+
SAMPLE CLIPS  30 seconds
SUBSCRIPTION PRICE  n/a

NAPSTER
At first glance, Napster is miles behind the competition: it's the only service here that still uses DRM, and the WMA-format downloads are 192kbps. If this makes Napster weak as a pay-per-download service, it's the subscription options that make it a winner.

Paying £9.99 a month grants you unlimited access to the 8 million track catalogue as a web-based stream, and lets you download tracks to up to three PCs for offline playback.

And, if you're a Sonos, Logitech Squeezebox or Noxon iRadio user, music can be streamed direct from Napster; the streamed files are 128kbps, but they sound loads better than you might imagine.

Upgrade to the £14.99 service and you can also transfer unlimited tracks to a compatible portable. Most players, other than iPods are covered; if yours is, you should give Napster a go.

THE LOWDOWN
DOWNLOADS OR STREAMS  Downloads
MUSIC FORMATS  5.1 FLAC, 5.1 WMA, FLAC, WMA, MP3
FILE QUALITY  24-bit, 16-bit, 320kbps
STANDARD TRACK PRICE  79p+
SAMPLE CLIPS  30 seconds
SUBSCRIPTION PRICE  £9.99 or £14.99 a month

PLAYDIGITAL
Play.com is another online retailer responding to declining CD sales by introducing an MP3 download store. Most tracks are encoded at 320kbps (although some are still 192kbps) and the standard price of 65p per track, as well as regular special offers, makes it competitive.

There's a download manager to handle your purchased tracks, but unlike Amazon it doesn't place them in well-organised files or add them to your media player. This is a fairly simple manual job, as is getting your player to find the artwork, but it would be nice if Play did it for you.

All files are DRM-free, so can be transferred to any device, and sound quality is very good considering the small file sizes. Navigation is the same as the rest of the site and you get 30 sec clips to help you choose, but Play has some work to do if it's to match Amazon's slickness.

THE LOWDOWN
DOWNLOADS OR STREAMS  Downloads
MUSIC FORMATS AVAILABLE  MP3
FILE QUALITY  320kbps, 192kbps
STANDARD TRACK PRICE  65-70p
SAMPLE CLIPS  30 seconds
SUBSCRIPTION PRICE  n/a
 

Ah, it’s another re-mastering blog. Is that “God, no!” I hear you say, coupled with the sounds of millions of mouse buttons being clicked rapidly away?

Well relax, chaps – the targets for tonight are those nutty, noisy Beatles, who are set to make a resurgence in the hi-fi world with the release of their back catalogue in both mono and stereo on September 9 this year. Or 09/09/09 if you want to look at it in an appalling use of song titles kind of way.

In fact you can already pre-order it from the likes of Amazon. If you have £170 going spare, that is...

It’s been 22 years since we last had a Beatles re-master.Yes, that’s 22 years.

For that time too, we’ve only had the first four albums (Please Please Me, With The Beatles, A Hard Day’s Night, Beatles For Sale) in mono, because that’s how they were supposed to sound when released. Apparently.

Stereo mixes became overnight a thing of the past, and millions of Beatle fans have probably worn out their vinyl stereo copies of the albums in order to listen to the 56 or so tracks that were mono only from 1987 onwards*

Conversely don’t forget, the remaining albums were remastered only in stereo, meaning the different mono mixes, substantially diffrerent in some cases, were shelved. Revolver especially has a very different mix when the two formats are compared side by side.

It was a spectacularly ill-advised decision to inflict this kind of punishment on a doting public: OK, early 1960s stereo mixes are usually interesting to say the least, with instruments and vocals being thrown over the stereo spectrum willy-nilly, but at least they existed, unlike a great deal of the earlier output from other 60s artists.

Examples? The ‘Stones and Kinks, with true stereo not becoming standard in the case of the former until 1966's Aftermath and the Kinks later then that, Decca and Pye respectively being dedicated to monaural sound for the ‘pop’ format. And that pretty much subsisted until the creation of the Deram and Dawn offshoot labels respectively.

To add insult to injury, every other artist imaginable has pretty much received a comprehensive remaster and re-package to today’s sonic standards. You can go into HMV and pick up virtually the entire back-catalogue of any artist you care to name in super-duper audiophile quality, but The Beatles? Sorry chum, you’re out of luck.

There have been the occasional dabbles into the market, though – 1996's Anthology tie-in releases were most welcome, as was Let It be Naked, Live At the BBC and Love. Most interesting of all was the unleashing of the first four US albums on CD with – check this out – both mono and stereo mixes,most of which were among the missing 56 tracks.

All good stuff, but the US releases are substantially different from the UK ones, being remixed at the time for a more US friendly sound, resulting in reversed stereo, speeded up songs, alternative versions and horrible use of echo. So, no dice then, although it was all very interesting.

Thing is, has EMI left it just too late? I was talking with a fairly high-ranking music industry figure at a launch recently, and the subject of the Beatles back-catalogue came up. He pointed out, with some asperity I might add, that in this wonderful world of digital, the reissuing of the albums has lost its impact.

EMI is, no doubt, assuming that the bulk of consumers will merrily throw away their old 1987 mastered copies of the albums and buy the new masters in droves. I think they’re wrong.

People are far more likely to pick and choose what they want, and just ditch the surplus. In this digital chop and change age, the Beatles remasters are, realistically, just likely to be a briefly heralded drop in the water, before they sink into a world of iTunes, sampling by indifferent artists, and general apathy.

It’s a real shame: this could have been so big. Even a couple of years ago it would have been massive, and I’d much rather have had those missing 56 tracks then all my Hollies remasters**, or even Dusty InMemphis***.

To be honest, I’m feeling pretty apathetic, although I’m curious to see just how good Revolver turns out to be. There are bonuses here, mind you; the two important PastMasters compilations are getting the same treatment, although once again The Beatles At The Hollywood Bowl seems to have slipped under the radar.

But realistically, you might say, EMI has missed what could have been a very lucrative boat indeed.

*Some tracks are only available in mono. First single Love Me Do/P.S. I Love You is mono only, as are She Loves You, I’ll Get You, the two German language songs and You Know My Name (Look Up the Number). True stereo mixes of Yes It Is and Rain were thought to be missing until 1988, when they were included on the Past Masters sets. But are they really the true mixes? Who knows?...

**This is a big step

***This is an even bigger one

Gran Torino starts out like a Sanatogen fuelled reworking of Dirty Harry, with a constantly growling Clint Eastwood waving guns around and attempting to replace ‘Do you feel lucky?’ with the rather more prosaic ‘Get off my lawn!’. Give it a chance, however, and it twists its blunt and politically dubious beginnings into an engaging story that manages to mix genuinely warm relationships and  surprising humour with tension and an unexpected conclusion.

Clint’s grizzled ex-soldier Walt is forced to question his prejudices after seeing the contrasts between his spoilt and obnoxious family and his quietly troubled Hmong neighbours, and Eastwood wrings nuances from the role, ensuring that Walt remains strangely likeable even when indulging his worst instincts, and worryingly vulnerable even when he’s clearly the toughest guy on the screen.

Sharply scripted by Nick Shenk, Gran Torino initially rolls out leaden exposition and one-dimensional characters, before polishing them up in full view of the audience, making the film’s seemingly well-worn path feel refreshed. Eastwood’s direction avoids the mistakes of The Changeling, and while there are still some heavy handed moments, Gran Torino is an enjoyable return to form.

Meanwhile, if you’re after something equally nuanced but a little more active, check out our game reviews for a look at Fight Night Round 4, EA’s new boxing simulation that mixes innovative controls with realistic physics and addictive online play to create the most enjoyable beat-em-up we’ve ever played. You can watch our full Fight Night Round 4 review here.

 

It’s somewhat frightening, especially for those of a certain age, to think that it’s 20 years since the Stone Roses' eponymous first album hit the shops.

A lot has happened since then - a change of Government, ill-advised dabbling in wars, the downfall of communism in the Eastern bloc, countless fashion trends, and in the case of the Roses themselves, a four-year gap between damp-squib single One Love and damper-squib second album, the modestly titled Second Coming.

It had its moments, sure, but nothing, nothing would live up to the John Leckie-produced debut that encapsulated a moment in time, and that has been heard pounding out at thousands of clubs since, as teenagers who were in their cradles when Cressa (some time on-stage accolyte) did his dancing, now throw the same shapes having studied the Blackpool Live video to exhaustion.

One thing that’s been consistent throughout those 20 years, though, was the poor sound quality of the album on CD. You couldn’t deny the quality of the music, but half the time you had to have the volume up pretty damn high to even get a reasonable amount of punch.

Even throughout the reissues – and there have been a fair few… split 12in on vinyl, deluxe CDs, compilations galore, as record label Silvertone tried to re-gain its lost investment – the original album still sounded weak.

Mercifully, Sony, which now owns Zomba/Silvertone, has taken pity on us and brought in John Leckie and Ian Brown on remastering purposes prior to a re-release of said original album, and a whole host of other goodies.

Bringing in the writer of the songs isn’t always a good thing, witness Lou Reed’s decimation of the Velvet Underground back catalogue in the 1990s, but Brown and Leckie have accomplished the impossible and finally the Roses have developed sonic might.

Leaving aside the extras (I’ll go into them in a minute), the album has to be heard to be believed. Songs such as Waterfall with its Gretsch-fuelled arpeggios, and Sugar Spun Sister bound out of the speakers at you.

John Squire’s coltish guitar never sounded so capable and Brown’s voice, amazingly, never sounded so sweet. Every production subtlety that had been steamrollered over before is now on view; from delicate use of echo on vocals, to the neat background percussion that had been tucked away in the mix.

But importantly, this album now has life, punch and verve, and the crisp sound that we now get is what we should have had 20 years ago. So, and yes I have to say this, is there a downside? Purists may hate the ‘new’ I Am The Resurrection , always the Roses flagship song, following a remix that’s put the emphasis on the propulsive drums and forced some of the fluid guitar work backwards. The jury’s out with me on this one, but if there is a weak point – that’s it.

And now, the extras – there have to be some (naturally), and it looks like they’ve been given the same treatment as the album. Disc two has the Silvertone singles, and songs such as Elephant Stone, Standing Here and Mersey Paradise are still vital here and now, and the sublime Where Angels Play still sends shivers down my spine God knows how many times after first hearing it.

Chances are though, if you’re fan you’ve already got all of these on every format available so there’s no surprises there. The joker in the pack here is disc three – the Lost Demos. Now, demos are mainly hit and miss in most cases, but always provide a sketch of the finished product, and it’s mainly interesting hearing a work in progress.

For some reason the Roses demos have never appeared on bootleg and despite many of the songs appearing on such vinyl rarities as On The Sixth Day God Created Manchester…On The Seventh the Lord Created The Stone Roses, these are versions I’ve never heard before.

As a final nudge towards your wallet you even get an unreleased track, Pearl B*****d, which sounds rather like All Across The Sands (a single B-side from 1987), explaining why it was probably dropped in the first place.

The fact of the matter is that ‘Roses purists are going to want those demos and more than likely shell out for them – if you’ve got everything since 1985’s So Young/Tell Me why stop now?

Tacked onto all of this – and depending which edition you buy – you also get Squire’s Pollock inspired artwork, the Blackpool Empress Ballroom gig DVD, a book, USB in the shape of a lemon with various goodies and a nifty box. Phew.

These extras are all delightful but they’re the icing on the cake to the album, and, really, that’s what you should be aiming for – even if you get the cheapy, cheapy issue. Get the CD, put it on and just enjoy it – remember why you like the Roses, and goggle at the host of other, paler bands who stepped in to try and fill the gap when the original was this good.

When I was 15 I thought the Stone Roses walked on water, forget everything else. I even – sadly – wrote the words to Waterfall on my DM’s in Tippex among various other bits of graffiti, and posed with my (then) girlfriend underneath the last piece of original ‘Stone Roses’ graffiti (from 1984 fact fans) in Manchester.

As time went on I started listening to other things and now my musical taste is pretty diverse – Basil Kirchin to Graham Nash, and a whole lot of oddities in between. But nothing will ever come close to the buzz I get from this album – I’d forgotten that, and shame on me.

The remastered Stone Roses is out on Silvertone/Sony BMG on August 10.

With their sharp lines and rich colours, animated movies often shine on higher resolution formats, but the Blu-ray performance of Bolt is particularly outstanding. Even without the 3D effects it featured in certain cinemas, the film still retains an astonishing sense of depth, with camera moving deep into the shots through some amazing lighting and reflection effects.

The film itself is almost as winning as its presentation, suffering only from a touch of Disney sentimentality where you might have hoped for Pixar sharpness. Nevertheless, the gags range from simple slapstick through to some fairly sophisticated references, making the film funny for all ages, and the disc itself is packed with featurettes, art galleries and interactive games. You can watch our full Bolt Blu-ray review here.

It’s another pair of polar opposites on our movies channel this week, with Frank Miller’s embarrassingly poor adaptation Will Eisner’s The Spirit picking up a single star for just about managing to look and sound vaguely interesting, while Slumdog Millionaire’s unexpectedly successful mixing of violence, torture, poverty and uplifting gameshows earns it a full five stars thanks to its excellent performances and brilliant cinematography.

You can check out our full Slumdog Millionaire review here, and The Spirit review is here.

If you’re after something a little more interactive, our game reviews channel has Red Faction Guerrilla review that will let you know if we were as impressed with its gameplay and story as we were with its astonishing destruction engine that allows you to topple building in just about the most detailed and realistic fashion we’ve ever seen.

Digital music is here to stay - and it's coming of age. With more ways than ever to acquire and listen to your favourite tunes online, does the industry think the writing's on the wall for CDs?

After the chaos of the late 1990s and early 2000s, where LimeWire and the naughty, file-sharing version of Napster reigned supreme when it came to acquiring digital music, there's been something of a shakedown.

It wasn't until 2003 that legal music downloads really became popular (and easy to obtain) with the launch of Apple's iTunes Store. In fact, iTunes is now the top music retailer in the US, with a catalogue of more than six million songs - and a colossal four billion tracks sold so far.

But that's strictly a retail service. And although the tracks you download are now DRM-free (meaning they don't have any kind of copy protection applied to them), they are still only 256kbps AAC files. That goes against the grain for many punters who, as B&W's Danny Haikin says, don't want to be restricted to one format.

"Different formats will co-exist; people listen to different music in different ways. Last.fm, for instance, is far better than radio for what it is, but sometimes you want to sit in a beanbag and listen to Dark Side of the Moon on vinyl."

Four billion tracks have been sold on iTunes

Digital as a step to physical ownership
But in the face of streaming and paid-for download services, is physical CD ownership set to die out? "No," says Daniel Ek CEO of Spotify, "a lot of people will dip into the music first on Spotify, and if they like it, they'll buy it on vinyl or CD."

That goes for bands, too – mega-superstars U2 released their new album No Line on the Horizon exclusively on Spotify a week before the CD came out; the band clearly sees it as a teaser to drive physical sales.

U2's new album was released on Spotify first

"I for one love and continue to use vinyl," Ek adds.

That Daniel Ek, the founder of such a trendy, tech-savvy service still buys music in physical form might seem surprising. But think of it this way: since the iPod stormed onto the scene in 2001 (and even before that, with the now-dead MiniDisc), people have been predicting the demise of CD. If some pundits are to be believed, vinyl has been convulsing in its death throes for the best part of 25 years.

Last.fm founder Martin Stiksel feels the same way. He's a vinyl and CD collector, and says he has no plans to stop. "As new technology comes in, the old is marginalised – it's the same in the digital domain," he says. "But people still want physical products on their shelves at home."

Richard Mollet of the BPI agrees: "Rumours of the CD's demise are exactly that," he says. "By value, 86 per cent of music sold in the UK is in physical form." While sales of singles are now almost exclusively digital – 95 per cent are purchased from the likes of iTunes – albums remain physical, with just eight per cent downloaded.

Stiksel is keen to stress that just because Last.fm can be accessed via a computer or iPhone, listeners needn't be tied to those devices. He recommends – and uses – a decent soundcard or outboard digital-to-analogue converter to get the best results.

Meridian: sales of high-end CD players are rising

In fact, Meridian, which recently acquired the amazing Sooloos system, finds sales of its high-end CD players are actually going up. "The people who want the best from their collections buy better CD players," says Roland Morcom, Meridian's director of business development.

One eye on the future, one on the past
He thinks Sooloos can enhance a CD collection, despite being a music server. "If you've a decent-sized collection, chances are only your newest and favourite CDs will be on rotation," he says. "The Sooloos system makes it more convenient to browse your collection visually – like flicking through a shelf full of vinyl."

So, even in the cutting-edge digital domain, the people who develop these products still have one eye on that age-old tradition of sitting on the floor while listening to a record - and poring over the liner notes in a gatefold album cover.

But not everyone agrees. Gilad Tiefenbrun, managing director of high-end hi-fi giant Linn, is sharpening his quill to write the compact disc's obituary. "Many people retain a genuine affection for vinyl, which has a special joy of ownership and gives people a tactile connection to the music," he says.

"Music downloads are a practical solution and, with the advent of high-resolution files, deliver the best audio quality we've ever heard. Unfortunately, CD is stuck in the middle – it will disappear within a few years."

Could this seemingly symbiotic relationship between streaming services, paid-for downloads and CD be in for a change already? Things are moving so fast that there's another player on the horizon: high-resolution music.
 

Now that so much music is available online, more people than ever are listening - but piracy is still a threat to the industry, and its performers. So, how can we get our tunes legitimately?

 

Every so often, an event occurs that changes everything and people stumble, blinking, into the light and gaze upon a brave new world.

Music experienced this twice in 2001: first, when Apple released the now iconic iPod, and then when the industry was dealt a solid kick in a very sensitive place by illegal file-sharing. It's only now that the dust has finally settled and listening to music has become a totally different experience - one that will continue to change apace over the next few years.

The need to out-market the music pirates
Thousands of tracks are purchased and played every day - and none of them are contained on any 'physical' medium. So, where's all this music coming from? And is piracy still the huge problem it was nearly a decade ago?

"Music fans don't want to act illegally but they do want to have everything at their fingertips instantly," muses Daniel Ek, CEO and founder of the new free online music service, Spotify. And that neatly sums up the Hobson's choice that the industry finds itself faced with. Charge too much for music, suffer piracy and lose money? Or give it away and lose money anyway?

 

"Spotify exists because of piracy"  Daniel Ek, CEO

According to the BPI, which represents the UK's recorded music industry, 85 per cent of music downloads in the UK are still illegal – rising to a whopping 95 per cent worldwide.

"Spotify exists because of piracy," says Ek. "The best way to compete with that is to come up with a better product, which gives them everything music piracy can offer and much more besides, while also compensating the labels and artists."

Indeed, some bands have now grown disenfranchised with the whole idea of the music industry's structure. Radiohead famously released their 2007 album In Rainbows without a pricetag, instead letting fans set their own.

In an interview with Time magazine just before the band started writing material for In Rainbows, singer Thom Yorke said: "I like the people at our record company [EMI/Capitol], but the time is at hand when you have to ask why anyone needs one. And, yes, it probably would give us some perverse pleasure to say 'f*** you' to this decaying business model."

Radiohead released In Rainbows without a pricetag

Will free music destroy CD sales?
This is a dramatic example. "Notwithstanding its repeated calls to the industry to adopt new business models, the Government should accept that taking valuable content for free is not a 'business model'," says the BPI's director of Public Affairs, Richard Mollet.

"It creates no value. Only if illegal downloading is properly addressed can new business models have the room to breathe and succeed."

But if music is made available for free, even just in streaming form from the likes of Spotify and the massively popular streaming and community-based site Last.fm, aren't labels risking losing a huge chunk of potential revenue from physical sales?

Absolutely not, says Mollet. "If you see these services like radio, it becomes clear that listeners are getting an introduction to music that they then want to physically own," he explains.

Downloading music has become hugely popular

Ek agrees: "We want a way to discover new music, whether on your own or through shared and collaborative playlists." It almost goes without saying that digital music is most popular with the young - with 16- to 24-year-olds being the most clued-up.

The figures speak for themselves: in January 2009, 30 per cent of The Script's eponymous debut album sold online; Take That's new set, The Circus, shifted just 10 per cent online - a sure sign that the band's fans are 'maturing'.

Why are there no standards?
What is clear is that the record industry appears to have cottoned on to the fact that punters have voted with their wallets and want to pay less – or even nothing – for their content.

But it hasn't yet got its house in order, according to Dan Haikin, brand director at Bowers & Wilkins. "The industry's a mess at the moment," he says. "There's no one driving the bus; computer companies can't champion a particular format because they don't have any experience in the music business."

The problem is a lack of standards leading to a disparate market, which means the average consumer – who neither knows nor cares about the minutiae of bit-rates or file-formats – has too much choice when it comes to a service. Especially when price comes into the already complex buying equation.

It's a cinch to download music nowadays but is the concept of transferring a music file from an online business to your computer already becoming archaic – and is there any point at all to CDs? In our next blog, we'll look at streaming...
 

The sport of mixed martial arts has fewer rules than most boardgames, a fact which goes a long way towards explaining why UFC 2009 Undisputed is such an unnerving game to play: in its attempt to capture the no-holds-barred nature of the sport it lets you commit acts of astonishing brutality all displayed in crisp, almost photo-realistic graphics.

Don’t think that just because you’ve kicked your opponent all round the ring before flattening him that you’ve done enough to win, UFC 2009 Undisputed positively encourages you to get in there and smack him a few more times while he’s down.

It’s all a little sleazy, but it’s also undeniably addictive, as the game offers such a huge array of controls that you’ll find yourself returning to it again and again to master your moves, before frantically, furiously battling your way through the career mode or tackling other players online.  You can watch our full UFC 2009 Undisputed review here.

Arriving on Blu-ray on May the 18th, Defiance is director Edward Zwick’s follow up to the Oscar nominated  Blood Diamond and recounts the true story of the Bielski partisans, a community of Jewish resistance fighters hiding in the Belorussian forests and wrestling with the need  to protect their community and their desire to fight back against the occupying Germans.

Featuring a solid performance from Daniel Craig and a brilliant one from Liev Schreiber, Defiance combines story, cinematography and acting to great effect, but sadly neglects to provide as much drama as you’d expect from a film that features fraternal rivalry, pitched tank battles and desperate escapes. The beautiful woodland shots go some way towards compensating for the film’s occasional flatness, while the 5.1 True HD soundtrack does justice to John Howard's award-winning score.  Less impressive is the limited selection of Blu-ray extras: a photo gallery and less than an hour of documentaries. You can watch our full Defiance review here.

On the subject of lesser known war stories, the life of spy Violette Szabo has provided the loose inspiration for Velvet Assassin, a WWII game that combines morphine, lingerie and knives to disturbing effect.You can check out our first-play of Velvet Assassin on our games channel.

It’s been a mixed week for The Leisure Lab’s reviews, with Max Payne on Blu-ray earning itself a paltry one star, while It’s Blitz, the third studio album from New York art punks Yeah Yeah Yeahs has earned itself a five star rating.

While the original Max Payne game series has a BAFTA under it’s belt and a highly anticipated sequel on the way, none of its strength or excitement makes it to the screen in the movie adaptation.

Despite the presence of shootouts, special effects and Bond girls, it still manages to be astonishingly dull, with Mark Wahlberg once again trudging through a desultory, overlong plot.

From a technical standpoint the DTS-HD MA does justice to the truly impressive sound effects, and the special effects look fantastic, but those technical accomplishments can’t do anything to mitigate the film’s leaden direction. You can watch our Max Payne review here.

Fortunately, we’ve also had the It’s Blitz to listen to this week, and the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s ability to put down the guitars and relax the shrieking without losing any of their explosive vitality has had us hitting repeat over and over again. You can hear our It’s Blitz review here.

Probably the hottest movie release of the week if you're looking to keep teenagers entertained over Easter, Twilight is an angsty teen movie  featuring clumsy girls, hunky vampires and some lush cinematography. Sadly, its also po-faced and afflicted with patchy special effects. Despite that, however, it faithfully adapts a phenomenally succesful series of novels and will have its intended audience gripped.You can watch our Twilight DVD review here.

If you're looking for something a little more adult oriented, check out the MadWorld review on our game reviews channel. It's an 18 certificate game with a juvenile sense of humour, but the combination of of insane violence with incredible graphics shows that with a little creative thinking the Wii can look as impressive as it's HD capable rivals.

Suffering through the kidnap of her son and the return of a boy she’s convinced isn’t hers, Angelina Jolie gives an impressive performance in director Clint Eastwood’s latest drama, Changeling.

The Blu-ray presentation of Changeling preserves the film’s beautifully composed shots in the original 2.40:1 aspect ratio and presents a perfectly balanced DTS-HD MA 5.1 soundtrack of soft horns, dialogue and ambient noise that’s been mixed with more breadth than you’d expect of a lengthy, chatty movie.

These high points in the presentation can’t prevent the film from going off the rails slightly, as the first hour of intense domestic desperation gives way to a rambling mix of genres as Eastwood attempts to explore all the intersecting threads of this complex true story, but fortunately the story and performances are strong enough to keep you interested. You can watch a full Changeling review on The Leisure Lab’s Movie reviews channel.

Much has been made of the slightly disjointed feel of Bond’s 22nd outing, Quantum of Solace, and while a glossy blu-ray presentation can’t do anything to fix the mid-trilogy feel of the film, it does bring the action and excitement to the fore, making it easy to just surrender to the joys of the disc: a picture presentation that’s the equal of the lauded Casino Royale, and 5.1 DTS-HD MA audio that’s full of broad detail to match the Bond franchise’s newfound physicality.

Its almost enough to take your mind off the limited extras, a selection of featurettes, profiles and location diaries identical to the DVD release but in high-def. You can watch The Leisure Lab's full Quantum of Solace Blu-ray review here.