The December 2022 issue of What Hi-Fi? is out now, and this month we take an in-depth look at the very best decks for your vinyl, while also looking ahead to this year's World Cup with our pick of the best TVs for enjoying sports.
As usual, we also have reviews of the very latest hi-fi and AV products in our First Tests section, as well as our Buyer’s Guide, filled with recommendations of top-quality kit for every budget.
Every so often though, though, we come across a song that helps to highlight the finest attributes (or fatal flaws) of a system, and when that happens, we like to share it. So if you're looking for a few high-quality music suggestions to test your hi-fi, we’ve got 20 songs that we’ve been using across our reviews recently, including the personal favourites of some of our editorial team, suggested below.
- 15 of the best-produced recordings of all time to test your speakers
- 7 of the best-produced albums of the 21st Century to test your system
Tyler, The Creator - I THINK
Rebecca Roberts, Managing Editor (Australia)
One of my favourite tests of rhythm and timing from the past few years is this upbeat cocktail of musical strands and samples from one of rap's most colourful characters.
Above vinyl crackles, various beats, piano melodies and synth lines and jingles layer up to form a musically dense yet coherent creation that, if your system times well, should make musical sense throughout. If it sounds like a random collection of disconnected ideas, something's not right.
Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young - Helplessly Hoping
Jonathan Evans, Magazine Editor
A great test of a system's dynamics and timing; get it right, and it's mesmerising. And those harmonies...
David Bowie - Five Years
Mary Stone - Staff writer
One of the most famous album openers of all time, Five Years starts off so quietly that you barely notice the deadpan drums creeping in before they're quickly met with celestial guitar chords and Bowie's reverb-smudged impassive vocal drifting in and out of ethereal fantasy and dry realism.
From this sparse beginning, the track's monumental climb begins. This increasingly cinematic waltz adds an orchestra and choral backing to its arsenal as it ascends to a dizzying, wailing climax, underpinned by that relentlessly plaintive percussion.
According to Bowie biographer Peter Doggett: "by the finale, the orchestral players were fighting for air against amplified guitar static, scraping despairingly at their own instruments while the last of the human race screamed around them.” That vigour is palpable in the density and richness of the final chorus, with the track’s rise and fall producing an excellent test of your system's dynamic insight.
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