I have been listening seriously to recordings my whole life, but only within the past 10 years have I gotten interested in high-end audio quality. Sure I liked punchy recordings with great bass, crisp highs and present midrange, but I was too busy listening for music-analysis things like creative composition, interpretations, fascinating rhythm (thanks George and Ira), innovative improvisation, interesting interpretation, swing, arrangements, timbre, etc. to be bothered with things like soundstage, imaging, realism, accuracy, etc. I also had this notion that most truly-audiophile recordings weren’t really good musically, that it was like reading a book and only caring about the quality of print, photos, and binding. But when I added high-end audio to my interests, I quickly learned that the majority of audiophile-level recordings ALSO meet many of my music analysis standards.
Even more, I began to discover through audiophile social media like this forum many artists I knew nothing about, asking myself, “Why the heck had I not heard of them before?” It’s almost like there’s a hidden category of fantastic musicians that aren’t as well known BECAUSE they’re audiophile, where I HAD to raise my level of detailed audio listening to be allowed into the club.
So I thought it might be fun to list audio-quality-focused musicians, primarily ones where I could drop the needle pretty much anywhere in most of their output and be impressed.
I’ll first list the names of artists I already knew were associated with audio quality - categorized, but in no particular order:
Rock, Pop, Alternative
- Steely Dan, and Donald Fagen’s solo work
- Pink Floyd
- Joe Jackson
- Elvis Costello
- Radiohead
- Joe Henry
- James Taylor
- Joni Mitchell
- Chicago
- Tower of Power
- Blood, Sweat & Tears
- Supertramp
- Gino Vannelli
- XTC
- Yes
- The Beatles (some)
- Billy Joel
- A lot of recordings put out by A&M Records
Please note that rock is not my strongest suit - I’m sure I’ve missed plenty.
Jazz & Blues*
- Wynton Marsalis
- Chick Corea
- Gordon Goodwin’s Big Phat Band
- Stevie Ray Vaughan
- Herbie Hancock
- Keith Jarrett
- Most jazz on the ECM label
- John Jorgenson
- Most recordings engineered by Rudy Van Gelder
- Lots of stuff on the Wyndham Hill label (some qualifies as jazz)
*The reason there are fewer jazz artists is because for many years I listened to so many mono and 78 rpm records, I didn’t care whether they were good recordings or not
Classical
- Almost anything on Telarc Recordings
- Almost anything on the Archiv label
Country, Folk, Americana, Singer-Songwriter, Alt-Folk
- Alison Krauss
- Mary Black
- Nickel Creek
Here’s a list of artists I knew already, but when I got deeper into audio, learned they were much more involved in high-end audio quality than I thought:
Rock, Pop, Alternative
- Dire Straits and solo work by Mark Knopfler
- Paul Simon
- Beach Boys
- k. d. lang
- Frank Zappa
- Prince
- Livingston Taylor
- Tom Waits
Jazz & Blues
- Andre Previn
- Art Pepper
- Bill Evans
- Count Basie
- Patricia Barber
- Duke Ellington
- Dave Brubeck
- Joshua Redman
- Lee Konitz
- Maria Schneider
- Melody Gardot
- Shelly Manne
- Gil Evans
- Ryan Truesdell
- Miguel Zenon
Country, Folk, Americana, Singer-Songwriter, Alt-Folk
- Lyle Lovett
- Willie Nelson
- John Prine
And here are artists I’ve met for the first time through my audiophile hobby:
Rock, Pop, Alternative
- Daft Punk
- Feist
- The Staves
- The Blue Nile
- Sara K
- Rebecca Pidgeon
- Amber Rubarth
- Eva Cassidy
- Lyn Stanley
- Sara Gazarek
Jazz & Blues
- Arne Domnérus
- Sinne Eeg
- Diana Krall
- Anne Bisson
- Cecile McLorin Salvant
- Jane Monheit
- Madeleine Peyroux
- Holly Cole
- Christy Baron
- Emilie-Claire Barlow
- Dave’s True Story
Country, Folk, Americana, Singer-Songwriter, Alt-Folk
- Ron Sexmith
Classical
- Lots on Reference Recordings
- Lots on 2xHD
I guess I could have listed more audio-centric labels, but wanted to keep this mostly to artists. So who did I miss? Lots. Teach me.
