Hi-res music streamer Qobuz has redesigned its mobile and tablet app, with a new player and real-time synchronised lyrics.

The player interface has been completely overhauled to make it more intuitive, immersive and full of even more information. The visuals also dynamically adjust to the album artwork.

The mini player will remain visible at all times, so you can always control playback regardless of where you've navigated to within the app. You can also add or remove tracks to the play queue by swiping like on a dating app.

One very welcome is synchronised lyrics, which displays the words to a song line-by-line as they're sung in real time. It even includes translations so you know what they're singing about. Which should settle a few arguments without resorting to Google.

Not sure what to listen to first? Qobuz has created new playlists, including the best songs to sing along to. Sweet Caroline it is.

The Explore section can also help here. It serves up all kinds of recommendations like similar albums and artists, playlists, radio stations, and content related to the radio station or genre. You can also access the Qobuz Magazine – with editorial content on the artist – straight from the player.

The credits layout has been tweaked so give you better access to info like reviews, biographies and technical file data, plus you can follow an artist or label direct from the player.

The listening queue and autoplay now show the next three tracks, so you know – and can adjust – what's coming, and you can tweak the audio output, add tracks to favourites and add to a playlist straight from the customisable mini player.

These features are now available on mobile and tablet apps for iOS and Android, and will come to other platforms at a later date.

In February, Qobuz updated its CarPlay app with more features and Siri voice controls. At £12.99 / $17.99 / AU$20.83 a month, Qobuz is more expensive than Apple Music (which recently raised its prices), but the same price as Spotify and Tidal (in the UK at least).

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Apple Music just got more expensive. The music streaming service is now £11.99 / $11.99 / AU$14.99 for the Individual plan – that's £1 / $1 / AU$2 a month pricier than before.

It's not the only streaming service hiking its prices lately. Tidal recently announced its prices will go up next month, while Spotify raised its prices at the start of this year.

Here are the new prices for Apple Music.

However, even with the price rise, Apple Music remains cheaper than Spotify and Tidal in most plans and most territories. The student plan remains unchanged in the UK at £5.99 a month.

This is Apple Music's first price rise in four years. Apple recently raised the price of some of its devices – including the Apple TV 4K and HomePod 2 – citing the global RAM shortage.

Annual price rises are swiftly becoming the new norm for streaming services. Spotify has raised its UK prices three times since 2023.

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I don’t know about you, but I’m rather excited to see The Odyssey, Christopher Nolan’s cinematic take on Homer’s peerless epic poem.

Ignoring all of the tedious internet chatter and naysaying from self-appointed experts who really should take the time, in the very spirit of their beloved wandering Greek hero, to go outside and touch some grass, early signs point to the blockbuster to end all blockbusters. Reviews seem positive, to say the least.

Nolan at the helm? Check. A star-studded cast working at the top of their respective games? Check. One of western literature’s greatest stories providing the riveting source material? You betcha’.

“But they’re not using the original overlapping bronze armour, and those helmets should be made of boar hide. And why does Odysseus have an American accent?”

Go dump yourself in the River Styx.

I’ll be booking my tickets to The Odyssey as soon as I can, and while my optimism might end up crashing down like the walls of once-glittering Troy itself, I’m relatively confident that you should be doing the same.

Forget Avengers: Doomsday, the cinematic event of the year is here!

The second-best composer named Ludwig

I’m excited for all of those aforementioned reasons of director, production and cast, but I’m also keen to see The Odyssey on the big screen because it once again brings together two of cinema’s most potent trump cards: Christopher Nolan and his composer du jour, Ludwig Göransson.

Nolan has recruited the services of the ever-enthralling Hans Zimmer for many of his greatest barnstormers, including the Dark Knight saga and Interstellar, with Göransson latterly becoming a sort of Zimmer 2.0 as he begins to forge his own reputation as one of the world’s premier composers.

This is the man who did the music for Disney Plus’s The Mandalorian and, under Nolan’s charge, Oppenheimer. Projects don’t get much bigger than that.

The Oppenheimer score is, while we’re on the subject, truly worthy of the movie which it accompanies – we use Can You Hear The Music regularly as a track for testing home cinema and hi-fi – but it is Göransson’s work on the lesser-know (certainly less-understood) blockbuster Tenet that has me setting sail on my Trireme and making for the multiplex to discover what the Swedish composer can do for The Odyssey.

If you’ve seen Tenet, you’ll know exactly the sort of challenges which must have faced Mr. Göransson as he prepared to give it his best. About as confusing as trying to solve a Rubik’s cube inside a hall of mirrors, it stands alone as one of the most mind-bending and elliptical of all of Nolan’s creations.

When you consider this is the man who gave the world Memento and Inception, that’s some feat.

A soundtrack built to last

Thankfully, the accompanying score is a triumph, and one I use often whenever I’m digging deep into the capabilities of a new pair of headphones or a box-fresh (but properly run-in, of course) amplifier. In fact, it’s become something of an obsession even when I’m outside the test rooms – a sort of musical comfort blanket that I don’t seem to be able to take off.

POSTERITY is the track that has lodged the deepest roots in my psyche – so much so that I’ll often simply whack it on without thinking whenever I have a spare moment of silence which needs filling, lest the voices are given room to make themselves heard.

At nearly 13 minutes long, it is by far the longest track across the Tenet score, yet what’s remarkable about POSTERITY is that not a second feels wasted across what is a sprawling, Herculean runtime.

That obviously means you’ll need to set aside quite a bit of time if you’re using it for testing; but the reward is worth the considerable effort. POSTERITY, in the same vein as Hans Zimmer’s Supermarine (written for another Nolan movie, Dunkirk), is all about the progression, about the slow but inexorable build-up as it rises and swells from glowing embers to a roaring, engulfing blaze.

Not once is that repetitiveness ever dull. POSTERITY has such a potent sense of momentum that it enraptures from its first note, hooking you in by virtue of its unrelenting intensity and strange, hypnotic instrumentation. I have previously described some of the sound produced as being like a zither being whacked with a bit of old drainpipe, and in truth, I’m yet to come up with a better description.

Drainpipe and zither it is.

There’s a lot, then, for your system to capture. Not only that inexorable build as the composition becomes denser and more intense, but the very particular tone and feel of the piece conjured by its oddball instrumentation and unique soundscape. It’s also a treat if you want to see how your system conveys both small-scale and big-picture dynamics, from the chuntering analogue synthesisers to the intermittent stabs of drums and pianos.

Or it might just be one piano, singular.

You don’t have to stop at POSTERITY, either. FREEPORT recruits those strange zither-like synths to great effect, again trading on continuous instrumental loops punctuated by intermittent percussive whacks and electronic pulses to keep your system’s dynamic reproduction honest.

Or, if you want something quieter and more delicate, the sparseness of THE PROTAGONIST is well worth seeking out, offering up woozy synth rumbles accompanied by a rich, mysterious guitar.

RAINY NIGHT IN TALLINN makes for a similarly keen showcase of how well a system or set-up can really put a piece of music together. It bounds constantly between a mesh of styles and tones in a manner that is as bamboozling as Tenet’s very subject matter.

RAINY NIGHT accompanies the movie’s intense ‘opera siege’ opening scene, so if you want the full audio visual experience, seek it out to see how sound and screen work together in harmony.

As an aside, it’s well worth watching Tenet for its peculiar use of music and non-diegetic sound. For instance, the accompanying soundtrack will often be too loud or overbearing as a way of expressing – or perhaps masking – the mood and intentions of the characters on-screen. Check out this scene in particular and you’ll get the idea.

Music maketh movie(s)

Music is just as important to a great movie as anything on the screen itself – Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton aside, sound and sight go hand in hand when delivering the true masterpieces of modern cinema.

Where would Star Wars have been without John Williams? How diminished would the Lord of the Rings trilogy become without Howard Shore? Where is Sergio Leone without Ennio Morricone?

While the prospect of Christopher Nolan directing an adaptation of Homer's Odyssey is sufficient to have most right-headed people champing at the bit to get to book a screening, the addition of Ludwig Göransson providing the music should be more than enough to have you hammering on the doors of your local Cineworld as if they were the gates of Ilium itself.

Around this time last year, my local cinema closed – seemingly for good. Defying all odds, its doors are once again open, meaning I’ll be able to experience for myself the sights and sounds of Nolan’s epic adaptation in all of the 12-channel, Dolby Atmos-powered glory. It’s not quite the Waterloo IMAX, but it’s the next best thing.

The Odyssey has all the makings of a milestone cinematic event. Now that it’s finally in cinemas, I can’t wait to see – and hear it – for myself.

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We’ve all been recipients of disapproving head shakes after asking the DJ for a particular tune… haven’t we?

Well, gone are the days of disc-jockey rejections, because Spotify has introduced an AI feature that allows paid users to control the app with their voice (and text) in order to create playlists, learn about songs, and even explore their own listening history.

The “Talk to Spotify” feature is available within the Home and Now Playing views on the mobile app. To use the feature, users have to press the mic button in the search field, and can then talk or type commands.

If you’re a fan of streaming music, you’ll be aware that there has been much recent discourse about cutting down on AI in the world of streaming services.

Just last month, Tidal joined Deezer and Qobuz in a clampdown on AI generated music, and even Spotify has recently culled a batch of AI generated songs, despite the company’s boss defending AI music in the not too distant past.

But when it comes to in-app functions, it seems that Spotify is embracing the technology with open arms.

The new feature joins an existing batch of AI functions within the Spotify app, which include an AI DJ that picks music based on your listening habits, an AI playlist builder that can create custom playlists in response to prompts, and Daylist, a playlist that updates to suit the mood throughout the day.

The Talk to Spotify function is now being rolled out to Spotify Premium users aged 18 and above in the US, Ireland and Sweden across iOS and Android devices in English.

According to Spotify: “Like any beta, it’s a work in progress: responses won’t always be perfect, and your feedback directly shapes what comes next.”

So, when it comes to the UK, we will be giving the new feature a try and thinking up our action points. Let us know your thoughts in the comment section below.

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Can you believe we’re more than half way through the year? Before long it’ll be the end of summer, then Bonfire Night, then Christmas, then another year finished as time marches mercilessly on. What is this quintessence of dust, as Hamlet so perceptively mused?

Sadly for the fictitious Danish Prince, he didn’t have a hi-fi setup to take his mind off of his gnawing existential dread. We can’t offer spiritual counsel, but if you happen to be one of the fortunate souls who take refuge under a pair of speakers and an integrated amplifier, then might we suggest the following tunes to keep the existential wolf from the door?

• Listen to our full Now Playing playlist on Tidal

Lost Boys by Phoebe Bridgers

The six-year wait for a new Phoebe Bridgers album has felt nothing short of excruciating.

Aside from Boygenius's (which Bridgers makes up a third of) self-titled album back in 2022, I’ve held my nerve since the sensational Punisher album was released in 2020, and subsequently became my lockdown soundtrack. Thankfully, my patience has paid off, as Bridgers’ new album, Lost Weekend, is confirmed to release on the 14th of August.

The new record's first single, Lost Boys, has quickly become my favourite song of 2026. I presume that will change once I hear the full album later this year.

Despite the considerable gap between solo projects, this song clearly follows Phoebe Bridgers’ style while evolving certain aspects to ensure it's not just re-treading her discography.

The plucking strings of Halloween and the chorus of trumpets from Kyoto return here, but there is more energy and fullness to the production that makes me think that the new album will be bigger in scale than Punisher.

The star of the show is Bridgers’ folky and earnest lyricism, which treads a fine line between haunting and toe-tappingly groovy. There’s subtext aplenty to dig your teeth into, as Bridgers rarely shies away from heavy themes within her music; this time she spins a metaphor linking modern masculinity, the glorification of violence, and the refusal to accept reality.

Despite the dense subject matter, Bridgers’ euphoric, wistful, and almost nursery-rhyme-like lyrics and vocals create an inviting and harmonious sound that is impossible not to get sucked into.

With a lead single this strong, I am counting down the days until I can listen to her upcoming 16-track album in full.

Words by Lewis Empson

Love Me Or Leave Me by Nina Simone

Over the years, there have been many versions of this tune – from such luminaries as Sammy Davis Jr, Bing Crosby and Doris Day – but they all sound positively leaden next to Nina Simone’s take on it.

It absolutely kicks, from that sprightly intro that doesn’t hang about to her soulful vocals and the extended piano solo that builds like an Ira Levin thriller before erupting in a shower of anger and frustration, reflecting the subject matter and aided Simone’s on-point vocal delivery.

In fact, the whole song is basically that solo bookended by the same verse repeated – first as request, then as demand. In between, the piano starts off playfully dancing around the drumbeat, almost enjoying the situation, before going all Bach on us in the style of his Inventions, but it seems to go on and on – much like it must feel being left in limbo romantically – gradually ratcheting up the intensity until the thundering climax.

This is a true master at work, a classically trained pianist and singer letting rip with her new-jazz styles on an old classic, tearing up the rules only once she’s mastered them. Where Sammy Davis Jr, Bing Crosby and Doris Day’s versions sound a bit mopey, Simone is angry, and is letting us know the only way she knows how.

And this was from Simone’s debut album. What an introduction to one of the 20th century’s most accomplished artists.

Words by Joe Svetlik

Wanted Man by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds

Wanted Man is featured on Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds' second album, The Firstborn Is Dead. Their sophomore album was the band’s attempt at creating a straight blues record, diving deep into the gothic-southern world that Cave’s writing so often inhabits.

The track was inspired by a song written by Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash, from whom Cave had to seek permission to change the lyrics.

Recorded in Berlin’s Hansa Studios, Wanted Man features roomy, machine-gun-cracking drums beneath Cave’s snarling recitation of the many people and state police pursuing him. Whipping up the song’s ever more urgent disorder, wild organs and Blixa Bargeld’s industrial-cum-country slide-guitar churn this track into a howling blues-infused dust-devil.

The final lyric: “If the devil comes collecting he better hold a six gun in his hand,” neatly summarises the general sentiment of Wanted Man. It is a phenomenal test track for its rhythmic power and textural intricacy, but it makes an even better driving song, played loud.

Words by Ioan Hazell

How Soon Is Now? by The Smiths

Has there ever been a rock outfit more divisive than The Smiths?

You’re either a complete obsessive who, starting at the age of about 14, devoured the Manchester outfit’s back catalogue while crying adolescent tears of cathartic joy, or else you’re one of those people for whom Morrissey’s distinctive mewling is akin to having a particularly large wasp embedded inside your ear canal.

How Soon Is Now? is the track for finding that slim piece of common ground in the Venn diagram of devotees and deniers, a near-seven minute epic that sounds unlike anything you’ve ever heard or are likely to hear.

It’s got all of Morrissey’s usual self-flagellatory mutterings on the isolating misery brought about by excessive shyness, but the star of the show is the siren-like pulse of Johnny Marr’s distorted tremolo guitar, giving the tune a powerful, brooding edge when fired out above thumping drums and an underlaid chugging bassline.

The quiet, introspective Smiths DNA is all in there, but covered in the most deliciously thrilling wrapper. Play it through a capable hi-fi set-up and you’ll have an experience unlike any other.

Words by Harry McKerrell

Light Of The Seven by Ramin Djawadi

One thing that has always remained consistent, despite the arguable fluctuations in quality of Game Of Thrones and its various spin-offs, is the brilliance of its soundtrack. Ramin Djawadi is the mastermind composer behind it, and with House Of The Dragon returning for a fiery third season, now is the perfect time to revisit some of his best work for the franchise.

Light Of The Seven is one of the most famous pieces from the original show, partly for the iconic scene in the season six finale it accompanies. No spoilers here, but it’s a ten minute scene largely without dialogue, with the track and visuals working in tandem to slowly build up tension to a rather explosive climax (if you know, you know).

But the track holds up on its own, and conveys the emotion of the scene without any need for a screen. In a departure for the show, the track starts with a sparse, delicate piano melody.

Slowly but surely, more layers are added – haunting vocals, minimalist violins, and then, suddenly, a massive rumbling pipe organ – until eventually we have a much larger arrangement that is in stark contrast to the intimate opening.

It’s this final part that is the real stress test, with the sudden wall of sound a real assessment of your audio gear’s dynamic range and the ability to keep every instrument identifiable.

Words by Daniel Furn

The Curse by Agnes Obel

We were lucky enough to take a trip down to Bowers & Wilkins’ facility in Surrey to have a listen to the company’s updated Diamond series of loudspeakers, with one of the test tracks used being the opening of Agnes Obel’s The Curse. It’s hard to resist the urge to roll out that old cliché: great minds really do think alike.

The Curse is a masterwork, as is Aventine, the album from which it is taken. In fact, we use the record so often that a hi-res edition has a permanent home on our reference Astell & Kern portable music player, ready and waiting to put a potential pair of wired headphones through its paces.

B&W’s use of those opening few bars to show off its latest speaker roster was no accident. In the space of mere seconds, the track’s taut, almost menacing strings will reveal more about a product’s capabilities than some entire albums, from the breadth of the soundstage to the richness of the textures unearthed.

It’s worth listening to the whole track, though. Just to be sure…

Words by Harry McKerrell

Fallin' by Alicia Keys

It’s been 25 years, but Alicia Keys’ Fallin’, the lead single from her debut album Songs In A Minor (2001), still manages to invoke goosebumps every time I hear it.

It’s been a staple of our test track playlist for years, with her powerful vocals still stirring our souls and grabbing our attention as it did the first time we heard it. When using it for testing speakers, for instance, we always listen out for how well they relay the raw, rough textures of her voice when she belts out the soulful lyrics.

The song is also a fantastic test of your system’s dynamic handling, tracking how well it handles the sudden swell in intensity when the backing vocals kick in, and how quickly it goes back to being quiet and intimate when it’s just Keys and her piano.

The track's sudden shifts in dynamic intensity, coupled with the terrific melody, mean it remains not just a great pop song, but also a great test for any product that comes through our test rooms.

Words by Kashfia Kabir

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Tidal has become the latest music streaming service to clamp down on AI music, following Deezer and Qobuz.

Its new AI policy (whose page seems to be down at time of writing), sets out to shield artists financially while also keeping listeners informed about who (or what) made what they're listening to.

Tidal will identify and flag AI-generated music within the app, giving each track an "AI" badge. It will bar any AI-generated music that impersonates any artist or group, or that "facilitates fraudulent activity." It will remove these using "automatic tools" both immediately and on an ongoing basis.

Music that is 100 per cent AI-generated will also not be allowed to earn any money. Tidal won't allow such tracks to earn royalties, nor to be sold direct to fans.

These tools will only apply to music that is 100 per cent generated by AI, but will roll out to music that's substantially AI-generated "when AI detection technology is sufficiently reliable to do so." And there's the rub.

Like other music services taking a stance, Tidal will rely on AI to detect AI. And as the book world has learned, that's not always 100 per cent accurate.

Also, it's not always clear what qualifies as AI. If someone creates an original composition, but fine tunes it with AI, does that count? The lines are blurred, and will only be more so as AI becomes more sophisticated.

Tidal's policy will kick in on 15th July.

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Bose is launching its own record label, but not in the traditional sense. Bose Studios is described as a "music-focused content platform" which will combine "original content, artist-led experiences, music TV and film projects, and partnerships designed to help fans discover new artists and connect more deeply with music."

But questions remain over exactly how it will work.

Bose CMO Jim Mollica told Business Insider that Bose Studios won't aim to compete with the big three record labels, and that it will help break under-appreciated or new artists. Bose won't take a cut of their sales or streams, and won't own the masters, but it will be able to use the music in its adverts.

Bose artists will also be free to sign with other labels.

Mollica promised its original TV and film projects have attracted "some legendary Hollywood names", though he stopped short of naming them. We're also promised a YouTube series, podcasts, and live music events.

It's all a way of giving people "a deeper connection to the music they love," Bose says. The fact it describes this as a shift for the brand as it "expands beyond traditional campaign marketing and invests more directly in music culture" suggests its core business of selling speakers and headphones won't be going anywhere.

Bose has previously formed relationships with artists through its marketing. Earlier this year, it collaborated with Grammy-nominated Twitch streamer PlaqueBoyMax, who created music on the hoof for a livestream during the NBA's All-Star weekend.

We've contacted Bose for more information. Bose will announce its first artist soon, which it says "will provide more context around the platform."

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Oh, Tidal, the love-hate relationship that you and I have.

I am, on the whole, immensely fond of the Norwegian-American hi-res service, having used it as my streaming platform of choice for the past three and a half years.

The music quality remains top-notch, the in-house catalogue is impressive, and it makes me seem cooler whenever normal people ask me which service I’m subscribed to and I reply with something other than Spotify or Apple Music. They do tend to walk away whenever I start talking about bit rates and the death of MQA, though.

My problem with Tidal has always been its pretty mediocre levels of usability, which often threaten to mar your experience and take the shine off those otherwise sparkling hi-res tracks. Strange organisation schedules, ropey CarPlay, unwanted glitches – it’s hardly been plain sailing, but we’ve always managed to muddle through.

The biggest issue I had with Tidal was its handling of downloads. This might seem like a niche concern, especially in an age where you could probably get a reasonably steady wi-fi connection at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, but it matters to me.

It matters because I do a fair bit of travelling, mainly for work, and most planes still don’t offer wi-fi as standard. Even if they do, it often comes with a price attached, especially on long-haul flights. Honestly, it’s like living in the Dark Ages.

Hence, being able to download my music and, crucially, have it work once I’m offline and 40,000 feet in the air, matters. Nobody wants to spend a chunk of their afternoon downloading their extensive back catalogue of songs onto their iPhone, only to discover that, once they’re halfway over France, none of them will play.

That, by the way, is exactly what happened when I was taking a trip to Germany a few months ago and found that only a few of my precious tunes seemed to be working. Despite having downloaded my entire Tidal catalogue – and feeling smug while waiting to board – some songs wouldn’t play. Some would, some wouldn’t, and there was no immediate way of identifying which was which.

Thankfully, the issue seems to have been rectified. Tidal has given its download interface a bit of an overhaul, with a revamped section displaying all of your downloaded tracks in a separate corner of the app.

From here, you can access all your safely banked tunes even when offline, without the app telling you, as it has sometimes done before, that you need to be online, despite the song clearly showing up in the playlist you just downloaded. Make sense of that, philosophy majors.

The experience is far better now. It’s more stable, straightforward and secure, and that lottery of finding out which of your songs has actually made the cut seems to be a thing of the past.

On a more recent trip to Austria for the High End Vienna showcase, all of my downloaded music worked just as it should. No guessing which tracks would work, no glitches on my saved songs, no asking the air stewards for sedatives or a spare parachute.

Things still aren’t perfect, of course. The fact that you still can’t download individual tracks continues to boggle my brain, especially as it must be such a simple thing to implement.

You can go through songs individually and have them saved onto your device on Spotify and Qobuz, but with Tidal, you still have to add songs to your collection or other playlists before you can have them for your own. It’s like some sort of weird loyalty test to make sure you’re serious about the commitment.

Things aren’t entirely rosy once you’re offline and up in the (metaphorical) clouds, either. You can’t queue tracks when in offline mode, even if they’ve been downloaded, which seems like an odd blind spot. Try to do so, and you’ll just get a network error on an angry red banner. Don’t get angry at me, Tidal; it’s a perfectly reasonable request.

Plus, it is still tricky to tell what has and hasn’t been downloaded. Yes, it should be safe to assume that everything within your download section should now be saved onto your device, but given the glitches I’ve experienced in the past, Tidal needs to work pretty hard to regain my trust.

Having differentiation for when you’re not in your download section is where this would come in really handy, putting you in a far better position to figure out which songs potentially aren’t going to be available when you take your next trip.

Again, on Spotify, you’ll have a big green arrow distinguishing which tracks are downloaded and which aren’t, making the whole thing much more straightforward. Pretty simple, right?

All in all, though, Tidal is moving in the right direction. The developers tend to find time to make frequent updates and amendments to the platform’s interface, and they’re transparent about what they’ve added and why they’ve done so.

Downloads were a huge blind spot in the past, but there are positive signs that the issues which have dogged my experience are steadily being rectified.

If so, I can finally enjoy my glamorous jet set lifestyle without the fear of it lacking the appropriate soundtrack. I might pack my own parachute, though. Just in case…

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Music streaming platform Deezer has launched an AI music detector, offering users across 20 of the most popular streaming services the chance to check what percentage of their playlists have been generated by artificial intelligence.

Users of Spotify, Tidal, Apple Music and other major platforms are now able to check their playlists by connecting their streaming accounts to Deezer’s free AI detection website.

Deezer’s internal AI detection tool has been in place since the start of 2025, making it the first music-streaming service to single out AI-generated music. Over 13.4 million AI tracks were pinpointed in 2025 alone, and Deezer now claims it receives 75,000 such tracks each day, accounting for 44 per cent of daily uploads.

The new tool allows Deezer to remove AI tracks from algorithmic recommendations and editorial playlists, an action the platform has called a “first step” in preserving the royalty pool for human creators.

A recent study by the International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers (CISAC) and management consulting firm PMP Strategy found that nearly a quarter of creators’ revenues could be at risk due to market penetration by generative AI by 2028, with yearly losses amounting to approximately €4 billion by that time.

Additionally, an eight-country survey from Deezer and IPSOS found that 97 per cent of listeners were unable to tell the difference between fully AI-generated and human-made music, while 73 per cent of respondents said they would like to see AI music tagged on streaming services.

Alexis Lanternier, Deezer’s CEO, said: "A vast majority of people want to know if AI music is being recommended to them and our data show that nearly half of the users joining Deezer from another platform have AI tracks in their playlists. We’re expecting our AI music detector to be an eye-opening experience for listeners around the world."

The What Hi-Fi? team tried this free tool, connecting our Tidal account so the website could scan our playlists. We were both pleased and surprised to find that one per cent of the music in our curated playlists has been generated by AI (as seen in screenshot above). Sadly, the tool does not then highlight which specific tracks have been artificially generated if you're using a non-Deezer music service.

A Deezer representative has confirmed to us that if you transfer your playlists and library to Deezer, "you’ll be able to see the albums that are tagged as including AI."

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Read our original Deezer review

Throughout the World Cup 2026, music venues will undoubtedly see reduced numbers through their doors in the 16 cities hosting this year’s games. As football fans head to the stadiums, we are taking the opportunity to shine a light on artists from each of the host cities’ local music scenes.

With matches scheduled across the USA, Mexico and Canada – starting with Mexico v South Africa on 11th June in Mexico City – there is no small territory to cover here. But from Vancouver to Dallas to Guadalajara, we’ve got you covered, with our hand-picked playlist of local favourites that are sure to sound great on any decent music system.

Not conventional football anthems, perhaps, but these tracks have been selected to showcase local artists and put your hi-fi through its paces. And besides, you might end up listening to the next big thing.

• Listen to our World Cup 2026 local listens playlist on Tidal

Now In A Vacuum – Concrete Vehicles (Vancouver)

Kicking things off with wild percussion and crunchy sub-bass, seven-piece Vancouver collective Concrete Vehicles (formerly known as Computer) showcase their very noisiest noise-rock in this gritty, tweeter-busting tune.

With howling guitar feedback, subs so distorted they’ll have you wondering if everything is, in general, okay, and hypnotic, breathless vocals, Now In A Vacuum’s most impressive feat is that the song manages to hang together despite the magnitude of disorder on show. What’s more, the band sound remarkably tight throughout.

Maybe not one we anticipate to hear chanted from the stands, but this song will certainly push your system’s limits.

Mockingbird – Abigail Lapell, Dana Sipos (Toronto)

Folk singer-songwriter Abigail Lapell’s voice sits somewhere between Tracy Chapman’s and Joni Mitchell’s. Taken from the Toronto musician’s album Shadow Child, this track chronicles her journey, equal parts joyous and difficult, through motherhood.

Opening with birdsong, Mockingbird eventually spills into rich acoustic guitars, harmonica and Lapell’s velvet smooth vocals. Harmonies from Dana Sipos furnish this weary, country-infused tribute to indecision, adding emotional weight to its central conundrum: “Maybe I will, maybe I won’t.”

With a wealth of detail in the upper midrange, Mockingbird provides a true test of your system’s handling of fine textures.

Stars – Sussie 4 (Guadalajara)

Central players in Guadalajara’s electronic music scene, Sussie 4’s name was inspired by musician and actress Suzi Quatro – ‘cuatro’ being ‘four’ in Spanish. Stars is a distillation of the duo’s sound, showcasing their unique infusion of French house, Latin rhythms and pop.

There’s a lot going on here. With a synthesised bass playing the lead melody above sparkling acoustic guitars and a heavy house beat, this track is sure to put your system’s frequency range to the test. The song’s most ineluctable quality, however, is its energetic, pulsing core: a feature which will highlight how your system responds to music with strong rhythmic drive.

Sur – Sotomayor (Mexico City)

Sharing the common surname of siblings Paulina and Raúl, their musical project, Sotomayor, blends Afro Latin rhythms with electronic beats. Sur, from their 2015 debut album, Salvaje, is a smooth, house infused track that sees Paulina Sotomayor’s vocals building to a crescendo that never arrives, keeping us on the edges of our seats for the song’s duration.

A notable feature of the track is its pulsing undercurrent, which is secured, in part, by a syncopated organ, evoking early 2000s club bangers. Much of the song takes place in the lower midrange, with intermittent high-frequency interjections from synthesised hi-hats and claps.

Another great test of rhythmic drive, Sur will come to life on systems capable of reproducing subtle textural layers

Ego – The Warning (Monterrey)

Hailing from Monterrey, The Warning are an all female rock trio consisting of sisters Daniela, Paulina and Alejandra Villareal Vélez. Their musical journey began with childhood marathons of the videogame Rock Band, an influence that is echoed in their anthemic, highly produced approach to classic rock.

Ego is a sleek rock rager, featuring interlocking guitar and bass lines that command a presence to rival Rage Against The Machine at their most fierce. The track serves as a rigorous audit for any hi-fi set-up; on systems with an overly bright profile, the distorted guitars and punchy snares will feel abrasive, making this an ideal benchmark for testing your system’s tonal balance.

Big Thumb – Lowertown (Atlanta)

Emerging from Atlanta’s DIY scene, indie rock duo Lowertown blend the talents of singer-pianist Avsha Weinberg and lyricist-vocalist Olivia Osby.

Epitomising the sound of their 2026 album Ugly Duckling Union, Big Thumb sets layered group vocals over a jangling acoustic guitar, tambourine and a harmonica part that brings to mind Bob Dylan at his most careless.

The song’s unconventional arrangement will provide a rigorous test for your system, specifically highlighting how it navigates complex instrumental layering and bright, expansive room acoustics.

Body And Soul – The Greg Hopkins Jazz Orchestra (Boston)

Fronted by acclaimed trumpeter, composer and Berklee School of Music professor Greg Hopkins, The Greg Hopkins Jazz Orchestra is one of Boston’s most renowned jazz ensembles.

This rendition of Johnny Green’s jazz standard Body And Soul is an energetic, passionate and impressively lifelike recording. Keep an ear out for subtle clicks and breath sounds during the saxophone’s solo – features that are sure to stand out on systems capable of a truly faithful reproduction.

From Within – DAMOYEE, Mad Keys (Dallas)

Multi-instrumentalist DAMOYEE carries the Dallas R&B torch ignited by Erykah Badu, weaving a vibrant, genre-defying tapestry of R&B, jazz, pop and folk. From Within sees her collaborating for the first time with composer and pianist Mad Keys.

This track impressed us with its hypnotic arrangement, featuring DAMOYEE’s vocals mixed into glitching harmonies, electric pianos and featherlight percussion above a subby bassline groove.

Somewhat heavier on the lower frequencies, From Within is no walk in the park for your subwoofer.

We Are The Drum – Kendrick Scott Oracle (Houston)

Jazz drummer Kendrick Scott leads us into this track with unpredictable, pitch-shifting tom hits. Soon joined by the rest of his quintet, the arrangement expands to include expansive, airy piano, saxophone, guitar and bass.

Although We Are The Drum is not a strictly drum-led arrangement, this mix spreads the kit impactfully across the stereo field, giving us the sense of sitting right in the drummer’s seat – quite the thrill in the midst of such an esteemed group of musicians.

A solid litmus test for speaker placement, this track has an uncanny realism; when your speakers are aligned correctly, the performance should occupy your listening space with startling presence.

This Is A Photograph – Kevin Morby (Kansas City)

Taken from Morby’s 2022 album of the same name, This Is A Photograph is an impressive exercise in gradual adaptation. Centering around a repeating electric guitar riff, this song delays gratification to an almost unbearable point, and in doing so makes the full band’s eventual arrival all the sweeter.

With punchy, compressed drums, ethereal acoustic guitars and a masterfully understated saxophone part, This Is A Photograph is a contagiously joyful, afro-rock inspired headbanger. But with Morby’s vocals sitting right up front and a soundworld that shifts from small room reverberance to tight, studio sonics, it does demand an adaptable system.

Another Second Chance – Rocket (Los Angeles)

Los Angeles’ Rocket have well and truly taken off since releasing their debut album R Is for Rocket in 2025.

Taken from their debut, Another Second Chance is a grungy, romantically concerned track that packs all the punch of Nirvana, but pairs it with soft, shoegazey vocals. Impressively, this song retains the clear feeling of a band in the room while embracing a produced, studio sound – a feat we suspect has something to do with skillfully deployed dynamics.

A bright, thrashy banger with a tender underbelly, this track will test the high-frequency balance and dynamic sensitivity of your system.

Serpentine Dragon – Richie Hell (Miami)

Argentinian born Richie Hell moved to Miami in 2015 and has since gone on to impress audiences worldwide with eclectic mixes that draw as much from traditional South American music as from the Madchester movement.

Serpentine Dragon opens Hell’s 2025 album Dream Waves with nauseating psychedelic intensity. Featuring pulsing synth bass, inscrutable chanting vocals and acidic lead synthesisers, this track will take you on a journey – if your system can handle it.

Play Me – Fcukers (New York)

Fcukers don’t hang around. Formed in 2022, the New York band have already collaborated with LCD Soundsystem’s James Murphy and supported Tame Impala on his Deadbeat tour. Listening to Play Me, it’s not hard to understand how they’ve garnered such significant attention in so little time.

Fusing New York indie sleaze with UK drum'n'bass sensibilities, this track relies on a warbling synth-bass and an unrelenting breakbeat to keep the energy high for its two-and-a-half minute duration. To feel the fine details of Kenny Beats’ production on this track, you’ll want a system with a good transient response.

Shadow People – Dr Dog (Philadelphia)

An ode to the residents of the singer’s neighbourhood in Philadelphia, Shadow People, from Dr Dog’s 2010 album Shame, Shame is a masterful study in contrasts. Pairing troubling lyrics with an up-beat arrangement, the track succeeds in becoming, inexplicably, all the more melancholy.

With Beach Boys-esque vocal harmonies that multiply towards the song’s cacophonous ending, and grand distorted guitars to boot, this bounding display of psychedelic Americana will test how your system handles the sound of a band going hell for leather.

Mayo Con Yago – Polyrhythmics (Seattle)

A steady rhythm section underpins explosive brass and organs to establish Mayo Con Yago’s New Orleans-inspired groove. With squeaky clean guitar tones and subtly hypnotic percussion, this track has all the hallmarks of Seattle’s deep funk scene, where Polyrhythmics cut their teeth.

Brilliant bursts of brass reveal the influence of Afrobeat legends like Fela Kuti, while the clarity and force of the recording suggests prog-rock sensibilities.

Keep an ear out for that guitar, though: its clean tone serves as an excellent test for any potential distortion in your hi-fi set-up.

Staring Into Heaven/Shining – Sour Widows (San Francisco Bay Area)

Staring Into Heaven/Shining explores Sour Widows’ co-frontwoman Susannah Thompson’s fragmented experience of grief as she tries to make sense of her mother’s death from a rare form of cancer.

Featuring warm, overdriven guitars, ’90s alt-rock inspired chord progressions and moments of heart-rending sincerity, this song is an emotional powerhouse that demands a high-fidelity system capable of capturing its intense sincerity.

Lyrics such as, “If I lay this still, we could be falling asleep, and I’m just your baby,” leave a lingering pit in the stomach, which is only deepened by the band’s cathartic, booming accompaniment.

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The World Cup has a rich musical heritage, but you wouldn’t know it from most of the official anthems. They’re awful.

Shakira, Ricky Martin, Il Divo, R. Kelly (shudder), Will Smith, Nicky Minaj… it's like a who’s who of pop stars to swerve.

Thankfully there also are some absolute bangers to celebrate – and from some proper musicians, too. Giorgio Moroder, New Order, Ennio Morricone and more have all lent their skills to the biggest football tournament in the world, and with some sublime results. Others are from lesser known artists, but they still get the three points from us.

Here are the best World Cup songs to listen to on a decent system.

El Rock Del Mundial – Los Ramblers (1962)

The first official World Cup anthem (for the 1962 tournament) translates as “The World Cup Rock” and they aren’t lying. It’s like a Chilean take on Chuck Berry, and is reportedly the best-selling Chilean single ever. But it could have been so different.

It was originally supposed to start with a saxophone solo, but the saxophonist overslept, and so the intro was improvised on the hoof. And thank goodness it was, otherwise we wouldn't have this authentic slice of 60s Chilean rock.

As an official World Cup anthem, the lyrics are hardly impartial. But we’ll take “Get in! Complete it! Goal of Chile!” over the bland, unite-the-world bromides that FIFA usually approves of.

And while it might sound a bit rinky-dink by today’s standards, it adds a real authenticity that makes most modern football songs look like the over-produced blancmanges that they are. Stick it on at a barbecue, and watch the heads start to nod.

World In Motion – New Order (1990)

New Order's only UK number one single came in the form of an upbeat football song that’s a world away from the band’s gloomy days as Joy Division. But then we can’t imagine the sparse, post-punk sound would translate well to a World Cup single (though it might be more befitting of the England team’s performance).

Anyway, this is the one where John Barnes surprises everyone by doing quite a good rap. The original plan was for each member of the team to take turns singing a line, but that was abandoned like a drunk plan in the cold light of day.

It’s still a banger nearly 40 years on. Those euphoric strings – so 90s! – will test your system’s midrange, while that drum machine beat is a workout for the low end.

And if you don’t like it, just imagine Peter Beardsley having a crack at the rap and imagine how much worse it could have been.

Nessun Dorma – Luciano Pavarotti (1990)

This might be the climactic tenor aria from Puccini’s opera Turandot, but to those of us of a certain age, it’s the soundtrack to England losing on penalties to West Germany in the 1990 World Cup semi final in Italy.

Surprisingly, the song isn’t about Stuart Pearce and Chris Waddle’s misses – it’s sung by an unknown prince expressing his confidence that he will win the hand of a beautiful but cold-hearted princess.

Legendary tenor Luciano Pavarotti puts in quite a performance, and you’ll need a system with sufficient scale to do it justice – those soaring strings just won’t sound the same on a sub-par system.

A word of warning – if you see any men of a certain age weeping at the sound of it, you can rest assured they’re not caught up in the drama of the Puccini opera, but reliving a particularly traumatic penalty shootout from their youth.

Viva Moldova! – Satoshi

Where flutes meet banging techno, in what is a surprisingly good fit. This was Moldova’s entry to this year’s Eurovision, and it fared very well, coming eighth, with 226 points (which is 225 more than the UK’s entry).

Now, we must make the disclaimer that this isn't actually a World Cup song, and that Moldova failed to qualify for this year's tourney. But it's a shame, as it's definitely chant-worthy.

This kind of footstomping choon could easily tip over into nationalist chest thumping, but thanks to some decidedly silly lyrics (“Moldova is on duty!”) it manages to be both terrace-friendly and inclusive at the same time, which is quite a feat.

Ramenez La Coupe À La Maison – Vegedream (2018)

Now this one’s cheating. French rapper Vegedream released this single a few days after the French team triumphed at the 2018 World Cup in Russia. Which doesn’t show a huge amount of faith in the team – presumably had they not won, he would have quietly shelved the single until a later date.

The title translates as “Bring the cup back home”, which is a less catchy version of “It’s coming home”. Vegedream name-checks players from the team throughout the song, in between the chanty chorus of “Allez Les Bleus!” It’s just a shame about the auto-tune.

El Mundial – Ennio Morricone (1978)

Yes, that Ennio Morricone. In 1978, the master of the spaghetti western turned his hand to a World Cup song. By that point, he had already scored Sergio Leone's Dollars Trilogy, and so was firmly established as a major figure in motion-picture audio.

A World Cup might be a world away from the grittiness of the Old West, but it’s still a high-stakes drama – and Morricone rose to the challenge admirably. It sounds a little twee to begin with, but El Mundial soon builds to a rousing chant thanks to the introduction of some horns. We can imagine this one being sung all along the terraces of host-nation Argentina and beyond.

To Be Number One – Giorgio Moroder (1990)

Synth ace Giorgio Moroder went all power ballad for the 1990 World Cup, with some soaring electric guitars and throaty vocals. The lyrics might sound like a poor translation (“This is what we’ve worked for all our lives / Reaching for the highest goal we can”), but when the chorus kicks in you can practically feel the perm.

Perhaps buoyed by the success of To Be Number One, the official song of the next World Cup (USA, 1994) was Gloryland, which walks a very similar bemulleted line. Sadly, instead of being number one, that was more of a number two.

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Good lord it's been hot recently. Unless you happy to live in Alaska or the inside of an air conditioning unit, you'll have been trying to avoid losing most of your body weight in sweat as you succumb, in the UK at least, to record-high temperatures.

It's unlikely you'll have been able to summon the energy to do anything close to 'active', so maybe it's better to just listen to your body: scurry away into your cool, dark testing room, fire up your hi-fi system and keep yourself cool within an oasis of sonic tranquillity.

Your listening room does have air con, right?

• Check out the full Now Playing playlist on Tidal

Wherever I Lay My Phone (That's My Home) by Super Furry Animals

From Super Furry Animals’ third album, Guerilla, released in 1999, Wherever I Lay My Phone (That’s My Home) finds the band at the height of their hyperactive, psychedelic eccentricity. Beginning with the sound of a fog horn, the track opens into sprawling synthesised textures and modulating vocoded vocals – a real test for tweeters.

Alternating between timely admonitions of widespread tech-addiction and Gruff Rhys’s brash, football-chanting of “S.F.A okay”, the song’s lyrical contents are as juxtaposed as its sonic landscapes. Dynamic leaps towards the middle-eight provide a nice test for any sound system, with the verses’ four-to-the-floor crash beat fizzing out against warbling subs.

But there’s nothing capricious about Wherever I Lay My Phone (That’s My Home). The raucous energy, which establishes itself early on, persists through the pulsating brood of the middle-eight. Super Furry Animals opened with this when I saw them on a recent tour, and it's not hard to understand why they chose a track of such contagious mania.

Words by Ioan Hazell

Bubbles by Yosi Horikawa

If you want to test your system’s sense of precision and spaciousness, then Yosi Horikawa is your man. The Japanese musician is best known for his pieces that take inspiration from the sounds of nature, and Bubbles is the track that I turn to more and more when testing the latest kit.

It starts with the sound of balls bouncing, with each one landing in a slightly different place, which challenges your system’s ability to place it around the soundfield. Their light and bouncy sound makes them instantly recognisable as ping pong balls, and creates the illusion of bubbles popping all around you.

Then a flurry of balls are thrown into the mix, paired with samples of rain droplets and other naturalistic sounds, to open up the sound and create a three-dimensional listening experience.

With the right equipment, it’s an excellent way to show off your system’s capabilities. I recently heard the piece on the premium all-in-one system, the Focal Mu-so Hekla, and the immersive yet exact delivery was simply jaw-dropping.

Words by Robyn Quick

Inferno by Boards of Canada

Electronic music’s most elusive duo return with their first album in 13 years, only to find that their mysterious soundscapes have gone mainstream. Boards of Canada’s trademark sound, at once ominous and uplifting, nostalgic and cutting-edge, is the perfect soundtrack for this anxious age of seemingly never-ending bad news – and Inferno has had the online hype cycle to prove it.

The future isn’t what it used to be, and the Scottish duo sound, at times, as gloomy and threatening as we’ve heard them. Prophecy At 1420 MHz has heavy drums, imposing chords and jittery effects, topped with distorted guest vocals from “God” himself. Father And Son continues the eerie atmosphere with chopped voices that at first seem a little on-the-nose but soon become impossibly catchy.

The album’s length and breadth allow tracks such as Deep Time and standout You Retreat In Time And Space to give long-term fans a familiar embrace, while there’s also time for more polished, maximalist production values – Arena Americanada is ideal for turning up loud and stretching your system.

If there was any doubt, this is an album that demands you sit back, relax and let it play in full.

Words by Joe Cox

Never Forget You by Noisettes

If you were a sentient human during the late 2000s, you might remember The Noisette’s headline hit Don’t Upset The Rhythm pumping out of your television as the musical accompaniment to a shiny new Mazda (it was new at the time) tootling around a sort of flashy urban disco maze.

It was very much the Millennial version of those insufferable Jet 2 Holiday ads and their torturous Jess Glynne accompaniment. (If I have to hear “darling hold my hand” one more time…)

The Noisettes’ best track was not, however, committed to the airwaves to sell Japanese hatchbacks, at least not as far as I’m aware. Nevertheless, it deserves to be heard by all and sundry. As far as funk indie rock fusion bangers go, Never Forgot You is as tight as a drum, blending upbeat indie and funky instrumentation with an underlying melancholy that really grants the track proper depth.

It’s great for testing, too. The bass plucks at the beginning are a very handy shortcut to see how your system deals with those properly deep registers, while all manner of criteria – rhythms, organisation, instrumental detail – are all challenged by what is a beautifully orchestrated slice of test-room perfection.

Words by Harry McKerrell

Sarniezz by Angine de Poitrine

If you’ve never heard of – or seen – Angine de Poitrine before, please do set aside half an hour to watch the KEXP live session above. The Canadian duo, hailing from Quebec, are anonymous musicians whose costumes involve black and white polka dots and papier-mâché masks that give them an absurd, comedic and otherworldly aura.

Start listening, and you’ll be entranced by the complex, microtonal compositions that run adjacent to math rock and experimental rock, with viciously technical forms. Sarniezz has a whimsical melody with a ferociously agile and tuneful bassline looping underneath the sharper, crisp guitar notes – it’s a sterling test of your system’s rhythmic precision and snappy timing.

The key to making sense of Angine de Poitrine’s tracks is a clear, precise handling of detail to track every note’s progression, while also having the propulsive dynamism and punch to match the duo’s energy.

Both musicians – who perform under the pseudonyms Khn de Poitrine (guitar, bass) and Klek de Poitrine (drums) – are hypnotic to watch. Not only because of the Mighty Boosh-meets-Slipknot get up, but also for the intricate rhythmic patterns, the use of loops and surprisingly melodic tunes from what are two clearly accomplished musicians.

Words by Kashfia Kabir

Wild Horses by The Rolling Stones

Can you believe that we’ve done around 15 of these Now Playing playlists, featuring more than 100 songs overall, and this is the first mention we’ve had of The Rolling Stones? Shocking stuff.

Let’s amend that outrageous oversight right now by urging you all to add Wild Horses to your test room rotation. It might well be there already, but for those not in the know, it’s a track which sees Jagger and Richards taking a break from blues-inspired jams about the groupies they are currently eyeing up to tug heartstrings rather than upset sensibilities.

However you view its deeper meaning – drug addiction, loss of innocence, missing home – it’s hard to deny just how richly affecting Wild Horses is as one of the Stones’ standout ballads. Jagger’s voice is so piercingly sincere, whereas Richards’ guitar is so soulful and rich it’s practically singing the accompaniment. Through a good system, obviously.

The verses should sound gentle and confessional, but once that chorus hits, the music should really break free from the metaphorical stable – just like those titular stallions.

Words by Harry McKerrell

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Apple Music is one of the best streaming services around, and now it looks set to 'borrow' a feature from its greatest rival, Spotify.

It's reportedly readying a free tier with limited features. That would allow more people to get a taste of what Apple Music can do, but without having to pay the usual £10.99 / $10.99 / AU$12.99 a month.

Free users would be able to skip only a limited number of tracks, according to code in the latest beta version of Apple Music on Android. This was revealed by a MacRumors analyst (via Android Police).

The code reveals the messages "Can't skip any more tracks," and "Premium access required." Which would certainly suggest a free tier is on the way.

Spotify's free tier includes adverts, which allows the service to still make money from it. Apple is more opposed to ads – the Apple TV streaming service doesn't include traditional adverts, only promos for its own content. So it would be interesting to see whether a free Apple Music tier opted not to include ads.

Spotify's free tier has long been limited in its abilities – like Apple's rumoured tier, you can only skip a certain number of tracks, for example. Though at the end of last year – at the same time as the Lossless tier finally launched – Spotify's free tier did gain some extra features. Like the ability to search for specific songs, play any song you happen to find during your scrolling, and the ability to compile your own playlist.

Lossless is, however, still reserved for paying customers.

Spotify's approach has been a huge success, helping it reach over 750 million users worldwide, around 460 million of which use the free, ad-supported tier.

If Apple can combine its better sound quality with a free tier that doesn't include adverts, it could eat away at Spotify's lead.

Apple's developers conference WWDC takes place next week, so we could see an announcement then.

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This month we asked you to nominate your best prog rock album of all time. And, spoiler alert, the winner is a bit of a doozy.

Prog is a diverse, genre-hopping school of rock, which flirts with everything from flamenco to goth, depending on which band you’re listening to.

On top of that, having read your comments over the years, we know many of you aren’t even agreed on what counts as “prog”. The war about Rush’s status rages to this day…

But – proving sod’s law is the only eternal constant we can rely on – having expected a divided response to the question, there was in fact a consensus, and one clear top dog.

Yes! We have a winner

Among your replies, there was one consistent choice that kept popping up: Close to the Edge by Yes (1972).

And we couldn’t sum up why any better than YouTube subscriber waymire5, who succinctly told us: “Close to the Edge. The musicianship, visuals, and weirdness. YES.”

A sea of likes and similar comments followed, with Yes fans coming out in force.

We wholeheartedly agree, which is why you’ll also find the album in the team’s pick of the best prog rock albums of all time.

Described by the band as “a torturous experience” akin to climbing a mountain, there’s no denying that the hard work paid off – the album is a masterpiece.

From its 18-minute opener through to its closing note, it shows the band's musicianship and everything that makes prog rock such an exciting genre.

But it was one of many classics to get frequent mentions. Just behind it, King Crimson’s In the Court of the Crimson King also proved to be a favourite.

“For me, the two greatest Progressive Rock albums are: In the Court of the Crimson King by King Crimson and Close to the Edge by Yes. If you include Fusion as a sub-genre, then I would add Bitches Brew by Miles Davis,” commented reader, ArtR.

“King Crimson definitely, because I heard it growing up from a really young age. I'm 47, so grew up in the 80s but listen to it still,” added adambrown8615.

Emerson, Lake & Palmer’s iconic Brain Salad Surgery proved another popular choice, especially, as noted by reader Phillip Hall, with older readers: “If you were lucky enough to see Brain Salad Surgery in concert, then you know who's right up there on the top tier!”

Our editor’s personal favourite, Marillion, Clutching at Straws, also proved a hit, with reader, baronvonripper, mirroring his feelings: “Clutching at Straws! My top album. What a journey, clearly coming from a deep, dark place. I play it every day since the Incommunicado video was on the John Menzies advert in ‘87.”

As expected, Rush also proved to be a reader favourite, though you weren’t quite as united on which specific album.

Our hot take

We were blown away by the sheer volume and variety of answers you gave to this month’s Ask The Reader column, so forgive us if your choice didn’t get a mention.

However, it’s hard not to agree with the top choices.

Yes – iconic. King Crimson are viewed as prog royalty for a reason. And Emerson, Lake & Palmer are incredible. Oh, and our editor is personally very attached to any Marillion album with Fish at the mic.

So all told, it's a hard "Yes" to all your suggestions!

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All Spotify customers should now have a free gift. Whether you're a Premium paying subscriber, or just piggyback off the free tier, it doesn't matter – the feature is available to you now, and it's like the ultimate Throwback Thursday.

Think of it as a birthday treat, from it to us. Spotify was founded 20 years ago, although it wasn't made publicly available until a few years later. And this gift takes us down memory lane.

It reveals all sorts of historical information about your Spotify usage, like the first track you streamed, your most-listened-to artist, total number of minutes spent on the platform over the years, what you did on your first day using it, and so on. Think of it as Wrapped for your entire time using Spotify.

There's also a little quiz on your music streaming habits, so you can see how well you know your usage.

If you're ready for a trip down memory lane, check your Spotify app now – the feature should arrive automatically, but you might need to update the app to give it a nudge. Anyone else worried to know how many hours they've spent on the service?

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Quite by accident, the May edition of Now Playing has something of a cinematic theme.

Perhaps that's appropriate given that summer is coming, so we can rightly say we are entering blockbuster season, with this month's rundown treating us to Superman-baiting funk, a symphony of Batman-themed goodness, and even a new Bond theme from Lana Del Rey. Well, technically that's for a video game, but games are the new movies anyway, right?

Lots of cracking test tunes to save you a trip to the cinema – just stay at home and listen to your hi-fi instead.

First Light by Lana Del Rey

Wake up, babe, the new Bond theme just dropped!

No, not for a movie, silly, but for a video game. Yes, there’s a new blockbuster adventure starring a young Jimmy B called First Light coming soon, and they’re really pushing the speedboat out for this one: a big old celebrity cast, lots of familiar Bond-iverse faces, and yes, a bespoke theme tune sung by Lana Del flippin’ Rey.

It’s a match made in heaven. Del Rey has often been regarded as one of the Bond singers that got away, and – considering she’s also got a song literally called Video Games – this feels like the perfect fit. Plus, she’s got exactly the sort of sultry, enticing chops that go so well with a big, brassy Bond song.

First Light is a good’un, too. Speaking of brass, there’s lots of signature John Barry / David Arnold-inspired horns accompanied by classic swooning strings, all with a surprisingly rocky drum beat thwacking away underneath.

Give it a couple of listens and you’ll really start to dig it.

Words by Harry McKerrell

Jam On It by Newcelus

What kind of hi-fi would Superman use? Most of us probably haven’t given it much thought; but then most of us aren’t in the early hip-hop group Newcleus, whose 1984 track Jam On It considers The Man Of Steel’s system.

“His speakers were three stories high with woofers made of steel / And when we brought our set outside, he said ‘Ha, be real ’/ He said, ‘I’m faster than a speedin’ bullet when I’m on the set / I don't need no fans to cool my amps, I just use my super breath’.”

Supe’s set-up is undoubtedly impressive, having “all the buildings for miles around… swayin' to the groove.” But, wouldn’t you know it, Newcleus have an ace up their Adidas-tracksuit sleeve: “And just when he had fooled the crowd and swore he wouldn’t fight /We rocked his butt with a 12 inch cut called Disco Kryptonite.”

The lesson? It doesn’t matter who you are, if you’re going to brag about your system, you’d better have the credentials to back it up.

Words by Joe Svetlik

The Batman soundtrack by Michael Giacchino

“Okay Michael, we need a score for the new Batman movie, kind of a noir actioner with the fella from Twilight. No need to go too crazy, just your standard action soundtrack.”

Michael, seemingly, did not get the memo. Instead of giving us the standard action clichés or thundering drums and big orchestral sweepers, Mr. Giacchino instead opted to make his musical spin on The Batman a sort of modern classical opera, complete with sonatas, arias and allegrettos. Ok, maybe not allegrettos. What even is an allegretto?

This isn’t ‘sub’ or ‘faux’ classical either, but proper, full-blooded stuff from a composer working at the top of his game. Also, some of the song title puns are great: Escaped Crusader. It’s raining vengeance. Crossing the feline’.

We wonder what he chose to leave out. A Dark Knight at the Opera, perhaps?

Wordplay worthy of The Riddler, a score worthy of a true hero.

Words by Harry McKerrell

The Wise Man’s Song by Cinder Well

If you’ve seen Mackenzie Crook’s new BBC TV show Small Prophets from earlier this year, this theme song might be familiar to you. If you haven’t, let it tempt you into watching this wonderfully eccentric, magical and beautifully written six-part series about a lonely man stumbling upon the magical in his shed.

Cinder Well is the musical project of Amelia Baker, a songwriter and multi-instrumentalist from Los Angeles, and her pure, crystal-clear lyrics perfectly encapsulate the wistful and melancholic yet hopeful spark of the show. It’s a song that stops just short of being achingly solitary, with a sweetness tinged throughout her vocals.

The composition is stark, with gentle guitar strums and low violin strains offering a soft, layered background that puts her vocals front and centre. There’s more said in the quiet, almost silent moments in between her beautiful singing – the song has an ephemeral quality that will have you listening to it on repeat, chasing the gossamer-like feeling that will haunt you after listening to the first few notes.

But in a nice way.

Words by Kashfia Kabir

Avalanche by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds

We’re partial to a bit of Nick Cave in our testing labs, and if the Bad Seeds want to come along for the ride, so much the better.

Cave’s gravelly crooning just lends itself so well to testing out hi-fi – it’s overwrought, emotive and, given that we can’t think of anyone or anything that sounds even similar to the Aussie balladeer and his rich vocal stylings, irrepressibly unique.

Into My Arms is a go-to favourite, but we’ve gone for something a bit different and picked Avalanche, a cover of the Leonard Cohen track of the same name. It’s the sort of overdone ballad that fits Cave so well, especially when the opening lines go something like: “I stepped into an avalanche / It covered up my soul / When I am not this hunchback that you see / I sleep beneath the golden hill”.

Not sure what that golden hill refers to, but there’s lots of emotion for your system to dig out, which makes sense considering you might have heard the tune played during the second series of hit Amazon Prime smash Invincible, accompanying a montage wherein Omni-Man is drifting alone through space as he contemplates his misdeeds and considers throwing himself into a literal black hole.

Beating your own son to a bloody pulp will do that to you – or maybe Avalanche was making him just a bit too depressed.

Words by Harry McKerrell

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This week, one of the hot-button topics among audiophiles and general music fans has, without a doubt, been Oliver Schusser, vice president of Apple Music, suggesting “most people” can’t hear the difference with lossless audio.

Why do we say this, on what to many may be a seemingly innocuous claim? I mean, how many people even know what lossless audio is, right?

The Apple high-up made the suggestion while appearing on Billboard's On The Record podcast. And we know it’s a hot-button topic, because you, our loyal readers, have since flooded the site, plus our forums and social media pages with comments.

And to be fair to Apple, a small number have agreed, like commenter “Luke Vesty”, who bluntly wrote, “It's not a controversial statement at all. It's fact.”

There was also “audiofilish”, who jibed, “audiophiles are a funny lot,” for caring about something as silly as lossless.

But most, especially those of you identifying as serious music fans or audiophiles, had a very different take.

Audiophiles (not) at a loss for words

Instead, many of you were quick to point out that you can definitely hear the difference between lossless, especially when playing music on “proper hi-fi”.

This was quite bluntly stated by “abebogere”, who wrote: “If you are using Apple products for audio, you certainly cannot tell the difference. On an actual audio system, you can.”

Then “Judas Shuffle” added: “I think most people haven't heard good quality audio. Once you [have] had a really good pizza, you want more.”

Finally, commenter “Erlend” added that, while he believes there is a difference, it’s one that “normal” people won’t really understand until they experience it first-hand.

“If you are passionate about music and an experienced listener, I firmly believe anyone can hear the difference on good equipment,” wrote Erlend.

“I know that I can. It’s not just about new details in the treble or definition of the bass. It’s also about the sense of air, room, timbre and placement of voices and instruments. It often comes more alive and gives you the feeling of being present with the musicians. Like someone removed a veil.”

But, there is some truth to it if…

While not everyone agreed on the dig at Apple products specifically, nearly all of you agreed with Erlend's point that you need decent hardware if you want to hear the difference, which is why so many don't "get" the difference, even at an academic level.

Commenter “Andy” summed this up writing: “[Most] people don't listen on gear that allows them to hear the difference, and also they only listen as background music. There is no point paying for high definition if your equipment can't transpose that. People understand that with TV/video, but for some reason don't get it when it comes to audio.”

Reader “sbrain111” then mirrored his sentiment, arguing: “I tend to agree that for most people, listening with headphones in the street or with Bluetooth or with most speakers, they won't hear much of a difference. Equipment where there is so much signal processing going on, I wonder if it makes a difference to listen to hi-res lossless. I only hear a difference when playing on my home hi-fi set-up, which is only mid-range.”

Our hot take

We agree that lossless does make a difference, but also that the amount of gains you experience will be dependent on a variety of factors.

These range from the hardware you’re using to play the music to the specific music you’re listening to. As we said in our best punk rock songs guide, if the song was badly recorded, there’s only so much technology can do to polish it.

But, equally, as famously said by our technical editor, Ketan Bharadia, music is there to be enjoyed and if you can’t hear the difference, “in some ways you’re lucky, as you’ve likely saved yourself a lot of money”.

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Most people can't tell the difference between lossless and standard resolution audio, an Apple Music executive has claimed.

Speaking to Billboard's On The Record podcast, Oliver Schusser, vice president of Apple Music, was told by the host that "most average people can’t really hear the difference with lossless." He replied "Correct", and went on:

"My second point is: honestly, if we did an anonymous [blind] test on just an iPhone with headphones... I can tell you most fans wouldn’t be able to tell the difference."

Apple has prioritised Spatial Audio over lossless audio, as Schusser claims that in the exact same test, more people can hear the difference.

Apple's approach to lossless is best described as complicated. All of its AirPods wireless earbuds and headphones support the standard AAC Bluetooth codec, which isn't lossless. The AirPods Max and Max 2 over-ears are the only Apple headphones to support lossless playback, and that's only over the wired USB-C connection. Its HomePod range of wireless speakers does support lossless, as does its recent iPhones, iPads, and Apple TV 4K.

In a further complication, Apple Music's catalogue features three tiers of high resolution music: CD quality (16-bit/44.1kHz), Apple Music Lossless (up to 24-bit/48kHz), and Hi-Res Lossless (up to 24-bit/192kHz). The HomePods and Apple TV 4K only support Apple Music Lossless, not Hi-Res Lossless.

To hear the full-fat 24-bit/192kHz resolution on an iPhone, you'll need to plug in a wired pair of headphones and an external DAC that supports that resolution.

Schusser's comments go some way to explaining Apple's approach, as the brand has staunchly stuck with the non-lossless AAC Bluetooth codec across its AirPods range of headphones and earbuds.

Other audio brands, however take a very different tack: Sony's higher-quality LDAC codec (supporting up to 32-bit/96kHz) comes as standard on all of Sony's high-end wireless headphones and smartphones (it's also supported by other brands, such as on the Technics EAH-AZ100.)

Meanwhile, with the prevalence of hi-res music being available on other streaming services, JBL says its customers are requesting wired connections to its Flip and Charge Bluetooth speakers so they can get access to lossless music.

Personally speaking, we can hear the difference with lossless audio, though a lot certainly depends on what equipment you're listening with (better headphones will be more revealing, for example).

Do you agree with Schusser's comments? And what do you think of Apple's approach to lossless? Let us know in the comments below.

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If you happen to be in the UK or other select parts of Europe, you'll probably have been blessed with an extra hour of sunlight at the end of your hard slog of a day, thanks to the clocks leaping forward by an hour. Forget the farmers and their darker mornings, it's time to play hacky sack in the park until 9.00 pm with your best bros.

Do people still play hacky sack? Did they ever?

Moving on. While the temptation to go out galivanting until late hours of the evening may be strong, we've got a selection of tasty tunes to pull you back into the shadowy realm of your devoted listening space, with belters from the likes of Harry Styles, Rosalía and Gnarls Barkley all on this month's menu.

Vitamin D, eh? Who needs it?

American Girls by Harry Styles

During my school years, I was deep in the One Direction trenches (I already feel the judgment). The charismatic Harry Styles always stood out to me the most, with his swoopy hair and cheeky grin. So when he went off to have a solo career back in 2016, I was curious to see how his music would evolve.

It has certainly changed for the better. His latest album, Kiss All The Time, Disco Occasionally, may be awash with almost nonsensical lyrics, but it’s an excellently produced collection with plenty of toe-tappers.

The track that has been on repeat in our test room since the album came out is American Girls. It starts slowly and quietly with a creeping electronic whine, which is then interrupted by a more acoustic-sounding piano.

Next, the punchy drum track kicks in shortly followed by Harry’s moody vocals. An extra layer of bass is introduced, which can easily feel blobby and slow the song down if not portrayed with the right level of bounciness and pep.

If you haven’t given the new album a try, this is the track to start with.

Words by Robyn Quick

Berghain by Rosalía

Is it pop? Is it opera? Whatever it is, Rosalía’s staggering symphonic smash Berghain is a mini sensation. The three-minute epic is crammed to the brim with enough orchestral drama to make a conductor’s baton wilt. Your speakers had better take 20 minutes to do some deep stretches, because this really is a proper, proper workout.

Performed in at least three different languages (Rosalía has apparently demonstrated her linguistic prowess by singing in more than 10, the big show off), this is the sort of bombastic, boundary-stretching pop that has cemented the Spanish songstress’s legacy as one of the most forward-looking artists working today.

Also featuring vocals from our ever-beloved icon Björk, who herself heavily influenced Rosalía and duetted with her on the enjoyable charity single Oral, Berghain skids and skates between thunderous, Wagner-esque opera to the sort of erratic strings you’d usually find on Vivaldi’s Four Seasons.

This is classical made accessible without for a moment dumbing it down, and the result is an absolute thrill ride.

Words by Harry McKerrell

Bulls on Parade by Rage Against the Machine

For many of us, Rage Against the Machine were the sound of rebellion – even if our rebellion was jumping up and down on the bed in our room as the music played one volume higher than we were meant to.

And with so much stuff to get your blood boiling going on in the world and age generally making me more cantankerous, this month I’ve found myself playing Rage Against the Machine’s Bulls on Parade more than a few times.

First, because the iconic song is turning 30. Second, because despite its age, it remains as relevant and awesome as ever. Featuring Zack de la Rocha’s iconic, politically charged vocals and Tom Morello’s instantly recognisable guitar style, the track is a great example of everything that makes Rage Against the Machine so iconic.

And as an added bonus, the track's bouncing rhythm, rapid shifts in volume and booming bass make it a great gauge of any system's low-end heft, dynamics and general ability to go loud. If you’re not listening to it at a Spinal Tap 11, you’re not doing it right…

Words by Alastair Stevenson

Tomorrow Died Today by Gnarls Barkely

Gnarls Barkley is back, baby!

Or maybe that should be Gnarls Barkley are back, because despite the confusion caused by people thinking that Gnarls himself is a person in his own right, it is in fact a duo consisting of legendary producer Danger Mouse and soul crooner CeeLo Green.

Regardless of singular / plural confusion, it’s a triumphant return for the duo following a yawning 18-year hiatus. Atlanta is the first record Gnarls Barkley have put out since 2008’s The Odd Couple, with the team behind 2006’s smash-hit Crazy

Tomorrow Dies Today is the album’s cheery opener, shifting from sparse, hand-clap-backed verses to a clamorous, fear-inducing refrain as Green’s unmistakable soul wail laments the end of all times.

“Take cover all God’s children / Even the sun has gone to hide / The sky is raining bullets / And I’ll never forget the day that tomorrow died.”

The world may be ending, but it will have one heck of a soundtrack when the lights go out.

Words by Harry McKerrell

Days We Left Behind by Paul McCartney

Paul McCartney is one of the world’s most famous musicians, having been a member of a little band called The Beatles, and this week I’ve had his new single Days We Left Behind playing a fair bit.

This was a surprise, for a couple of reasons. First, because McCartney has never been my favourite Beatle (team Harrison all the way). Second, because I’ve never quite gelled with his other recent albums.

While they’ve all been well composed and recorded, as you’d expect from the man who helped create the blueprint for pop music, they’ve felt a little hollow, and dare I say, try hard. Like a man looking too hard to relive his glory days and remain relevant.

Days We Left Behind shows a positive shift away from this that I’m all for. The track is a thoughtful, backwards-looking, gentle ballad full of whimsical reminiscing and occasional melancholy laments over getting old.

It’s not his best work ever, but it is a solid reminder of why McCartney has been such a powerful force in music for the past 50 years – he was one of The Beatles' primary songwriters, let's not forget.

Featuring a gentle plucked acoustic guitar composition and sweet, but mature vocals, the track is a slow burner that expertly pulls at your heartstrings, evoking a sense of loss that comes to many of us with age, but without ever feeling maudlin.

If you’re a fan of The Beatles, even if you fell out of love with McCartney’s other recent work as I did, I’d strongly recommend giving it a listen.

Words by Alastair Stevenson

Like A Dog Chasing Cars by Hans Zimmer

We’ve been using Hans Zimmer’s peerless The Dark Knight soundtrack since before I was even a part of the What Hi-Fi? team, with our pristine CD copy regularly wheeled out any time we’ve got a disc spinner that needs testing, or we want to see how well a given speaker or hi-fi separate deals with a digital source.

However you play it – CD, streaming, vinyl if you’re lucky – there aren’t many soundtracks that can compete with The Dark Knight for its grim, brooding grandeur and adrenaline-inducing explosiveness. Each track’s a winner, but we regularly pick out Like A Dog Chasing Cars for its layered, propulsive nature and its ability to communicate an ever-rising sense of dread and drama in equal measure.

It’s a track with a metronomic, almost hypnotic repetitiveness as sharp, clacking percussive strikes bubble underneath, with sequential passages of strings and drums which should, through the right system, have sufficient articulation and phrasing to feel like the roll of waves on an increasingly stormy sea.

For gauging dynamics – both small and large-scale – as well as how your system keeps track of those deep, rumbly bass notes, Like A Dog Chasing Cars is ideal for testing whether your hi-fi is a heroic performer, or just a bit of a Joker.

Words by Harry McKerrell

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I am a huge fan of Dolby Atmos music. I play it every day and I often carve out a few hours specifically to enjoy myself immersed in this spatial format which can place music elements both behind me and above.

But not on headphones. I play my Atmos music on what might be described as an upper midrange speaker system, delivering 5.1.2 channels – that’s five speakers on the floor, including surrounds out wide behind me and a subwoofer up the front, plus two speakers in forward height positions in order to deliver Atmos’ famous hemisphere of sound. (Yes, just a hemisphere; I’m still waiting for someone to realise they’re missing a trick with not yet embedding speakers in the floor to create a real sphere of sound. But perhaps I shouldn’t encourage them.)

Atmos on a full system

My sources for playing Atmos music are two-fold. My subscription to Apple Music allows access to a great many tracks mixed in Atmos, or Spatial Audio as Apple sensibly prefers to de-brand it. This can be served from an AppleTV 4K into my AV receiver. Tidal and apparently Amazon Prime Music (though not the free version) can also serve Atmos, but Apple is usually my server of choice for streaming Atmos.

My main source, however, and particularly at the moment, is Atmos music on Blu-ray – discs with no video on them, but multiple mixes of an album, usually in Dolby Atmos, with some form of 5.1 or 7.1 surround as well, and high-res stereo. Sometimes instrumental Atmos mixes are also included as a bonus.

In fact over the last year I have developed a hair-trigger form of 'new-formatitis', an addiction to buying Atmos music discs which is costing me, well, not a huge amount of money, but has certainly upped my casual expenditure on music significantly. And mainly buying albums that I already have either on vinyl, CD or digitally. Doesn’t matter: when the latest Atmos Blu-ray release is announced, I’m clicking that email link and slapping my money down without a second thought.

It began with Morten Lindberg (38 Grammy nominations and counting) and his work for Norway’s 2L label; my early Atmos disc collection was dominated by his extraordinary in-the-moment Atmos recordings, and I’ve twice raved about them here on What Hi-Fi? (this one partly because of heartstopping performances by the wildly magnificent Catalina Vicens, and this one as being the most gorgeous of Christmas albums; there are plenty of others).

But of course surround discs had been around for a good while before Atmos arrived. For video discs, a surprising number of old music DVDs have excellent surround soundtracks, sometimes in 24-bit/96kHz – 'Best of Bowie', 'Queen's Greatest Hits', etc; I pick them out of boxes left on the street these days, or grab them for $2 a pop in charity shops. Like secondhand CDs, they can be a very cheap way to gather good music.

Early pop and rock surround music was also possible on the SACD format, while the emergence of audio Blu-rays was notably led by ‘Pure Audio’ discs, developed by msm-studios in Munich in 2009, beginning with lossless high-res LPCM stereo and DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1, then later adding Dolby TrueHD and Atmos.

Lossless Atmos music

An important word there is ‘lossless’. Why do I buy the Blu-rays, when I can usually listen to the same Atmos mixes on subscription via Apple Music?

Because Atmos streaming is heavily data compressed, arriving at bit-rates ranging perhaps from 384kbps to 768kbps. Compare those bit-rates with disc-based Atmos audio, which are typically from 3000kbps upwards. Morten Lindberg at 2L recently told Stereophile's erudite Jim Austin that their discs average 6000kbps and peak far higher, which confirms what Lindberg told me some time ago: that Atmos streaming is compressed by a factor of perhaps 11 to 1. That's a similar compression ratio to ye olde 128k MP3s when compared to CD, or to AC3 Dolby Digital soundtracks as used on movie DVDs.

So it's remarkable that it sounds as good as it does, streaming through the speakers from the AppleTV 4K. But the disparity provides mathematical support for what the ears confirm: the lack of compression is immediately evident in the thrilling clarity of the best Atmos music Blu-rays.

Not all – some Atmos mixes can be awful, or just boring, with little more than atmospheric extension of the front soundstage into the rears. There’s no point in paying for that; the stereo will likely serve better.

But when you do get a good ’un – oh wow.

Apple Music, then, is very useful both for listening enjoyably to large numbers of Atmos releases, and for checking whether a particular new Atmos mix of a favourite album is bland or brilliant before putting down your money on the Blu-ray release.

In a little Catch 22, however: by the time you can hear it, you may not be able to buy it. The company getting most of the money from my present addiction is SDE, and their releases are largely limited editions that become unavailable all too quickly; scroll through their ‘sold out’ back catalogue to confirm this. In fact I gather their model is to print not many more than were hard-ordered in the pre-release window, to avoid having “an attic full of unsold discs”. So if you miss that pre-sale window, you just ain’t going to get one. And if you wait to hear the mix on Apple after release, you might be too late to get in on the Blu-ray pre-release.

Hence my trigger finger on all three most recent pre-sales: Alan Parsons' 'Eye in The Sky'; Chris Squire 'Fish out of Water'; Roxy Music's 'Flesh & Blood', that's the tour I saw them on. It's like they're going through my record collection! This is music I can't miss: limited edition access to the best possible versions of my formative albums. Hence I don't know if I was more a-quiver about the long-delayed Atmos mix of ‘The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway’ last year (I had to buy a whole box-set to get that one, but it’s a magnificent package) or the holy grail release of an Atmos version of Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s 1984 sonic orgasm ‘Welcome To The Pleasuredome’. Take my money!

Other Blu-rays are more widely and permanently marketed – the wham-bam brilliant Atmos mix of Bowie’s ‘Ziggy Stardust’ by the original engineer Ken Scott, or Pink Floyd’s ‘The Dark Side of the Moon’; these are less likely to go out of print quickly. ‘Animals’ came out in Atmos about 18 months after I bought it in 5.1 24/96 DTS-HD MA. Even I didn't pay again for 16/48 Atmos!

There’s one useful benchmark to confirm instantly that the Atmos mix certainly won’t be bland, and that’s if it’s by Steven Wilson, former Porcupine Tree frontman and absolute ruler of the modern Atmos remix. The new Frankie mix is his, and it was worth every cent of the extra postage from the UK. Loving his instrumental Pleasuredome mixes. I bought Wilson's own 2025 album ‘The Overview’ as an Atmos disc just because I like all his other Atmos mixes (and earlier surround mixes). He is wildly prolific, especially among prog artists: Yes, Black Sabbath, Rush, Jethro Tull, King Crimson, Gentle Giant, XTC, Pink Floyd (Pompeii), Roxy Music, also The Who (I’ve just received ‘Who Are You’), and gasp, Robert Fripp’s ‘Exposure’ (for which I could only get the 5.1 DVD). Wilson has opened an Atmos download site called Headphone Dust which may eventually overcome some of those limited availability disc issues, if/once it grows beyond his own material. Others, including 2L, also offer Atmos and surround and high-res as file downloads. Direct file replay has obvious advantages over Blu-ray playback, assuming you have an easy replay chain for the files, which is by no means straightforward in a consumer system. (Meaning I haven't done it yet.)

The Atmos curve should credit Giles Martin as well, for doing so many Beatles Atmos mixes which helped the format gain popular traction; I’ve just been enjoying the SDE Blu-ray of his new Wings mixes, all in utterly uncompressed Atmos, and including even some neglected songs from ‘Back To The Egg’ and ‘London Town’. Joy! Then Mull of Kintyre – skkiip! Bagpipes in Atmos, can you imagine.

Classic after classic in Dolby Atmos. And I’ve been listening on disc only, not on your ‘immersive’ headphones. From my trusty Oppo Blu-ray player my Atmos Blu-rays play into my Yamaha AV receiver, with left and right channels upgraded via stereo power amps, and often I dial my Atmos configuration down to 4.1.2, keeping my large left-right speakers in charge of the front soundstage. This makes for a tight sweet spot, but that’s just fine. I hold my Atmos speaker system close, almost like headphones.

And yet I never listen to Dolby Atmos on headphones. I have tried it many times, and the rear cues have never worked for me. Objects which should be at rear left or rear right have instead sounded merely very widely panned around the sides, so that there’s no real immersion, just a messed-up stereo presentation, some of which sounds notably soft compared to the same track presented in stereo. The occasional Ambisonic recording has worked for me with remarkable 'behind you' voices and effects via headphones, but I've never heard music gain the complete channel separation that is obvious with real speakers. And to my ears the attempt at delivering this effect on headphones causes an overall softness, against which the clarity of stereo can be so superior that I've often been surprised by those who profess to pick the Atmos option by preference.

Until now, anyway.

Apple AirPod Max 2 arrives

So along come Apple’s new AirPod Max 2 headphones. I was very excited about these for a number of reasons. Firstly I am an everyday user of the original AirPod Max; when work is done and I go sit on my sunny deck, I wear the Apples, partly because they make everything sound fantastic, and partly because their ‘Transparency’ mode is brilliantly realistic, so that I can still pinpoint where to look in our big but famously toxic white cedar tree for a chirruping lorikeet or a calling currawong.

This feature is important to me (both to enjoy the birds and to avoid being shat on), but perhaps not for you, which is why there are thousands of headphones available for thousands of different preferences. I must have reviewed 20+ rivals to the Apples since their arrival. But while I've referred to Bowers & Wilkins Px8 S2 as a piece of perfection in design terms, and while I needed tissues after packing up and returning the divine but costly open-backed Meze Poets after a review last year, still nothing has made me shell out for shells that beat the Apples for my deck-dozing purposes. Which is why they look so filthy in the comparison picture below. (My wife did clean the headband recently.)

Secondly I was excited by Apple’s announcement of Instant Translation through the new AirPod Max 2s. Say wha - Instant Translation? I wrote about this as a dream scenario for smart headphones not so long back – imagine visiting someone in Italy, say, sitting round a table with all their friends, and instead of everybody kindly switching to English so you can join in, you just wear headphones which translate everything instantly. Mamma mia, you might say.

It blows my mind that this kind of AI-augmented ‘Headphone 3.0’ functionality is already possible – you have to wonder if Apple has had access to alien technology. Sadly I've yet to try it. Our household's collection of two MacBooks, a Mac Mini, an iPad and two iPhones proves as a group to be too slanted towards obsolence, with nothing quite up-to-date enough to power the new 'Apple Intelligence' behind Instant Translation – iPhones 15 Pro or up required, or certain newish iPads. This exciting new future is processor-hungry. Upgrade required.

Same same but better Atmos?

But for music, then (which is what I care about, really), how much more amazing can the new Maxes 2 be than the original Maxes? The answer is, to be honest, not much. Just as they look identical to the old Maxes, and come in the same peculiar non-protective case which looks like a bra from the front and a butt from behind, they also sound extremely similar. I would agree with the review from my UK WHF colleagues that it’s a tad disappointing overall that the new Apple headphones simply aren’t more different from the old Apple headphones.

But then it’s kinda hard to complain too much about that, since the originals still sound as good or better to me than anything else in the market near the price, especially via Bluetooth. I would be amazed if they had sounded any better. If it ain't broke, etc.

That sensible sonic stability was for their stereo sound, however. When I tried some Atmos music, suddenly it worked as never before. The trigger was The Flaming Lips’ ‘Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots’, surely the most inspired of Atmos music mixes (as was their DVD 'Void' in 5.1), and the track All We Have Is Now, which begins with electric piano in the back right channel, spacey main vocal in the back left, and nothing at the front at all. That’s precisely what the Apple AirPod Max 2s delivered. Track after track came through with the elements in the same places as I had heard through the speaker system. Headphone Atmos that works! I am delighted.

I have a notion that part of this success is precisely because I had heard these tracks on the speaker system, so I knew exactly what to expect, in terms of what should be where. I am now well acquainted with the details of many Atmos albums heard on speakers, and that likely helps my brain accept positional cues even if they come less distinctly from the headphones.

But I did go back to my original Apple headphones to check, and the Atmos there was not as effective; things sounded softer, potentially through age and use, but potentially through the better chip in the new model. Soft signals in Atmos would especially degrade positional cues, I’d guess.

One other difference was that I let Apple use my phone to image my ears, presumably to personalise the head-related transfer function used in Atmos decoding. Heaven knows how they'll use this biometric information against me when the bots take over, but at least the positional cues in Atmos music may now be more personally and specifically curated. Maybe.

One sure and significant upgrade is that on the new model I can play to the headphones in Atmos via USB-C. My original Apple headphones were the Lightning-socketed type so I’ve never experienced the cabled listening option that came with the USB-C updated version of the originals. Via USB-C it proved a little hard to stop the MacBook using the Bluetooth path (turning off Bluetooth entirely was quicker than trying to persuade the sound settings to switch and stick). But the clarity of lossless stereo music via USB-C was thrilling, and the Atmos imaging was still further improved. It’s possible, therefore, that the previous USB-C version of the AirPods Max might perform equally well as the new Max 2s in this regard.

Two interesting numbers

Mind you, Atmos even via the cable is far from lossless. As noted, Blu-ray disc-based Atmos can use bit-rates of 6000kbps and above.

There are two numbers I’d dearly love to know (I will ask Apple, and will add the answers here if they or anyone else can confirm).

Firstly, what is the maximum bit-rate at which Apple streams Atmos spatial audio? So the rate I'd get if I put my iPhone or MacBook on its maximum quality and Atmos settings and then play to the headphones via the USB-C cable?

I’m guessing this would be the usual ~768kbps at which Atmos streams. Yet the USB-C connection to the headphones could now deliver higher than that. It can do lossless 24-bit/48kHz stereo , which requires native 2304kbps, so perhaps 1200kbps when losslessly encoded. If there’s room through the USB-C cable for that, then there's room for much better Atmos than 768kbps.

Secondly, what bit-rate is used when listening to Atmos on the AirPod Max 2 headphones via Bluetooth, rather than the cable?

I fear it may still be bottle-necked through the 256k AAC Bluetooth codec to which Apple restricts its headphones (and even more incomprehensibly much of its AirPlay ecosystem delivery).

And if Bluetooth Atmos is still going through the pipe at 256kbps AAC to the AirPod Max 2, the compression factor rises to a whacking 20-to-1 or thereabouts. So no wonder that Atmos music via Bluetooth has sounded so soft.

It’s all the more remarkable, then, that the new Apple headphones do a better job, despite what may be the same limitations. I am now genuinely converted to Atmos headphone listening on the new Apple AirPod Max 2, at least via USB-C. In fact I fully recommended it, though perhaps still as an alternative to lossless stereo listening, rather than a permanent replacement.

I’m still working out if I can get the genuine lossless Atmos data from my Blu-rays through to the new headphones via USB-C somehow. I think I'll have to connect an external BD disc drive to my MacBook somehow. More on that if and when it works.

Meanwhile if Apple would only enlarge its Bluetooth pipe to encompass the full 768k Atmos stream, then we could enjoy it all wirelessly as best as possible. Better still, they could raise the Atmos stream quality from the servers to reduce compression and improve every way to play it. That’s the dream, and Apple might one day achieve some of it via a simple firmware update to allow better Bluetooth.

I hope they do. It would save me a fortune in shipping all these Atmos Blu-rays over from the UK.

[ADDENDUM 2nd June 2026: I'm delighted to have discovered overnight that Apple has indeed been working on this in the background. The APAC (Apple Positional Audio Codec) container/codec is already operational in Naim's new Mu-so Hekla (which has been rather rudely branded to Vervent sister company Focal, but it'll always be a Naim to me, and I also doubt Naim would have called it Hekla, realising the homonymical jests possible from the audience).

APAC is apparently scalable right up to lossless Dolby Atmos, but initially we can expect bit-rates to flow from the current 700kbps up to 1Mbps, according to Naim's Steve Harris, who was not uninvolved in the linkages required between the technologies of Apple and Naim. The codec also achieves better (less destructive) compression, he says, so that the bit-rates are not even directly comparable: 700kbps APAC will sound better than current 768kbps Atmos as DD+ (E-AC-3).

He also seems optimistic about the possibility of Apple unleashing something rather better for stereo under AirPlay 2. Sing hallelujah!]

• See all our Australian reviews from Sound+Image and Australian Hi-Fi magazines

My friends and I occasionally enjoy using the Spotify Blend feature, which creates a playlist for you and invited friends based on the songs and artists you've collectively been listening to.

The only issue is that this exposes your dreaded Taste Profile for your friends to see – and perhaps ridicule (in good faith, of course). And there wasn't a lot you could do about it.

Your Taste Profile, for the uninitiated, is far less appetising than it sounds, and is instead Spotify's interpretation of your musical likes and dislikes. It's the elusive algorithm that powers Spotify's famous personalised recommendations, and is a key method of music discovery for millions of Spotify subscribers.

It can cause an issue if anyone shares an account. I learnt this the hard way when I connected my Spotify to an Echo Dot in a shared kitchen, and had jump scares from musical theatre songs in my recommendations for months (nothing against musicals – I enjoy them, but not that much).

Previously, your Taste Profile had been rather rigid and difficult to directly influence. There are options to remove certain songs and playlists but this was a rather manual task – most of us have been playing the long game and praying Spotify realises that we don't want to hear Christmas songs in January.

Until now. Spotify announced last week that Premium subscribers will soon be able to edit their Taste Profile for the first time. Clicking on your profile will reveal a 'Taste Profile' section, which will explicitly reveal how Spotify defines your music taste. An AI-powered chat box then allows you to request changes directly.

This will, of course, be a godsend to parents everywhere whose recommendations are full of KPop Demon Hunters and Disney songs, as well as those who have spent years tactically liking and skipping songs in an effort to fine-tune their recommendations.

But this could potentially have a huge impact on the way music is discovered, marketed and listened to.

Spotify is by far the biggest music streaming service in the world with 751 million monthly active users, including 290 million Premium subscribers.

And it's no secret that the algorithm is one of the biggest ways people discover music now – gone are the days when we'd strike up conversations at record shops; streaming has made us antisocial.

As 100 billion streams will tell you, the average person's exposure to new music is increasingly at the mercy of Spotify's famous Discover Weekly and similar playlists.

These recommendations were already mini echo chambers, providing new songs but only in the confines of the genres we listened to most. And now it could get even worse, as users everywhere can explicitly dictate the specific sounds (tracks and artists) they like.

This could mean no long-shot recommendations, curveballs or suggestions based on other facets of your personality – just the same AI prompt for 'new tracks like the old ones', refreshed weekly for eternity.

Where does this leave emerging artists? It will surely only become even harder for new artists and more experimental sounds to cut through.

Artists could even be pressured to mould their music to the most popular Taste Profile prompts, whether that's actual genres or vibe-based music requests for commutes or running.

There are plenty of positives to streaming, not least the 100 million songs at our fingertips – we should be uncovering as many of them as we can, rather than relying on the algorithm to serve up the same old sounds.

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Spotify's new 'Exclusive Mode' gives you "bit-perfect" playback from the Windows desktop app

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Spotify has introduced a new 'Exclusive Mode' as a way for its Premium subscribers to access "bit-perfect" audio playback when listening using the desktop app.

According to Spotify, this new mode gives the music streaming platform's desktop app control of the audio processing on your computer or laptop, meaning you'll be listening to songs "exactly as they were mastered." This mode is available to Windows users now.

Spotify says in a community post that your multi-tasking computer "may alter audio before it reaches your DAC by resampling it, mixing other system sounds in, and changing the volume." Turing the Exclusive Mode on ensures that all other sounds from your computer are "disabled" so that the Spotify desktop app can deliver the highest quality and "most accurate version of a song possible."

That makes it better suited, says the platform, to listeners with external audio equipment like a DAC "who want the purest possible sound". Spotify still advises – as we would – that you'll need wired headphones connected to an external DAC and use the Lossless tier to ensure you are getting the highest possible audio quality without any drop in resolution.

To get access this Exclusive Mode, open the Spotify desktop app, head to settings and then scroll to the Playback tab. Under Audio output, select your device from the dropdown, and then toggle Exclusive Mode to on.

Note, however, that while Exclusive Mode is switched on, Spotify will have, as the name suggests, exclusive control of your selected audio device, so other apps will need to use a different output in order to be heard.

The Exclusive Mode is available for the desktop app (not mobile) and is available now for Windows users, with Mac roll-out expected in a future release.

Spotify has already made the earth-shattering announcement in late 2025 that it would finally be adding Lossless streaming, granting access to hi-res 24-bit/44.1 kHz FLAC file quality for Premium subscribers.

With the introduction of Exclusive Mode, it looks like the Swedish streaming giant is pushing harder than ever to provide higher-quality performance to head off competition from five-star rivals Tidal and Qobuz.

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Forget the Oscars, this wildly underrated western has one of the best soundtracks I've ever heard

"Hugely capable and surprisingly unfussy" – this streaming and vinyl hi-fi system is a premium package, but you'll be richly rewarded

Even if you're unfamiliar with Max Richter's name, there's a good chance you're more au fait with his music than you perhaps realise.

The German-British composer has been pouring out emotive, often minimalist compositions for the best part of two decades, while his work as a successful movie composer culminated in an Oscar nomination for his score to the much-acclaimed heartbreaker Hamnet earlier this year.

Existentially minded and a proponent of the slow, richly emotive style that you'll find mirrored in the work of Nick Cave and Warren Ellis (see The Road, The Assassination of Jesse James et al.), Richter's work on Hamnet felt like the purest evocation of the man's deeply resonant style – mournful, elegiac and designed to elicit just the mildest of existential crises.

The Hamnet score is indeed made lovely by virtue of its overwhelmingly beautiful evocation of loss and despair, but if you want to go full Richter, you'll need to look back in time to a rather more hidden, but no less sparkling, musical gem.

Back in 2017, Christian Bale and Rosamund Pike fronted Scott Cooper's solemn, often grim post-western drama Hostiles, a sparse and oft-brutal work which, while reasonably well received at the time, seems incapable of fully breaking away from the shadows of its relative obscurity.

Following the story of Bale's US cavalry officer escorting a Cheyenne chief back to his home in Montana during the late 19th century, and experiencing increasing guilt and disillusionment with his nation's role in the decimation of the native population, it was exactly the sort of solemn, impactful epic to which Richter could turn his talented hand.

What's so remarkable about Richter's work on Hostiles is that, such is the man's ability to tell a convincing story with nothing but wordless instrumentation, you don't need to have even watched the movie to understand exactly what is being communicated by his accompanying compositions.

Hostiles is well worth a watch, but you can play the entirety of the soundtrack and feel, quite justifiably, that you've experienced the narrative just as fully and splendidly, albeit via the medium of music rather than screen.

Never Goodbye evidences that sublime musical storytelling in its starkest and most evocative terms. An ever-rising, continually building concoction of full, longing strings, Richter's work is its own tale in musical form, packed with the emotions and experiences of a great narrative work communicated with harrowing yet wordless wonder.

Never Goodbye is everything. It's grief and guilt, pain and sorrow, anger and frustration. It's the musical evocation of emotion itself, tracking the way that these tempestuous feelings rise from gentle embers to a raging blaze, from a trickle of water to a torrent that floods everything in its path.

Only the best speakers and headphones will fully do it justice. When those strings really swell and the composition unleashes its ground-shaking power, you need something to communicate fully the awesome emotional power of Richter's masterwork.

The Fyne F502S towers spring to mind as speakers capable of tackling this titanic task. As we said in our review at the time: "The F502S have the nous and nuance to provide the track’s opening piano and strings with the subtle delicacy they require, switching gears as the piece grows and swells to create a powerfully rich, resonant reproduction that fully brings out the music’s haunting resonance."

Never Goodbye is Hostiles' big finale, but Richter's soundtrack is peppered with gems that evoke both the minute internal workings of the film's fractured characters alongside the broader, more existential themes of the world conjured by director Scott Cooper.

The Lord's Rough Ways, for instance, trades the grandeur and scale of Never Goodbye for a quieter, more reflective composition, with fulsome strings replaced by the delicate twinkling of a solitary piano. It's not a complex affair by any stretch, yet such is Richter's talent for extracting so much from seemingly so little, the music practically drips with a sort of deep-rooted sadness that enraptures you from the very first chord.

If you do want to be more technical about things, it also makes for a strong test tune when you just want to discover how well your system or speakers are capable of handling space and subtle detail.

That piano should sit in a well of surrounding silence, and you should be able to track the rise, swell and decay of each keystroke with absolute clarity and precision via a competent set-up. When those piano keys do ebb and decay, they should fall away into a haunting void of nothingness.

If you want the full Hostiles experience – and indeed, want to go the full Max Richter – take an hour out of your day and just play the whole soundtrack from start to finish. Each track is its own mini narrative, but playing the whole composition gives you the richest evocation of Richter's emotive vision playing out before your ears.

What the soundtrack to Hostiles does, through the right system, is remind you not only of music's raw emotional power, but of its capacity as a tool of communication. So often we recommend using test scores and tracks for their pure emotional weight, but with Hostiles, you're seeking something more cohesive and comprehensive. You're going, to use that horrible cliché, on an actual journey.

You're looking for a sense of music telling a story. You're seeking a sense of character, of place, of feelings rising, burning brightly and then fading as they transform into something else entirely. You don't need to have seen the movie: you'll know just what is being said just by listening to the music.

That is the key to all of Max Richter's greatest compositions: that even without words or explanations, they can communicate the most evocative tales. Get them playing on a great system, and those stories will simply tell themselves.

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Update 13th March 2026: Spotify has been in touch with a comment, which you can read at the end of this article.

Tell most musicians that Spotify has saved the music industry, and you'll be met with a bitter laugh.

Spotify made the claim at the launch of its annual Loud & Clear report – sort of like a more corporate version of Spotify Wrapped – that was published this week. While it's true that Spotify did provide a legal and financially viable model 20 years ago when piracy was rife, most people would disagree with the rosy picture Spotify paints of the modern music industry.

It might have saved the industry from piracy 20 years ago. But who's going to save us all from the streaming giant in 2026?

Spotify vs reality

Spotify's report makes interesting reading. The firm paid out over $11 billion to the industry as a whole in 2025, making it the highest-paying retailer in the world for the second year running.

More than 13,800 artists earned more than $100,000 a year from Spotify alone (nearly 1,400 more than in the previous year), while even the 100,000th highest-earning artist earned over $7,300 from Spotify. In 2015, they would have only earned around $350.

So everything's wonderful, right?

Some would disagree, to put it mildly. Spotify is not well-liked within the industry, and that's mostly due to the paltry amount it pays musicians. While it's true that it is paying out more than ever, this goes overwhelmingly to those top earners who need it the least.

At the end of last year, depressed by seeing other musicians sharing their Spotify Wrapped reports – or, as he puts it, "doing Spotify's marketing for them" – the founder of Welsh indie rock band Los Campesinos! published how much money he had actually made from Spotify.

At 0.29p per stream, Spotify paid less than any other major streaming service.

As he noted: "If everyone who streamed All Hell on Spotify had done so using Tidal instead, we would have received an extra £31,847.38, which would double the amount we made from streaming of the album in this time period."

Ouch.

Spotify might be the worst offender, but it's symptomatic of the wider problem of music streaming in general. The model is broken and might not last much longer. Jimmy Iovine, the founder of Interscope Records and the Beats brand of headphones and speakers, recently put it bluntly, telling the Founders podcast: "The streaming services, to me, are minutes away from being obsolete."

And Spotify looks the most vulnerable of all.

Biggest of the big dogs

But surely, as the biggest of all the streamers, Spotify is better placed than most to weather any market storms? Well, yes and no.

It might be the biggest of all the streaming dogs, but it's far from a runaway success. Despite running for nearly 20 years, it only became profitable in 2024. As the excellently-named Govert Vroom from the University of Navarra Business School points out, it spends around 70 per cent of its revenue paying royalties in order to host the music it offers, leaving it with a very narrow profit margin.

Turns out that being the highest-paying retailer in the world has its own costs.

But away from the business side of things, what differentiates Spotify from the other music services offering 110 million tracks? Qobuz has offered hi-res tracks from its inception, and lets you purchase them too.

Tidal pays its artists more fairly, while Apple Music and Amazon Music are no-brainers for those ensconced in those companies' respective ecosystems. But Spotify? It still offers a free tier, but that aside, there's nothing to differentiate it.

Plus, its hi-res offering is inferior to its rivals', and it's more expensive, too.

All of which are why Spotify gets a bad rap. We've even reached the point where a whole raft of streaming services are positioning themselves as the anti-Spotify.

Fight the power

Like every industry, the music industry is a power game. As Joel Gouveia points out, the record companies used to hold all the cards: they signed the artists to their record labels, and even owned the record pressing plants, turntable manufacturers and portable music players we used to listen to them on.

As the biggest music streamer in the world, with over 700 million monthly active users, Spotify now overwhelmingly controls the means of distribution. But – as Gouveia argues – it wants the fans to have a relationship not with the musicians they come to it for, but with the service itself. When what you offer is inferior in most ways to the competition, that's a tough sell.

Despite what Jimmy Iovine says, Spotify won't disappear overnight. But he's making a good point: the streaming model, while a godsend during an age of rampant music piracy, is broken. It only rewards those who need it the least, which stifles innovation.

Who knows what comes next, but hopefully it will provide a better experience for musicians and music fans alike. Related: Record Store Day is on 18th April this year.

Since publication, Spotify has been in touch with the following comment:

"Streaming services don't set a fixed 'per-stream rate.' Payouts come from a revenue pool, and dividing that pool by a smaller number of streams can make a service appear to 'pay more' per stream — even if artists earn less overall. What ultimately matters is total payout.

"Last year, Spotify paid out more to the music industry than any retailer in history — over $11 billion — and we're one of the only services to publicly share those numbers.

"More artists are generating meaningful income from Spotify today than could ever have been stocked on physical shelves at the height of the CD era. That's the scale and access streaming has unlocked — and we're committed to continuing to grow the pie for artists at every level."

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As some of you may know, a certain hi-fi magazine is turning 50 this year (spoiler: it's us).

Given we're nostalgic souls, this momentous milestone has led our reviewers to take a fond trip down memory lane, revisiting the top tracks that came out in the same year as our launch.

1976 was one of the most iconic years in music history (and not just because What Hi-Fi? was born) – a year crammed with sonic treats for every type of music fan.

For the headbangers amongst us, there was the first UK punk single, which began the new wave of sounds that ruled much of the airwaves for the remainder of the decade, while many of the hard rock legends that had been selling out shows since the beginning of the '70s were still pumping out the hits.

For the more flamboyantly inclined, disco was getting people moving, and numerous funk, soul, and reggae acts were firing out bangers to help us all "get on up!"

All-in-all, it was an incredible time to own a great hi-fi system. From this huge catalogue of cracking songs, these 10 iconic tracks hold a special place in the What Hi-Fi? team's heart, so much so that you may well hear them blasting out from our listening room still, 50 years on.

Dancing Queen by ABBA

50 years ago. Half a century. That’s a long time in any life, and for most readers of whathifi.com, it’s ancient history. For me, though, it’s my childhood. And I find myself looking back at a time that was bang in the middle of the formative years of my musical taste.

If I’m honest (and this strikes me as a perfectly acceptable time to tell the truth) my musical preferences when I was 10 were pretty embarrassing – and certainly not something I would confess to as a younger adult. Time is a great mellower and adjuster of preconceptions though. So now? I’m not sure I care what others think of my love, when I was 10, for the music of Showaddywaddy.

The first track to jump out at me, when I looked at the list of UK hit singles from 50 years ago was Under The Moon Of Love, by the crepe-shoed rockers from Leicester. I loved Showaddywaddy, and I loved that track most of all. But it is, without doubt, of its time – and not really a standout system-tester either.

There was, though, one track on that list of top 10 hits from all those years ago that shines out, head and shoulders above the rest, as a beacon of mid ’70s brilliance. Abba’s Dancing Queen is still a guaranteed dancefloor filler half a century after it first topped the UK charts.

From the treble to bass glissando that kicks everything off to the fading out of the “da-dum, da-dum, da-dum” piano chords at the end, this track is, surely, one of the ultimate slices of pop perfection.

It’s a brilliantly produced record, too – and one that serves well as a test disc for your system. If there’s any flaw in the dynamics or rhythmic flow of the set-up you’re listening to, your dancing feet will soon pick it up. You’ll want electronics that are precise as well, to keep up with that irresistible beat.

Having said that, this one is such a banger that it would get most people up and shuffling about if it came out of the tinniest of tinny speakers. So forget about scrutinising equipment for a moment; just stick Dancing Queen on, and revel in a pop-music masterpiece.

Words by Jonathan Evans

Buy Arrival by Abba on vinyl at Amazon

New Rose by The Damned

Released in late October, New Rose marked the beginning of a glorious period for music, certainly for anyone who loves UK punk – and new wave – as much as I do.

While The Damned weren’t the only members of UK punk’s first wave, this single, and the subsequent album Damned Damned Damned, saw the London group beat the likes of The Sex Pistols, The Clash and The Vibrators into the studio to become the first British punk band to release a single and an album, respectively.

Truth be told, New Rose is a banger. Perfectly encapsulating the raw aggression that was to become a hallmark of this genre, it crashes, bangs, and wallops, often all at the same time. Stick it on your headphones or speakers, ideally some with plenty of rhythmic drive and punch, turn up the volume and enjoy the ensuing frenzy.

Words by James Cook

Buy Damned Damned Damned on vinyl at Amazon

I Wish by Stevie Wonder

If this song sounds familiar, I have three words for you: Wild Wild West. (Or rather, wicki-wicki Wild Wild West.)

Say what you want about Will Smith, the man knows how to ruin a good song, be it As The Beat Goes On (Miami), Forget Me Nots (Men In Black) or Rock The Casbah (Will 2K), but his pantomime despoilment of this Stevie Wonder classic is the most unforgivable.

I Wish is vintage Stevie, and comes from Wonder’s golden period. It’s taken from the album Songs In The Key Of Life, which is stacked full of classic cuts like Sir Duke, Pastime’s Paradise and Isn’t She Lovely, and which followed Fulfillingness' First Finale and Innervisions in a creative hat-trick of the likes rarely seen. In an album chock full of first-rate cuts, it still manages to stand out.

A paean to simple childhood pleasures (like “hang[ing] out with those hoodlum friends of mine”), this is Wonder at his best: effervescent, infectious, with those deft opening licks sounding like nothing else before or since.

Wonder apparently got inspiration for the track after attending a Motown picnic – whatever was in those Scotch eggs, it certainly did the trick.

Words by Joe Svetlik

Buy Songs In The Key Of Life on vinyl at Amazon

Fool to Cry by The Rolling Stones

Black and Blue isn’t The Stones’ best album, that much is for certain. Jagger and co. had enjoyed an enviable run of four back-to-back (to-back-to-back) classics before 1976’s release debuted to a somewhat mixed reception, setting themselves an unreachable bar courtesy of Beggars Banquet, Let It Bleed, Sticky Fingers and Exile on Main St. between 1968 and 1972. You can’t maintain that sort of standard forever.

Still, the band’s thirteenth studio album does house a few of the sorts of gems that made the group’s earlier works shine so bright, with the bluesy, downtrodden Fool to Cry serving as a reminder that Mick and Keith still had a couple of years before many were wishing they’d take up residency at the Home for Retired Rockers. If anything, 1978’s Some Girls was a return to form…

However you view Fool to Cry, it still has so much of that soulful Stones sound to keep the punters happy, with Jagger’s lyrics riding that finest of fine lines between sincere blue-eyed soul and tone-deaf parody.

Conviction and charisma just about manage to pull things through, mainly thanks to Jagger’s committed performance and Keith Richard’s inspired noodling.

Words by Harry McKerrell

Buy Black and Blue on vinyl at Amazon

(Don’t Fear) The Reaper by Blue Öyster Cult

(Don’t Fear) The Reaper isn’t just Blue Öyster Cult's best-known track; it’s likely one of the most recognisable songs in the world.

Over its 50-year existence, it has been used in more movies than can be listed in this article (Halloween, Scream, The Prophecy, The Frighteners and The Stand, to name a few) and covered by everyone from Finnish goth rockers to American folk singers.

The original is undeniably the best version, at least in my mind. Featuring an emotive, barebones guitar intro, written in A-minor, that slowly builds, adding overdubbed harmonies before exploding into a chaotic, almost psychedelic, midsection, the song is a delight from start to finish.

The deceptively complex, layered composition, which also includes an iconic cowbell rhythm part and textured bass section, makes it a great track for testing hi-fi and a generally exciting, well-recorded listen, even 50 years on.

Yet what truly makes it special, and in my mind is the main reason for its ongoing popularity, are the timeless themes the track explores as it delves into the human condition.

Though many listeners assume it’s a basic story about a couple considering committing suicide together, lead guitarist, Donald "Buck Dharma" Roeser, has constantly challenged this interpretation.

Instead, he insists it’s a deep exploration of our mortality inspired by Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, designed to celebrate love’s ability to transcend death – a theme humanity has explored since the dawn of time, and a key reason the song remains so relevant and fresh to this day.

Words by Alastair Stevenson

Buy Don't Fear The Reaper: The Best Of Blue Öyster Cult on vinyl at Amazon

Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy by Queen

Before music streaming was a big part of my life, I would rely on my trusty CD player and my collection of shiny discs to jam along to my favourite tunes.

One of the tracks that I played again and again (suitably featured in my edition of Queen’s Greatest Hits) was Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy. And, even as it turns 50 this year, it is still as much of a banger as it was when it came out.

Released as one of the tracks from A Day at the Races, the tune includes plenty of Queen tells: Freddie Mercury’s cheeky yet absurdly talented vocal performance heads the show, with clever lyrical wordplay making for toe-tapping listening.

Then there’s Brian May’s playful guitar solo, which is just a masterclass in how to capture your audience. The track’s runtime of just under three minutes goes by in a joyful blur, and it begs to be listened to on repeat.

If it has been a while since you dug out this Queen track, I implore you to give it another listen.

Words by Robyn Quick

Buy A Day at the Races on vinyl at Amazon

Play That Funky Music by Wild Cherry

Prior to the release of Play That Funky Music in April, Ohio-based group Wild Cherry were a hard rock cover band struggling to find gigs as disco surged in popularity. But one fateful Pittsburgh show saw a member of a predominantly black audience ask drummer Ron Beitle, "are you going to play some funky music, white boys?" and the track, with its instantly recognisable hook, was born.

As soon as the opening guitar riff hits, the tone is set for a dance-off, and then things continue to ramp up as bass, drums, horns, and even a cowbell for a brief period enter the mix. Wild Cherry then tops it off with a short solo in the hard rock vein, as the group expertly blends their rocking past with the then disco present.

Despite being penned in just five minutes, this funk rock classic steamrolled its way to number one on the US Billboard Hot 100 by September, and it’s one that you really should take out the subwoofer for, provided you own one, of course.

Words by James Cook

Buy Play That Funky Music on vinyl at Amazon

More than a Feeling by Boston

More than a Feeling is another classic 1970s anthem that still gets a lot of airtime, and there are plenty of good reasons why.

Featuring a catchy melody and emotive lyrics that are ably delivered by vocalist Brad Delp, it’s a fantastic tune that will get everyone from classic rock snobs to Taylor Swift fans’ heads bopping along to the beat.

For me, what makes it so interesting is that, as well as sounding great, it was actually quite revolutionary at a technical level at the time.

Despite that big, polished sound – which has gone on to become almost a cliché in soft rock communities, after decades of bands trying to replicate the track’s catchy magic – it was actually recorded using a wealth of custom equipment in guitarist and composer Tom Scholz’s basement.

This is a key reason it took him five years to complete More Than A Feeling, with Scholz creating his own hardware and techniques to stack the layered guitar parts and vocals that have since become synonymous with the band.

So, as well as sounding nice, it’s also a trailblazing song that laid the groundwork for the garage recording, home-produced revolution that has been keeping smaller acts alive and helping new bands get discovered for decades now. Boston, we doff our collective caps to you!

Words by Alastair Stevenson

Buy Boston on vinyl at Amazon

Disco Inferno by The Trammps

Did someone say burn, baby, burn? Yes, the Trammps did way back in December 76 and Disco Inferno is still very capable of keeping the party going nearly 50 years on from its initial release.

While it needed to be included on the soundtrack to Saturday Night Fever (1977) and re-released in order to break into the mainstream, where it peaked at number 11 on the Billboard Hot 100, it remains one of the most iconic tunes to come out of the disco era.

It's virtually impossible to sit still once those infectious basslines hit your eardrums, and this only becomes more difficult when the uplifting strings and catchy chorus join the party.

It goes without saying that this is a great song for systems with lots of low-end. If yours has excellent clarity in the mid and higher frequencies, however, I recommend you check out the extended album version (in the video above), where you can fully appreciate just how groovy those delightful drum patterns are.

Words by James Cook

Buy The Best Of The Trammps on vinyl at Amazon

The Boys Are Back in Town by Thin Lizzy

When it comes to hard-rocking hits, it doesn’t get much better than Thin Lizzy’s The Boys Are Back in Town.

Released in April, it reached number one in the group's native Ireland, but didn’t hit higher than eight in the UK or 12 in the US. A travesty, but still, chart position is rarely a reflection of a song’s quality. I mean, have you seen the state of the charts these days?

Anyway, now this rant has made me look far older than I actually am, let’s get back to what’s important: singing the praises of Ireland’s greatest band and their second-biggest hit, behind 1973’s markedly different but equally brilliant rendition of Whiskey In The Jar.

The Boys Are Back in Town is a true exemplar of everything that’s great about Thin Lizzy: an endless array of catchy guitar riffs, one of which hooks you in right from the start; a clever tale delivered in an effortlessly cool way that only frontman/bass player Phil Lynott was capable of; and a rhythm section bursting with energy, underpinned by Brian Downey’s swinging drums and tasteful fills.

Fancy yourself a rocker? Well, why not be a roller too, baby and get this on your hi-fi sooner rather than later.

Words by James Cook

Buy The Boys Are Back in Town on vinyl at Amazon

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About a year ago, Spotify introduced AI Playlist curation to its Premium subscribers, harnessing the tech to create any kind of playlist to suit your mood, the weather, any activity, your existential crisis... you name it.

Enter your prompts, ChatGPT-style, and voila – a playlist of songs adhering to your parameters will be created for you. My colleague Harry McKerrell had a grand old time testing it out, with his prompts getting more and more creative and outlandish to push the boundaries of what this tech could do, ending up with playlists titled "Startled Chick's Dubstep Journey”, the “Abyss Stares Back” (there’s that existential crisis) and one that’s just songs about cheese.

You could refine the parameters, but these AI playlists were quite static. Spotify has now gone one step further and given us "Prompted Playlist" – an evolved version of the AI playlist that puts "meaningful control of the Spotify algorithm directly in your hands, with your ideas, your logic and creativity". It's able to search through your entire Spotify listening history for a personalised curation of your tastes, even take note of real-world trends across history and culture, and be regularly updated too.

Available to US users since last year, Prompted Playlist is now rolling out in Beta form to Spotify Premium users in the UK, and I got early access to try it out. Fire up your Spotify app and tap on the Create+ icon, click on "Prompted Playlist" option and you'll be taken to a screen where you type in, in your own language, what you want from the playlist.

Spotify's senior music editor, Shannon Carragher, said in the demo that you ideally need three things to create a success prompt – a mood or intention, a little direction, and room for surprise. You can be as broad or as specific as you like – although the more details for what you're after (specific sub-genres, specific BPM for your workout, etc) will undoubtedly help.

I've never used prompts or things like ChatGPT before, so this is a novel experience for me. If, like me, you have no idea where to start, the Ideas tab gives you examples of what you can create around genres, artists, world news, trends and your listening history.

As the sun finally broke through the dreary, rainy weather we've had for months in the UK, I started off with the prompt that Spotify showed in the demo: “Uplifting tracks for the moment it stops raining in London.”

It takes a few seconds (sometimes a minute or so for more complex prompts) to start generating the playlist, and I get a 12-strong list of songs such as Here Comes The Sun, Walking On Sunshine, Levitating, Uptown Funk, and so on. It’s a good playlist, all on theme. As I basked in the early March sunshine with the playlist running, it certainly gave me a spring in my step.

If you like your resulting playlist, you can even set it to update daily or weekly on certain days, like your own curated Discover Weekly or Daily Mix. You can also add songs, edit the list, change the name of the playlist and edit the prompt itself as much as you wish.

I pivot to asking it for a moody, dark academia-inspired playlist to help me write (something I often search for in existing playlists), and it comes up with tunes from Lana Del Rey, Noah Kahan, Of Mice And Men – they're a little too wispy, gentle and indie-folk compared with the deeper tones that I was after, so I edit the prompt to include strings, violins, piano and "with few lyrics".

This changes the whole playlist to include Arvo Part, Max Richter, Ludovico Einaudi, Nils Frahm, Clint Mansell – which was much closer to what I had in mind. However, the tone of the tunes were still perhaps on the light side, and I realised what I really wanted was the Ramid Djawadi-composed Game Of Thrones soundtrack, full of more dramatic cellos and more dynamic upheavals, and found myself tweaking the playlist to tunes I knew would hit the spot better.

I set it a harder task next: “10 songs that sound exactly like an Elliott Smith song. But don’t add any Elliott Smith songs.” This proved far trickier and showed the flaws of how an Al algorithm "thinks" compared with how a human links connections together. The Prompted Playlist of "Elliott Smith Soundalikes" included Leonard Cohen, Yo La Tengo, Jeff Mangum, and Spotify even tried to be cheeky by including tracks that had Smith on guitars, but not singing. I get it; it's hard to emulate the genius of his technical guitar playing and softly-sung confessional lyrics.

But the choices didn't seem close to what I consider to be Smith's sound. Personally, I'd have expected to see a few tracks from, say, Death Cab For Cutie or some early Jeffrey Lewis, while my husband (a big Elliott Smith fan) pointed out that tracks from Fionn Regan’s The End Of History would have been a better shout than most of what Spotify’s AI turned up here.

Where the Prompted Playlist comes to life, however, is when dealing with more data-driven prompts. I ask for the first 10 songs I ever played on Spotify, and then the top tracks from every year I first started using Spotify (since 2011), in ascending track length order. These parameters proved far more successful, bringing back musical memories in the same way as when you get picture memory snapshots from 10 years ago from your social media channels.

There are so many songs I’d completely forgotten I had played so much – especially songs that I had used repeatedly as test tracks when I joined What Hi-Fi? in 2012. I have absolutely no idea why I streamed Van Morrion’s Sweet Thing 36 times that year, while I had forgotten that I was obsessed with pianist James Rhodes’ albums – they were great for background music when I was writing my early reviews.

Every entry also comes with a little snippet, which I like. From stats on how many plays, track length and year, to even little blurbs on what the song contains and how it relates to your prompt.

Getting more specific on factual parameters rather than try to emulate my mood continued to prove more successful: I asked it to compile a playlist of songs used in the TV shows The Detectorists and Small Prophets – and this is the kind of data-driven resourceful activity that AI is best used for, saving me time to painstakingly look up each song and add them manually to a playlist (which I have done before with other TV shows).

While that time-saving nature is definitely appealing, the process of building a playlist where it needs to suit a mood or specific purpose is such a human, interactive activity. Every song you choose, the connection between them, and the order in which you place them, tells a story.

Sometimes the choices and connections you make are quirky, chaotic and make no sense to anyone but you – and it's these connections that not just make playlist curation so rewarding, but are also completely alien to an AI algorithm.

I spent a week creating Prompted Playlist as and when the mood struck, and found the results quite fleeting. You can be as precise as you want with your prompts, but it's not quite as tangible or as lasting as picking out the music yourself with intention and feeling behind it. After a week, it was really only The Detectorists/Small Prophets playlist that I kept coming back to.

Another of my colleagues, Robyn Quick, made the point that Spotify's existing recommended playlists already do a great job in offering playlists you'll like, but notes that "I trust my own tastes more than AI", and I can't help but agree.

Spotify's Prompted Playlist feature is undoubtedly clever and the scope of possibilities is vast. While it can't quite replace emotional connectivity that a human-curated playlist can provide, if you're a keen playlist builder, especially for a specific activity or mood on the fly, it's worth a whirl.

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In case you missed one of the multitude of posts we’ve published recently, What Hi-Fi? has reached a critical milestone. Specifically, we’re turning 50 this year.

That’s right, get your party hats and disco balls ready, we’re hitting the big five-O. Only another 20 years until we can retire.

And speaking of the number 20… Nostalgic soul that I am, I’ve spent some time going through our back issues and web archive to find and revisit the main tracks we’ve used for testing over the decades.

And during this noble quest, I realised a key album we used to love, but for whatever reason have stopped using to test products – one that is also celebrating a key birthday this month. Yes, Prince’s 3121 is turning 20.

Now look, I get why younger people in particular may not rank the album as Prince’s finest, or, based on my conversations with our Gen Z staff writers, even be aware of its existence. The virtuoso had already been around quite a while, and there are plenty of big moments to choose from, after all.

Some examples include When Doves Cry, Let's Go Crazy, Raspberry Beret (which my wife and I played at our wedding), and the beautiful ballad Purple Rain.

Tracks aside, there’s his iconic performance of Purple Rain at the Super Bowl (though the less said about the movie of the same name, the better), and his music playing in the background as Jack Nicholson delivered one of THE best scenes in Tim Burton’s Batman.

All in all, there’s a lot of cool stuff to choose from…

But 3121 has been one of my favourite examples of his later work and a bit of a hidden gem that many fans wrongfully overlook, which is funny as it was a hit at the time, reaching number one on the Billboard 200 chart – something Prince hadn’t managed since 1989’s Batman soundtrack.

Sandwiched between Musicology, which is good but not his best work, and the (in my mind) more forgettable Planet Earth and Lotusflow3r, the album is one of Prince’s most holistically brilliant pieces of later work and a fine example of his virtuosity as a musician, producer and composer.

Prince pulled in an all-star cast of bandmates for the album, including drummer C.C. Dunham, bass guitarist Joshua Dunham and singer Támar Davis, and the album is a powerhouse of eclectic tracks that blissfully change pace and genre at a fevered rate – resulting in an album that not only sounds great, but is a fantastic way to test your hi-fi system’s performance.

Starting with former listening room favourite 3121, the album’s titular track is an experimental juggernaut that starts with trip-hop elements before adding rhythmically complex, punchy interlinking parts.

With electronically enhanced vocals, a staccato guitar part that sounds more like something from Mr Bungle than Prince, and funky, scooped bass, as our technical editor Ketan Bharadia neatly explained: “3121 is a rhythmically complex masterpiece on a decent system and an illogical mess on anything else.”

Then there’s my personal favourite, Fury. One of the album’s more traditional tracks, it's a fun funk song that’s sure to get even the most stoic of music fans’ feet tapping to the beat.

From a testing perspective, its intentionally flabby bass is a sure-fire way to see if your speakers are going to rattle. And the stark contrast between it and Prince’s attacking lead guitar and smooth as silk vocals will also offer a solid gauge of its general dynamics and tonal balance.

If it can’t properly separate the different parts of the frequency range, your system won’t do Fury justice – trust me, I’ve checked.

And that tour de force continues all the way to the final track, Get On The Boat. Opening with a booming horn section and grooving bassline before exploding into a freeform big-band experience, the funktastic song grooves from start to finish and is an example of why, for me, 3121 is an album every hi-fi and music fan should check out.

While it isn’t Prince’s most avant garde effort, especially compared to his early 1980s period, it’s a fantastic album and one of the best produced in his vast back catalogue. And with it turning 20, there’s never been a better time to revisit it, or check it out for the first time. You won't be disappointed if you do.

I’d especially recommend the 2019 posthumous vinyl version, which has been spinning all week for “research” purposes…

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It’s March!

February is over, and we don't have to think about the year’s undisputed nadir for another 11 months. The days are getting longer, the nights are getting shorter, and above all else, the great tunes just keep on rolling in.

This month’s selection has an oddly avian theme. More specifically, we’ve got two tracks from bands named Goose and Geese respectively; while that’s not a huge number on the face of it, it’s odd that it should have happened twice in the same month. Also, we have music from Jurassic Park – and as every schoolboy knows, all birds are in fact dinosaurs. Or all dinosaurs are birds; it's hard to remember which…

The temptation to pepper this intro with bird puns pulls strong, so we’ll scratch that particular itch simply by urging you to check out the tracks that have been ruling the roost this March.

• Discover the full playlist on Tidal

Theme from Jurassic Park by John Williams

It’s hard to keep up with the number of movies and TV shows that now form the Jurassic Park franchise. Some have been good (you can’t beat the absolute classic that is the original Steven Spielberg release), and others have been… not quite so good.

But there has been one constant in each iteration: John Williams’ dazzling score. And there is one key part of the soundtrack that has inevitably come to your mind. Of course, that’s the theme from Jurassic Park, which plays for the first time in the original movie when we lay eyes on a towering Brachiosaurus.

The track starts with a single French horn call, incredibly soft and subtle, challenging your audio equipment to portray the emotion of each note. It’s so delicate, in fact, that you feel you need to hold your breath so as not to disrupt the sound. The horn is then joined by the warm strings and flute, keeping the score quiet yet lively.

After this opening, we are treated to the swelling main theme that bursts with joy and energy. Williams perfectly captures that feeling of childlike wonder you would surely get, seeing a dinosaur plod through the grass mere inches away from you.

Words by Robyn Quick

Short Change Hero by The Heavy

Hands in the air, I haven’t listened to an awful lot of “new” music this month. Instead, after signing up to MUBI, I have spent the past 30 days with my other (home cinema) hat on, revisiting a wealth of classic spaghetti westerns.

Highlights include The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Man in the Cursed Valley, Johnny Yuma and Hanging for Django.

While this has hindered my constant search for new music to enjoy, the adventure has fed a different outlet for my love of music – creating a playlist with the same vibe as the movies.

Yes, the trip to the Wild West has fed a new playlist on my Tidal, creatively named Once Upon a Time in Al-merica. There’s a reason I don’t work in marketing…

While many of the tracks are golden oldies, one new-ish track from iconic British rock band The Heavy has been on repeat since I made the playlist: Short Change Hero.

Is it used in a Western? Not as far as I know. But the lyrics’ focus on a troubled youth in a bleak world where good intentions and actions are futile, coupled with the stellar recording, invokes the setting in my head for some reason.

As a bonus, it’s a pretty incredible track to listen to. With a truly cinematic intro, featuring lightning blasts and church bells in the distance that builds in volume as you hear footsteps approaching, the track slowly blossoms into a beautifully understated, but textured, composition mixing elements of rock and neo-soul.

If you haven’t heard The Heavy before, or if you fancy revisiting one of its best and most cinematic masterpieces, give Short Change Hero a listen.

Words by Alastair Stevenson

Paper Trails by DARKSIDE

DARKSIDE’s Paper Trails could well have been recorded explicitly with hi-fi enthusiasts and audio engineers in mind (although I’m sure it wasn’t).

Ask AI to create the blueprint audio test track, and it’s likely that it would conjure something similar, although obviously not as good, in a bid to emulate the sort of tune you’d probably hear wafting down the halls of the Bristol Hi-Fi Show or High End Munich.

It’s got everything that hi-fi aficionados just seem to love in a test track, from carefully placed percussive strikes to feather-light bluesy licks and moody, low-register vocals.

Close your eyes and you’re there, sitting next to a dozen audio journalists as another proud engineer proudly shows off what his latest turntable / loudspeakers / amplifier (delete as appropriate) can do.

Words by Harry McKerrell

Trinidad by Geese

Taken from the band’s fourth album, Getting Killed, released last year, Trinidad perfectly encapsulates Geese’s art-rock/art-punk/avant-garde sound that almost defies categorising. The song’s rhythm is difficult to latch on to at first, with its jagged, stop-start guitar notes and vocalist CW’s slightly muted, droning tone.

But there is a rumbling, brooding bassline underneath it all that, along with the sharp, repetitive, punctuating guitar notes, builds up momentum to the chaotic crescendo of a chorus as the percussion kicks in and the vocals vault into screams. It’s a song that has shades of The Dead Weather’s 60 Feet Tall – one of my perennial test tracks – and is a stern test of a system’s ability to handle rhythmic precision, cohesion and dynamics to make sense of the unusual structure and patterns.

Get into the groove of it, and the discordant notes and interplay between the various instruments take shape – it’s a track that rewards repeated plays and being heard on a system that is precise, and can go loud.

Words by Kashfia Kabir

Johnny the Fox meets Jimmy the Weed by Thin Lizzy

While Johnny The Fox Meets Jimmy The Weed may not be the most well known Thin Lizzy track, and was released as a single only in the US, it’s an absolutely masterful meshing of funk and rock by the greatest band to come out of Ireland.

Brian Downey’s swinging drums are an absolute delight, and systems that expertly handle rhythms and have plenty of clarity in the mid and higher frequencies will allow you to appreciate fully the groove-master as he does his thing.

The guitar solo from the other Brian (Robertson) in the band also provides enough grit to get your head nodding, but the quality axe man exercises the perfect amount of restraint so as not to disrupt the song’s laid-back flow.

To top it off, vocalist/bassist Phil Lynott sounds effortlessly cool as he walks you through the tale of what some sources claim to be a fantasy meeting between 1920s Italian Chicago gangster Johnny Torrio and Manchester club and pub scene gangster Jimmy ‘The Weed’ Donnelly, a key member of the notorious Quality Street Gang who were active during the 1970s and ’80s.

As a huge Thin Lizzy fan, I have recently revisited the album this track is taken from, Johnny The Fox (1976), and I would wholeheartedly recommend you check out, or else happily revisit, this brilliant record.

Words by James Cook

So Ready by Goose

You don’t actually need the full four minutes and 35 second runtime of Goose’s effervescent funk saga So Ready to give your headphones or hi-fi a proper workout. That’s not to say that you shouldn’t enjoy the entire feast until its end; rather, you’ll receive more audio fibre from those opening bars than you’d find across the entirety of many lesser albums.

I have been testing or otherwise using a small army of headphones recently, from reasonably priced wired over-ears such as the Røde NTH-100 all the way up to the high-end Yamaha YH-5000SE reference cans, and So Ready has been invaluable in hearing just what these classy candidates are capable of.

Goose’s signature track starts with the subtle crescendo of cowbell strikes – a great test of dynamic expression – before clipped, slightly muted guitar chords shine a light on textural insight and how natural your hi-fi or headphones sound. Bang on the 20 second mark, a twanging guitar chord acts as a musical exclamation mark, with funky, expressive drums joining the party – this time, we’re highlighting large scale dynamics and overall punch.

From top to bottom, it’s a terrific tester that has served me especially well when assessing the talents of a variety of headphones. Think of this as my gift to you: I hope it serves you as well as it has served me.

Words by Harry McKerrell

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As if life wasn’t hard enough for musicians trying to make a living in the age of streaming, now they have AI-generated tracks to contend with too. But not on Qobuz.

The French streaming and download platform is rolling out a tool that can spot AI-generated music so it can be purged from the platform. It’s part of the firm's AI Charter which was published last month.

The aim is to protect musicians trying to make a living, and listeners who want to hear music made by actual humans.

The tool can identify and tag AI-created tracks across both new releases and the existing catalogue. This AI-generated content is then “removed upon detection” according to Qobuz.

We have asked exactly how the proprietary tool works, and whether it uses AI itself, and will update this story once we have an answer.

It’s a noble intention, looking to safeguard artists’ earnings while also giving users a more authentic listening experience. But it’s worth pointing out what Qobuz says in its AI Charter about the technological limitations of these kinds of tools.

“No reliable solution exists today to identify all AI content with certainty, especially when partial human intervention occurred,” it says. “We invest in the best available tools but remain humble about this technical reality.”

Qobuz already has tools to root out fraudulent uploads, and is keen to stress that all of its recommendations are editorial decisions made by humans.

It’s not the first streaming service to take a stance against AI. In January, Bandcamp made clear that it would not permit music that is “generated wholly or in substantial part by AI” on its platform, with a reporting tool for use by anyone suspecting that what they are listening to wasn’t made by humans.

AI is a fast evolving technology, and as it becomes more sophisticated, it could become harder to spot tracks made using it. It’s a challenge for the entire music industry – expect to hear a lot more about it in the coming years.

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Following Hamnet’s recent success at the BAFTAs, there's good news for fans of the film’s soundtrack.

Apple Music Classical is releasing a selection of newly arranged tracks from the composer’s score, all of which were recorded live at London’s Southwark Cathedral.

This is made up of three tracks: See things that others don’t, Of the sky and Of the undiscovered country. Performed by a 40-piece orchestra and choir, Apple says this is the only live performance of the score.

Time is of the essence, though, as the Max Richter: Hamnet Live EP will be available exclusively on Apple Music Classical for just three months.

If the film has somehow passed you by, let us fill you in. Hamnet (adapted from Maggie O’Farrell’s novel of the same name) imagines the life of William and Agnes Shakespeare, as they come to terms with the loss of their 11-year-old child.

It's visually stunning, featuring sprawling green forests and sparsely-lit Tudor interiors, all delivered in natural colours and subtle detail – an ideal challenge for projectors and TV screens.

But the film's soundtrack is one of its most striking elements, making Apple’s announcement particularly exciting. Max Richter’s name comes up time and time again as a composer whose tracks we use to put the latest hi-fi and AV kit to the test.

After all, he’s racked up quite the list of credits, including Mary Queen Of Scots, Ad Astra, and the Oscar-nominated Waltz With Bashir.

One of his tracks made it to our most recent monthly Now Playing column, where we highlight the best test tracks we have been using. Our Hi-Fi and Audio Editor, Kashfia Kabir, included Richter's On The Nature Of Daylight, a complex and raw composition that has featured in a huge range of films, including the recent BAFTA winner.

With every track in Hamnet, the composer has delivered an emotional, gut-wrenching accompaniment to the film's beautiful visuals and touching story.

You can listen to the live recordings of the three tracks right now on Apple Music Classical, which is included in an Apple Music subscription. There's also the option to test out the music streaming platform with a three-month free trial.

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Cambridge Audio has added Qobuz Connect functionality to its second and third-generation StreamMagic products.

StreamMagic is the British audio brand’s streaming platform and app for controlling its streaming products and this recent software update finally brings Qobuz Connect to its older generation network-ready products, such as the former Award-winning CXN (V2), the first-gen CXN, Azur 851N, StreamMagic 6 V2, Edge NQ, and CXR.

Cambridge Audio streaming products already have the French music streaming service integrated within StreamMagic, but the latest update means more of its product owners can bypass the app and stream directly from Qobuz's servers and use the native Qobuz app with its greater features and functionality.

This is great news for audiophiles out there that wish to stream more than 100 million songs in up to 24-bit/192kHz high resolution or lossless CD quality on their older Cambridge StreamMagic products.

It also means owners of the aforementioned products can free up their phone use, allowing it to be used purely for playback control, while notifications and calls will no longer interrupt audio streaming.

The update is available to download now via the StreamMagic platform and means only the first generation of Cambridge Audio streamers is yet to include Qobuz Connect. Last year, Cambridge rolled out support to the current, fourth-generation of StreamMagic products in October.

In recent times, Cambridge has also added Spotify Lossless, Amazon Music and QPlay functionality to its streaming products.

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As part of its ongoing iOS 26.4 Beta, Apple has made five updates to Apple Music.

The most notable of them is an AI playlist-making tool called ‘Playlist Playground’, which is similar to Spotify’s flagship AI playlist tool.

Apple Music users can enter a text prompt which, using Apple Intelligence, will automatically curate a 25-song playlist. Users can then add, remove or reorder songs to make it their own.

AI on music platforms is something of a hot and divisive topic but using AI to create playlists certainly seems less problematic than platforming AI-generated tracks.

A more minor but still useful change to playlists is the option to add a song to multiple playlists simultaneously. When adding songs to a playlist, users can tap a selection button in the bottom-right corner and then be able to select multiple playlists at once.

Another seemingly Spotify-inspired feature, clocked by 9To5Mac, is the inclusion of upcoming show information in the Apple Music app.

When there is concert information available, artist’s profiles will now include an ‘Upcoming Concerts’ section, where users can find details about upcoming shows, including the option to buy tickets.

The Ambient Music feature, which allows you to start playing music for four moods – Sleep, Chill, Productivity and Wellbeing – now has a new Home Screen widget too, with small and medium widget sizes available.

Last but not least are some aesthetic changes to the Apple Music platform, with album and playlist artwork now driving the background styling.

When we reviewed Apple’s music streaming service back in 2024, we gave it five stars, so we can only hope these new features further enhance its offering. Assuming you're a fan of adding some AI to your streaming music experience...

Have you tried these new features? Are you a fan of AI curation? Let us know in the comments...

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If you've ever wondered 'why on earth has my music streaming service recommended that?' then help may be at hand. Deezer has launched Flow Tuner, which gives you more control over how its Flow recommendation engine serves up music for you.

Flow Tuner lets you activate or deactivate entire musical genres and sub genres, so you can hear more/less Bolivian thrash metal as you see fit.

Previously, the main way to steer an algorithm has been through liking, disliking or skipping what you're served. But this lets you take more direct control.

Deezer claims the new tool will help users find more music they love.

"Flow Tuner is based on a simple idea: recommendations should not be a black box. Our users want to find the right music for the right moment, and have the control to impact how this happens," said Marin Lorant, head of product at Deezer.

"By allowing them to activate, remove or explore genres with a single gesture, the algorithm becomes a tool that they can shape themselves. It's more accurate, more personal, and it opens the door to more discovery.”

Flow has been in operation since 2014. Like other algorithms, it learns from your actions and preferences, so the more you listen, the more accurate it becomes. Thanks to an AI detection tool, it won't recommend any AI-generated tracks.

In April last year, Deezer introduced a dedicated algorithm settings area in which users can adjust their musical preferences and control recommendations. Flow Tuner seems like an extension of that.

MORE:

Read our Deezer review

The best music streaming services compared

Down with Spotify! These six independent music streaming services want a better deal for everyone

With a claimed 751 million users, streaming giant Spotify is by far the most popular streaming service and has become a go-to for many music lovers worldwide.

And I can see why; the vast music library, combined with its endless catalogue of audiobooks and podcasts, makes it a great hub for all your listening needs. Plus, after many years of waiting, the service finally started offering its Premium subscribers 24-bit hi-res audio quality.

Until earlier this year, I had been a loyal Spotify subscriber for about 10 years. But sometimes you have to throw caution to the wind and try something new.

The streaming service that called to me the most was Qobuz – a French platform that has existed almost as long as Spotify and claims to be "the artist-first, independent streaming platform for music lovers who care".

Offering a 100 million-strong music catalogue, Qobuz offers all of its tracks in at least CD quality, plus higher hi-res audio sampling rates, which together sets it apart from Spotify.

It earned five stars when we re-reviewed it a couple of years ago. So, after taking the plunge and transferring my many Spotify playlists over to the more niche platform that's favoured by audiophiles, it was time to compare the two and see which one served my needs better.

Here are two features on Qobuz that I loved, and two that I wish it did a little better. Let's get cracking!

Qobuz's superior sound quality

There's immediately a clear difference between Qobuz and Spotify's audio quality that is hard to deny. Listening with the Award-winning Sony WH-1000XM6 headphones, Qobuz delivers a more engaging, detailed and dynamically interesting music performance.

When playing Aurora's Some Type Of Skin, Qobuz offers a more impactful dynamic range than Spotify, which sounds rather flat and uninspiring by comparison. Its handling of bass is incredibly nuanced yet punchy as well, giving each track a great sense of timing that will get your toes tapping.

It just feels like Qobuz puts more care into its music sounding the best that it can, with a genuine passion for top-quality audio.

I should caveat that my daily listening experience is with Bluetooth headphones connected to my phone, so I am technically not getting full hi-res quality without using a DAC and wired headphones.

But, even with this compressed listening experience, Qobuz still stands out as the cleaner, more detailed performer. A big tick for the underdog, here.

Well-written and detailed content on albums

The French platform's sense of passion and care for music is carried on when it comes to the written content on the site. With the Magazine feature, you can access a range of thought-provoking articles that discuss the latest music events or reflect on older artists.

From features on the importance of Bad Bunny's recent Super Bowl performance to weekly round-ups of new must-listen albums, it feels like a slower, more intentional navigation experience through the service.

Even the descriptions of artists are well-researched and packed with plenty of ideas for where to start if you have yet to listen to any of their content.

Qobuz is run by a relatively small team (especially when compared to Spotify), which helps the recommended content feel more personal than its bigger rivals.

Spotify has faced a fair amount of backlash recently over its distribution of streaming income to artists, whereas Qobuz is the first streaming platform to officially disclose its average per-stream royalty rate.

That makes the smaller platform an easier pick from a music lover's perspective, in terms of access to passionate content and more transparent artist income.

Less intuitive user interface

Where Spotify still has an edge, however, is with its more intuitive user interface, which makes finding music you want that much easier.

When you use Qobuz's search feature to find a song or artist, you have to be quite precise. Misspelling just one word can skew your results completely, which can be quite cumbersome, especially when you are using the app on the go.

Spotify, on the other hand, is able to work out what you are searching for with more accurate results. So searching for artists when you don't know the precise spelling is less of an issue.

We have found a similar issue with Tidal, so it is far from just an issue with Qobuz. But it does mean Spotify is easier to navigate in this respect.

Spotify has more accurate recommendations

What's more, Spotify's algorithm-led curations (such as ‘Picked for you’ and ‘Made For’) are based on your listening habits and can recommend more accurate tracks as a result.

Music discovery mixes such as the ‘Discover Weekly’ and ‘Release Radar’ are also at the forefront of the Spotify experience and are arguably where the service still just about gains ground on its rivals.

We said in our review of the streaming service: "Generally, such playlists are pretty spot-on, offering a good mix of both old and new, and even including new remixes of songs from artists you have listened to."

As we mentioned, Spotify has a much larger team behind it than Qobuz. Its algorithm-led experience differs from Qobuz's approach which is based more on top picks from the editorial team.

Qobuz does offer its own curated playlists with a mix of tracks you listen to regularly and recommended discs. These are called the DailyQ and WeeklyQ playlists, and they do a decent job of working out what kind of music you might be in the mood for, although it is not perfect.

For instance, I've been listening to a whole lot of musical soundtracks since having Qobuz (don't judge me), but none of the tracks are included on either list.

Spotify, however, includes a specific playlist including a whole lot of musical tracks that I listen to regularly, along with similar tracks that suit my tastes better than Qobuz's recommendations.

There is the argument that Qobuz's tactic helps introduce me to more songs, but with a personalised playlist, I expect to hear a few more tracks that the service knows I listen to a lot.

Still, I'm very glad I took the leap from Spotify to the more niche Qobuz platform.

Simply put, the superior audio quality is well worth the slight compromises in terms of UI and accurate personalised recommendations.

Qobuz is available with a one-month free trial so, if you find your eyes straying from Spotify and you're wondering what other options are out there, I recommend giving it a go.

MORE:

Here is our full review of Qobuz

Check out our guide to the best music streaming platforms

And this is our review of Spotify

Qobuz's updated CarPlay interface couldn't come soon enough.

As someone lucky enough to have multiple music streaming services to hand as I trek from my home to our Reading office (or anywhere else for that matter) in my increasingly road-weary Audi A1, I'm well-versed in how each major brand has integrated Apple CarPlay into their respective platforms.

For those not in the know, Apple CarPlay is simply a way of displaying some of the key features and functions of your iPhone and its iOS operating system on your car's display screen. Whether wired or wireless, (I tend to plug my phone in directly via USB-C) you'll generally get a sample rate of around 16-bit/48 kHz, a little lower than Qobuz's 24-bit/192kHz maximum.

If Spotify has been the gold standard for on-the-go enjoyment from your iPhone to your car (if you take audio quality out of the equation), hi-res service Qobuz has always lagged seriously behind.

Using Qobuz in your car felt practically medieval, with limited functionalities and poor user control seeing the experience lag well behind the likes of Spotify or Tidal. It was, to be frank, a long way off the finished article.

A recent update, however, has rectified so many of those issues. Now, you're able to delve deep into playlists, explore by genre, ask Siri to play audio and access shuffle play, while the whole arrangement and layout now feels far more intuitive and easy to navigate. It's a far smoother, cleaner experience, and a far cry from the clunky, sparse ordeal of those bad old days.

Accessing specific tracks is far easier, too. Whereas before, clicking on a playlist would just automatically play the whole roster of songs (Tidal still does this), pressing on a chosen list brings up the entire catalogue of tunes from which you can make your selection.

Fancy features such as curated playlists are also on the menu, with the whole suite of features feeling so much fuller and more personalised than before.

It's not yet perfect. There's no way, as far as I can tell, of skipping forward once a track starts playing, either by holding the skip button down or having access to a 15-second time jump, both of which are accessible with Spotify's implementation of CarPlay.

Plus, some features don't work as smoothly or reliably as you might like, although this might be down to personal experience and the fact that this is still a very recent update.

Pressing the 'radio' icon, which generates a sort of bespoke playlist based on the song you're listening to, nearly caused an entire system crash during testing, but that might rectified later down the line. Maybe my 4G connection just wasn't as strong as I thought it was, or maybe I caught the service on a bad day.

Nevertheless, Qobuz's recent overhaul in the way it implements Apple CarPlay is a vast improvement on that which preceded it, making it a genuinely viable alternative to the likes of Tidal or Spotify when you're hitting the road.

Qobuz has already dramatically reduced the gap between its own service and those of its key rivals, with this latest upgrade proving that the French brand is serious about making itself the premier hi-res service on the block.

Now that its sound and music catalogue are up to scratch, alongside this new upgrade to its in-car integration, it may be time for rivals to stand up and take notice of a service that has gained serious momentum in the past few years.

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I love the convenience, but is Tidal making me antisocial?

This budget trio delivers a profoundly musical performance and is a great first step into hi-fi

People say you should always look on the bright side of life, but 2026 is really testing that sentiment.

There are a variety of reasons for this. But the main one this week was the news that a record store close to my heart is closing its doors at the end of the month.

This led me on a long, winding trip down memory lane, remembering how important shops like it had been during my formative years, and the impact they've had on my taste in music over the decades.

I mean, how many of you, the people on this very page, remember going to your local record shop to rummage for classics, or grab that week's hot new release, only to then strike up conversations with the owners or fellow music fans and walk away with something completely unexpected?

I certainly did. In fact, I spent so much time parked on one of the barstools by the checkout counter during my teenage years that the manager started referring to me as the venue’s Norm. Cheers to anyone old enough to get that reference…

And this in turn led me to ask: how can so many cool places be closing when they’re such an integral part of the “scene” and all evidence suggests the vinyl revival, and music sales in general, are still going strong?

Am I the problem?

Sure, the answer is complex and in part to do with general shopping habits (people mainly buy online now). But, chatting to record store owners, I think there’s one big part that’s not talked about enough: how antisocial streaming is making us. This has been a repeat issue that store owners have flagged when I've spoken to them for multiple years now.

And the worst part is, I know I’m now part of the problem. The realisation came as I ran through my memory rolodex, recalling all the times I discovered new bands via my conversations with punters and staff, or just sitting listening to what was being played, at my local shop.

Doing so, around the point I was finishing my second cup of green tea (middle age is pure rock’n’roll, kids), I realised all the memories were quite old at this point. Truthfully, I couldn’t remember the last time I’d gone and actually hung out at a record store. And, to make matters worse, the last time I actually bought one at a shop was via the Dig A Little pop-up that occasionally takes over my local pub, which was last year.

A spiral of shame then ensued, where I realised it wasn’t just record shops, it was gigs too. Outside of a few big names, The Manic Street Preachers, Smashing Pumpkins and the like, I haven’t been to any recently – especially smaller ones, like the ones I went to in the old days, where I’d see five unknown acts for as many quid.

Back in my prime, I’d go out and do that at one of London’s many stellar venues (my favourites were 12 Bar Cafe, The New Cross Inn and The Black Heart) on a whim. Now, it takes my wife presenting a structured PowerPoint to get me to go to our local mid-week…

What happened, man? That was the thought that kept repeating in my head. And as it did, I realised, at least in part, it’s because of the way I now listen to music. Like most of us, the majority of my listening is done via streaming. Tidal, to be specific. And don't get me wrong, Tidal is an incredible platform, as streaming in general is incredible, but it makes it too easy to listen in isolation.

Discovery algorithms that help us continue happily smelling our own farts (musically), never expanding our horizons, or trying new genres. A special area for unsigned bands that lets musicians upload their own tracks, letting me scratch the itch to at least try and pretend I’m still supporting up-and-coming acts. It’s all too convenient and easy for me to do all of this without ever leaving my lounge (and my newly purchased comfy chair).

Sure, the fact I’m middle-aged and generally less social these days doesn’t help, but the convenience is too compelling and definitely a factor impacting how younger listeners engage and discover music as well.

Think about it for a second.

When was the last time you flogged a fiver to go to a local music venue to check out a band you’d never heard of, just because it would be a good night? When was the last time you re-enacted THAT scene from High Fidelity and discovered a new band, chatting to a fellow music fan in a record store?

I’m guessing the answer for most of us, regardless of age, is “I can’t remember”.

And that’s not a good thing. The number of vinyl shops may have boomed in 2024, but music venues like the ones I used to visit every other week are struggling.

An easy fix

And, though there’s no data on how the new wave of record shops is faring at the moment, it’s pretty obvious that if we don’t support them, they won’t last long. Shops are businesses and need to “sell” things to exist. They can’t survive on goodwill and people thinking they’re cool.

Which is why I felt the need to get on my soapbox and pen this feature. Yes, streaming is great, but if you care about music then maybe, just maybe, every once in a while, put the phone down and head out to see a band you’ve never heard of at your local venue.

Or, if that sounds too much, pop to your local record shop and engage in a good bit of crate digging. Maybe even spoil yourself and grab a new record on impulse – especially if you agree with me that places like them deserve to exist, not just be a nostalgic twinkle in the eye of ageing music fans such as myself.

Even if you’re a youngster who’s never done any of the above, trust me, these safe spaces for music lovers and the communities they breed are special and worth saving, and once they’re gone, they tend to stay gone.

Just look at Denmark Street and Soho in London as an example. 12 Bar Cafe, The Intrepid Fox, all gone and replaced with chain restaurants, and the area worse for it, at least in my mind.

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February is, as we all know, the shortest month of the year. Thank the gods above for that, as it's also unequivocally one of the worst. Cold weather, long nights, little to look forward to except Pancake Day and the faint hope that Spring might finally be around the corner. Honestly, we should just scrap the entire month from the calendar and jump straight into March.

How, then, do you make the unwanted runt of the yearly litter more appealing? With music, of course. There's only one sure-fire way of beating the winter blues, and that's with a top selection of tunes belting out of your hi-fi or headphones.

We've tried to keep things reasonably upbeat this time around, in a bid to stop those SAD symptoms from surfacing. So if you’re not head-bopping to Fat Larry’s Band, you’ll be getting as hyped as a pre weigh-in UFC fighter by a big old slice of Wu-Tang Clan. Take that, February!

• Discover the full playlist on Tidal

So Unusual by Curtis Mayfield and The Impressions

Before Curtis Mayfield went onto commercial success with tracks such as Move On Up and the soundtrack to the film Super Fly, he was part of the Impressions, a Chicago soul band known for its dreamy, almost lullaby-like harmonies. But Mayfield’s social conscience was evident from early on, with tracks such as Keep On Pushing and People Get Ready soundtracking the early days of the civil rights movement.

Of course, this being soul, they did their share of love songs too, and So Unusual is one of their finest. Mayfield sings about being heartbroken following his other half’s affair, but how any thoughts of anger or revenge are subsumed by the love that still lingers. Misguided? Maybe, because as he sings, “What kind of fool am I?”

This is a slow plod through the wreckage of a relationship, all woozy brass and melodic backing singers, whose lush instrumentation will stretch out through a system that’s strong throughout the frequency range.

But maybe I love it most for its vulnerability. Mayfield was 26 at time of recording, and wise beyond his years. You weren’t any kind of fool, Curtis – you just weren’t a troll.

Words by Joe Svetlik

On The Nature Of Daylight by Max Richter

I must confess: I don’t think I can remember hearing this oft-used piece by Richter before, even though I’ve seen many of the films it has been used in.

But as it played over the closing scenes of Hamnet and into the credits, continuing the catharsis of collective grief from the events of the film, I knew that this time, I wouldn’t forget it so easily. It’s an achingly mournful piece that perfectly fits the mood of Chloé Zhao’s film in particular, with the strings so incredibly physical and tangible.

They take their time pulling at your heart as they gently ebb and flow in a composition that strays from being remotely flashy; it manages to elicit so much emotion with such purity and with so little artifice. Played on a system that has little distortion and a penchant for clear and fluid dynamic subtlety, the full majesty of this magnificent piece of music will shine through.

Words by Kashfia Kabir

Gravel Pit by Wu-Tang Clan

I have absolutely no idea what the titular Gravel Pit from Wu-Tang’s effortless hip-hop classic refers to. Speculated theories include a slang term for a house, a drug den or a part of human anatomy (this one changes how you sing along to the chorus somewhat), yet no concrete consensus has yet been reached.

I also don’t particularly care. Gravel Pit is nothing but pure hip-hop heaven, moving from brisk, effortless flows into that smooth, ear-catching chorus courtesy of Paulissa Moorman. Not-so-fun fact: Aaliyah was originally supposed to lend her vocal talents to the track, but tragically passed away before a collaboration could be finalised.

The pleasure of Gravel Pit from a testing perspective is the myriad personalities your system has to play with, as Method Man, Ghostface Killah and U-God bring their own particular delivery to each verse. Make sure your system is picking up on every breath and syllable, all while preserving the unique style and idiosyncrasies of the key performer’s respective flows.

Words by Harry McKerrell

Trouble by Scorpio

I don’t know about you but, for me, it doesn’t get much better than blaring drum and bass bangers at excessively loud volumes. Although I would argue that such volume levels are, in fact, not excessive but completely necessary for appreciating these tracks in the correct way.

With that in mind, this 1997 release from Scorpio (an alias of legendary Bristol-based producers Roni Size and DJ Die) will have you bumping and bouncing around the room, especially if your system has enough low-end depth to relay the full scale of its wonderfully rumbly basslines.

Contrary to the name of the genre this track belongs to, there’s far more to appreciate than just snappy drums and head-bopping bass, although a system that offers plenty of clarity and detail will help you appreciate the individual beats that make up those intricate drum patterns without things becoming muddled. The initial drop will also hit so hard on a system with excellent dynamic handling that you’ll feel like you’ve been hit for six – maybe even twelve!

If you’ve got neighbours who are understanding at best and tolerant at the worst, bring out the subwoofer, load up Trouble and crank up the volume – you won’t regret it.

Words by James Cook

Follow Along by Cusp

With driving drumbeats and distorted guitar riffs blending with sweetly breezy vocals, the indie-alt-rock of Cusp sounds vaguely familiar and comforting. The Chicago-based outfit could easily share billing with Speedy Ortiz and Wet Leg, with introspective lyrics and pure candour peeking behind catchy, guitar-heavy hooks.

In Follow Along, Singer Jen Bender’s clear, melodic vocals walk a fine line that stops just short of twee, with an assured performance that transforms what could be a ’90s throwback into something a bit more distinctive, personal and honest.

It’s not a particularly refined or polished recording; instead, it’s about the layers of texture, the propulsive rhythm, and fluid, nuanced vocals all working together in a cohesive whole to deliver a somewhat hazy track that just feels good to listen to – and one that I can’t stop humming.

Words by Kashfia Kabir

Act Like You Know by Fat Larry's Band

We often find that when we’re testing, one of the trickiest musical facets to get right is how a given product handles rhythms. It’s not something that a lot of listeners will consider from the outset, with preoccupations around textural detail, clarity and stereo imaging tending to take precedence over what some might consider the more esoteric or secondary requirements around rhythms and dynamics.

Ignore them at your peril. A sense of timing is essential to how hi-fi or headphones convey the essence of the music being played, and a dearth of rhythmic expression can often be the reason why a solid product fails to claim that coveted fifth star. They are the fundamental core underpinning your music’s feeling of drive and momentum, so it’s time to stop considering rhythms as an auxiliary afterthought.

Instead, shine that spotlight bright with a slice of early-80s R&B/funk courtesy of Fat Larry’s Band. Act Like You Know should snap into life with its crisp, ‘stomp-clap’ tempo, all while vibrant horns and a noodling bass strain the limits of your system’s knack for organisation and cohesion.

Put it on, crank the volume and see if your head begins to bop along to that irresistibly funky beat. A genre classic.

Words by Harry McKerrell

MORE:

Read last month's edition: Kick off your 2026 in style with our list of the 7 best test tracks getting us through January

Don't Look Back in Anger at these classic 1996 tracks turning 30 this year

Check out our ultimate test tracks collection

It's not even worth dwelling on how far back 1996 was. We hate to break it to you, but the twelve happy months which gave us the first-ever flip phone (the Motorola StarTAC), the first Pokémon game and the birth of Dolly the Sheep were 30 whole years ago.

Instead, distract yourself from time's relentless march forwards by looking defiantly back in the opposite direction. 1996 was one heck of a year for music – an era which served up a mix of acid house ravers, Britpop swaggerers and post-grunge sleeve-chewers, all smashed together to craft the intoxicating cocktail of those hopeful pre-Millennium days.

COVID? Social media? Economic downturn? Dude, wake up – it was all just a bad dream.

1979 by The Smashing Pumpkins

The Smashing Pumpkins are an iconic band, especially if you’re a grunge fan. Their third album, Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, is often viewed as a key reason why.

The album took the Pumpkins in a different direction from their contemporaries. Featuring an eclectic mix of tracks full of textured compositions and an overarching ethereal feel, Mellon Collie... was a radical departure from the raw, punk-inspired despondence the grunge movement was famous for.

So it makes sense that 1979, which frontman Billy Corgan describes as the most personally important song on the album, is pretty awesome and one of the most iconic tracks of 1996, at least for me.

Chronicling Corgan’s feelings as he turned 12 in, you guessed it, 1979, it’s a dreamy, intentionally dirge-like, slightly euphoric song that still tugs at my nostalgia strings whenever I hear it and one that I’ve loved since I was a teenager.

Like many of us of a certain age, there was a time when a copy of Mellon Collie on CD or MiniDisc was always in my bag, and I must have played the song at least once a day between the ages of 14 and 15.

Yet the thing that makes it all the more special is that it very nearly didn’t make it onto the album. Stories suggest Mellon Collie was composed and recorded at a feverish pace, and 1979 was a particularly turbulent entry to it.

Originally a demo Corgan made based on the opening melody without lyrics, the album’s producer didn’t think it was “good enough” and didn’t want it included. In response, Corgan locked himself away and worked on it overnight, crafting its lyrics and finishing it with samples and effects the band had never used before.

The result is a complex track that feels entirely different to the rest of Mellon Collie, which itself was very experimental, hinting at the more textured, synth-pop direction the band would take on its subsequent, and much more controversial among fans, album, Adore.

Hence I feel it deserves a place on this list, not just as one of my favourite songs of all time, but as a piece of music’s history.

Words by Alastair Stevenson

Forty Six & 2 by Tool

Tool are a terrific provider of test tracks at the best of times, with the entirety of 1996’s Ænima stuffed to the brim with lush, hi-fi ready goodness for music keenos and sonic tinkerers to obsess over.

Forty Six & 2 is a relatively easy track to get a handle on if you’re a newbie, and while it clocks in at around six minutes long, it’s not hard to see why it’s become such a perennial favourite among headbanging stud-wearers and basement dwelling engineers.

Cohesion, organisation and detail are all up to the test, but it’s your systems sense of dynamics – both small scale and full range – that Forty Six & 2 is most adept at spotlighting. The tune’s ever-chuntering bassline will give you a keen sense of how your hi-fi is adapting to small volume changes on the go, while intermittent thumps of energy as the entire ensemble erupts are perfect for assessing those massive, thunderous swings.

Words by Harry McKerrell

Bulls on Parade by Rage Against the Machine

“They don’t gotta' burn the books they just remove ’em / While arms warehouses fill as quickly as the cells”.

The ‘Rage’ part of Rage Against the Machine feels even more relevant today than it did 30 years ago. Bulls on Parade was written in 1996 to criticise the U.S. military and arms industry, and has been used as a protest song ever since, with lyrics that remain just as pertinent today worldwide.

Explosive, razor-sharp and inciting, Zach de la Rocha doesn’t mince his words and we feel every brunt of the unflinching political lyrics. It’s an incendiary track with a powerful, muscular driving rhythm and full-throttle energy that never takes its foot off the pedal.

Of course, Tom Morello’s wrangling of his guitar to make a vinyl record scratch effect is another highlight of the track – one that still sounds unique three decades later.

Words by Kashfia Kabir

Midnight In a Perfect World by DJ Shadow

Back in 1996, DJ Shadow released Entroducing….., and took hip-hop in a whole new direction. The album was much more cinematic that what had come before, with a much wider range of influences than your standard “hands in the air” fare. And that was encapsulated with the lead single, Midnight In A Perfect World.

Its samples might be diverse – rock, soul, funk, spoken word, film dialogue – but they all have one thing in common: obscurity. Whether it’s that floating female vocal (taken from Baraka’s Sower Of Seeds), the main piano hook (from David Axelrod’s The Human Abstract) or spoken word from an interview about drums, you could spend hours hunting down the various nuggets that make up this track.

Yet it all gels together surprisingly well, like it was somehow meant to be. On release it was categorised as the new genre of trip-hop, along with British bands Portishead and Massive Attack, but Midnight In A Perfect World was something else entirely – the sound of a new voice that would continue to take hip-hop to new places throughout the ensuing decades.

True, with its breakbeat drums, soulful vocals and looped-up samples, it set the template for all that chillout ephemera that was farted out around the turn of the century. But as a snapshot of a bold new era of hip-hop in the 90s, it stands alone.

Words by Joe Svetlik

Firestarter by The Prodigy

It's hard to overstate the impact The Prodigy's sneering techno anthem had on 1996's musical landscape. At a time rock was making a half-arsed chart comeback via Britpop Dad-rock, watching Keith Flint tear it up on the Firestarter video on Top Of The Pops, looking every bit the living, snarling embodiment of acid-induced psychosis, was just magnificent.

And people actually complained to the BBC that the video was scaring their kids. The track itself though is the real beast; invigorating breakbeat techno infused with snarling punk attitude, ominous synths and freakish samples.

Through the right system, it's a great test of timing and your hi-fi's handling of all the frequencies, as Liam Howlett's brain-searing electronic hooks and loops, dipping and swelling to create multiple 'drop' moments, is underpinned by monstrously gut-gripping bass and body-blow beats.

And it still sounds awesome.

Words by Chris Burke

Sandstorm by Cast

Sandstorm is, perhaps, one of Britpop’s lesser-known singles, despite being released at the height of the movement and climbing as high as eighth in the UK Singles Chart. Released in January 1996 as the third single from All Change (1995), the debut album from Liverpudlians Cast, Sandstorm is another fine example of Liverpool’s rich musical history.

Like a lot of Britpop, it’s clearly taken some inspiration from the sixties. The breakdowns and guitar solo certainly have an ethereal, psychedelic quality to them, as do the backup vocals, but the rest of the song has a wonderful drive to it: piercing lead notes, crunching guitars and a bouncy rhythm section that beautifully propels you from one point to the next and eventually to the song’s striking, but not sudden, conclusion.

With a playtime of just over two and a half minutes, it definitely falls into the category of short, but it’s a track that is almost certainly sweet.

Words by James Cook

Don't Let Go (Love) by En Vogue

I have loved this song ever since I heard it as a pre-teen, even if I completely misheard some of the lyrics in the chorus when it was on repeat on MTV.

But it’s a dramatic love song that sits a mature step above the usual saccharine pop fare from that era. En Vogue were one of the defining female R&B acts of the 90s (alongside TLC, Salt-N-Pepa, Toni Braxton and Aaliyah), and Don’t Let Go is a deliciously smouldering and empowering ballad that allows the quartet to flex their considerable vocal skills and lush harmonies to the max.

The arrangement is fantastic, with an agile, sultry bass underpinning the track with hints of funk; but really, it’s the soaring, commanding vocals and endlessly sing-a-long chorus that will grab you from the first note and won’t, well, let you go.

Words by Kashfia Kabir

Born Slippy. NUXX by Underworld

1996 will go down in history (well, my history at least) as the year I first got into dance music. My newfound thirst for bpm was predominantly powered by two things: the Ministry of Sound: The Annual II album, which, to this day it still contains its fair share of bangers, and the closing track to one of the best movies of the year: Trainspotting.

Okay, so Born Slippy. NUXX might have first appeared on a B-side in 1995, but its reissue in July ‘96 rode the wave of Danny Boyle’s cinematic masterpiece, catapulting it not only into the mainstream, but my ears, too.

The slow, synth-y start sets a thoughtful tone and sets the mood for the end of the film perfectly as Renton summons up the courage to leave his chums behind for a brand new start. Little did I know the track was about to explode into an assault on the senses, the march led by a pounding kickdrum that never fails to get my foot tapping.

A club classic.

Words by Andy Madden

Valley of the Shadows by Unknown Origin

OK, so it originally came out in 1993, but Valley of the Shadows went from underground to overground upon its re-release in 1996, and quickly became one of the biggest jungle tracks of all time. Some 30 years later, it remains instantly recognisable to anyone with even a passing interest in the genre.

The epitome of being ahead of its time, Origin Unknown (Andy C and Ant Miles) married the iconic “long, dark tunnel” vocal sample (taken from the BBC’s QED TV show) with shuffling breakbeats and a necessarily deep and ominous bass line. Eerie synths completed the magic and ultimately brought jungle to a whole new audience, kickstarting the rise in global popularity of drum and bass.

In 2026 it still provides an excellent test of rhythm and timing, while you will certainly get an idea of how well your system delivers bass. Don’t be scared; turn it up and enjoy.

Words by Joe Cox

Virtual Insanity by Jamiroquai

It’s fine, not everybody likes Jamiroquai. The Jay-Kay fronted group were a major force in the the development of acid and jazz fusion across the 1990s, blending cheeky, occasionally provocative lyrics with crisp production and a keen ear for a catchy chorus, gaining notoriety from danceable, fleet-footed hits such as Space Cowboy, Cosmic Girl and Canned Heat. Oh, and let's not forget Jay Kay’s endearing disco-dad dancing and assortment of outlandish headwear.

Whatever your disposition towards one of the defining funk acts of the decade, there’s no escaping Jamiroquai’s test room credentials. Want proof? We’re the proud owners of the group’s Greatest Hits CD, regularly giving it a spin whenever we want to see how well a CD player or hi-fi setup handles rhythms, cohesion, and Jay Kay’s flighty falsetto.

As one of Jamiroquai’s biggest hits, Virtual Insanity is a great place to start, with its breezy vibes belying darker concerns regarding the creeping encroachment of digital alienation. Funky!

Words by Harry McKerrell

The Distance by Cake

There is no other band that really sounds like Cake. That mixture of college rock, alt rock and singer John McCrea’s sardonic tone is unmistakably recognisable the second you hear it, and their standout single, The Distance, from the second album Fashion Nugget (which is filled with great tracks) is a perfect testament to their musical talents.

McCrea’s deadpan delivery shouldn’t work so well with the driving, snappy rhythm section, but it all contrasts and melds together in a melodic, cohesive way. It is, quite frankly, a bop.

McCrea’s lyrics take centre stage in the verses before the crunchy guitars and trumpet flourishes kick in for the big chorus, and coupled with the backing vocals and the odd synth sounds, it creates this wonderful melange of noise that is arch, inventive, rocky and, simply, just a great tune that never loses momentum.

Words by Kashfia Kabir

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Check out our ultimate test tracks collection

If you're the owner of some beefy Marshall Bluetooth speakers, but have been hankering for more streaming features and turntable integration, then we've got some good news for you.

Marshall has launched its Heddon streaming hub – a small device that grants wi-fi and multi-room streaming power to select models in Marshall's Bluetooth speaker family. It's a neat way of keeping your Marshall home speaker products lasting longer and up to date with new features without needing to replace them entirely.

The Heddon is specifically compatible with the Marshall Acton III, Stanmore III and Woburn III Bluetooth speakers. The Heddon uses wi-fi connectivity to stream music, and then uses Auracast technology to broadcast this music to the speakers, including creating a multi-room system if you have multiple Marshall units in play.

Heddon is compatible with Spotify Connect, Tidal, AirPlay and Google Cast, which opens the pool of streaming options to the Bluethtooth-only Marshall speakers. The Heddon also features an Ethernet port at the back for those that prefer a wired connection to your home network.

Marshall has confirmed to us that: "Heddon has a high resolution, 24-bit/192kHz DAC, however the LC3 codec it uses to transmit the audio is not lossless. The Auracast broadcast does not support either Spotify Lossless or Tidal Max requirements, however it is an improvement on standard Bluetooth."

You can set up the Heddon to your wi-fi and control playback across the speakers using the Marshall app.

What's more, you can also plug a record player directly into the Heddon's RCA stereo line inputs, and stream vinyl records wirelessly across your Marshall speakers. Just note that your turntable should already have a phono preamp built-in to use the Heddon for wireless streaming.

According to Marshall, the aim is to combine modern streaming with Marshall's music heritage roots, with the Heddon offering a "unified listening experience and lets vinyl take centre stage".

The Heddon also works with older Marshall home speakers by using a wired connection to the RCA line outputs on the little device. The Heddon allows for one wired connection to an older-gen model, which can then be synced with the third-generation compatible trio.

The supported speaker models include previous generations of Acton, Stanmore and Woburn speakers, along with Kilburn, Stockwell, Tufton, Acton Voice and Stanmore Voice. The portable models such as Emberton and Willen aren't supported by Heddon.

The Marshall Heddon streaming hub is available now for £180 / $300 / €199. Customers will be able to buy the Heddon at half price if bought in conjunction with the Acton III, Stanmore III or Woburn III speaker, while the hub will be available for free when buying two or more eligible Marshall home speakers.

MORE:

Our guide to the best wireless speakers for every budget

What is JBL PartyBoost? Is it the same as Connect+ and Auracast?

Forget speakers and amps – this is the best upgrade I’ve made to my hi-fi listening room in years

Spotify has been my music streaming platform of choice for more than five years, four of which I’ve spent as one of its 281 million paying subscribers.

This union started off as a happy one – but, sadly, nothing lasts for ever. It seems my Premium subscription is the next thing set to prove the truth of that old adage.

Spotify no longer serves my music-streaming needs and I’m strongly considering ditching it for Tidal. Here are the three reasons.

Spotify costs more

My first sticking point is that Spotify keeps getting more expensive. When I first signed up for Spotify Premium in 2021, I was paying half of a £13.99 monthly Duo subscription (£7). But after Spotify’s third price increase in two years in late 2025, I am now paying nearly double that (£12.99). More than that, it makes it £2 more per month than an individual Tidal subscription (£10.99).

In fairness to Spotify, it’s not the only streaming service to have upped prices in recent years. Netflix increased prices at the beginning of last year and Disney+ did too in late 2025.

Spotify’s higher price, however, is harder to justify when you consider that it lags behind Tidal in a key metric that serious music fans, myself included, care about…

Tidal offers higher resolution audio

Frankly, before I joined What Hi-Fi? I paid little attention to the figures defining the quality of digital music, namely bitrate and sample rate. Now, however, I understand the higher these rates are, the more the sonic detail from suitably good hardware can be.

This became apparent whilst I was reviewing a pair of speakers for What Hi-Fi?. While listening to Kate Bush’s vocals during the opening to Cloudbusting, I found that not only do they sound more natural when heard through Tidal, but you almost feel as if her voice is about to crack as she holds those beautiful notes, such is the level of detail being presented. Comparatively, her vocals sound a little strained when listened to via Spotify Lossless; and they are noticeably less textured to the point where each note seems to cut off a little prematurely.

This is why I’m now on a quest to find the perfect hi-fi system for a cramped listening space. I’ve been looking at the Award-winning Ruark MR1 Mk3 desktop speakers, but as I am currently without my five-star Audio Technica AT-LP3 turntable, my plan for the time being would be to connect my laptop to the Ruark’s USB-C connection, which supports high-resolution audio playback up to 24-bit/96kHz.

Spotify Lossless supports playback only up to 24-bit/44.1 kHz – less than half of the MR1 Mk3’s sample rate. Tidal, on the other hand, can play back hi-res audio up to 24-bit/192 kHz.

This may be more than the Ruark’s USB-C connection supports, but I am also considering adding a music streamer to the hi-fi system – I’m thinking of the Award-winning WiiM Pro Plus. This supports a maximum file resolution of, you guessed it, 24-bit/192kHz.

That way, should I connect it to the MR1 Mk3’s 3.5mm stereo jack/optical input in the future, I can make full use of the extra level of detail on offer.

I use Spotify differently now

The way I use Spotify has also changed significantly over time. While I think its Discover Weekly playlist and wide selection of podcasts are excellent, I seldom use either feature any more.

At the moment, I’m mostly rediscovering old tracks via Spotify’s manual search function, or listening to my long list of liked songs. So, despite having fewer features and podcasts than Spotify, Tidal will fulfil my current listening needs for less per month. Plus, I’ll be able to hear tracks in higher resolution once I’ve finished building my stripped-back hi-fi system.

Time for Tidal?

Spotify has undoubtedly served me well over the past half decade, but the combination of lower price and higher quality audio means it’s time I tried Tidal instead.

After all, if Tidal’s less extensive feature list proves too much of an issue, I can always go back to Spotify, or even try something else.

MORE:

Check out our list of the best music streaming services

Spotify’s US prices set to rise again

Tidal vs Spotify: which streaming service is best for you?

Spotify is set to raise the cost of a Premium subscription in the US for the second time in just over 18 months.

The music streaming service announced on its website that the price for an individual subscription will rise by a dollar from $11.99 to $12.99, taking effect from February.

According to Music Business Worldwide, Spotify’s other Premium subscription plans are going up too: the Premium Duo tier will rise from $16.99 to $18.99 per month, the Family plan from $19.99 to $21.99, and Spotify’s Student plan from $5.99 to $6.99.

Spotify said that “occasional updates to pricing across our markets reflect the value that Spotify delivers, enabling us to continue offering the best possible experience and benefit artists”.

The regularity of Spotify’s price rises are something of a growing concern. In July 2024, Spotify increased the cost of an individual Premium subscription in the US from $10.99 to $11.99. This followed a $1 price increase in 2023.

In late 2025, UK prices also rose for the third time in two years, with a Premium subscription now costing £12.99 a month.

In fairness to Spotify, it’s not the only streaming service to have raised prices in recent times: Netflix did so at the beginning of last year and Disney+ raised its fees in late 2025.

In our updated Spotify review, we give the platform four stars, highlighting its newly improved free tier, exemplary interface, and exhaustive discovery and personalisation features.

But even with the recent launch of Spotify Lossless, which is available to anyone with a Premium subscription, it still lags behind other music streaming services, such as Tidal, in terms of audio quality. Spotify Lossless offers up to 24-bit/44.1 kHz, while Tidal can play hi-res audio up to 24-bit/192 kHz and sounds better, too.

Tidal is also cheaper for UK and US users, with an individual plan costing £10.99 and $10.99 a month respectively.

Spotify’s customers, however, seem undeterred. Despite the recent price rises and lack of higher resolution audio compared with other music streaming services, the number of paid Spotify subscribers rose from 252 million in the third quarter of 2024 to 281 million in Q3 2025, according to Statista.

MORE:

Spotify vs Tidal: which streaming service is best for you?

Kick off your 2026 in style with our list of the 7 best test tracks getting us through January

This musical biopic has scored a Golden Globe nomination – and it's about to land on streaming

It's a new year, and you know what that means: new music! Ok, so Kate Bush, Diana Ross and Paul Simon don't technically count as 'new' anymore, although the term is somewhat relative (they're a lot newer than Mozart, say), but we hope that at least some of the tracks we've served up below are new to you, our dear reader.

In fact, 2026 might be a new year, but this month's edition of Now Playing clearly has us feeling nostalgic as we hurtle back through the decades to find golden oldies from the '70s, '80s and '90s.

Call us doe-eyed nostalgia merchants, but things were just better in the old days, right?

• Check out the full playlist on Tidal

Cloudbusting by Kate Bush

When an artist has as much talent as Kate Bush, it’s difficult to refrain from playing their records, either at home or in our testing rooms. Such has been the case for me with the Bexleyheath-born artist’s 1985 hit Cloudbusting.

It’s always interesting when artists successfully use melancholic elements to create a song that is ultimately uplifting, almost as if they are trying to create the feeling that something is bittersweet, and that’s exactly what Bush has done here.

The song begins with the combination of beautiful strings and Bush’s ethereal vocals. Any hi-fi system that relays plenty of detail will allow you to appreciate the incredible depth of both aspects.

Cloudbusting is definitely more focused around the mid to high frequencies, but it has some fantastic rhythmic elements, too. What’s especially notable is the interaction between the strings and drums once the latter hits for the first chorus to inject a bit more bounce.

Words by James Cook

Upside Down by Diana Ross

While the rest of us have been looking forward to 2026, you may have been surprised to see the UK charts looking back 40-odd years to the heyday of the 1980s. The phenomenon can, of course, be explained by the pop culture domination of Netflix’s Stranger Things, the final season of which has sent Prince, Tiffany and, of course, Kate Bush back into the charts, despite the tracks comfortably settling into middle age.

While I’m also partial to Kyle Dixon and Michael Stein’s Kids theme from the soundtrack, it’s the aptly-named Upside Down by the iconic Diana Ross that left an impression on me this time. A reported favourite of our very own King Charles, the breezy song zips along effortlessly thanks to a propulsive bassline and Ross’s confident, charismatic vocals.

It’s a stark contrast to the lyrics, which are a surprisingly layered look at being head over heels for someone despite infidelity. Nevertheless, the dancefloor staple is great for testing thanks to its range of frequencies and Ross’s impeccable timing. The anthem revived Ross’s career – perhaps it could help reverse the fortunes of a struggling audio company, too?

Words by Daniel Furn

I Hate Hate by Razzy Bailey

Have we ever needed this tune more than we do right now? If Razzy thought that in 1974 there was “so much hate going on today / on the right and on the left,” Lord only knows what he would make of the current political climate (he died in 2021, so sadly we’ll never know).

But whatever your politics, or your take on the song’s message, you can’t deny the quality of the musicianship (or the excellence of the name Razzy).

With its sweeping organ intro, breakbeat drums, spoken introduction and the sweet, sweet vocal, it really sits at the intersection of northern soul, funk, country and blues. On first listen, you might miss the finer details like the violin in the first verse and children’s voices that join in the chorus, but they’re there, and they all add to the track’s power.

The message that love conquers all might seem hopelessly naïve, but we can dream, right? And have a bloody good dance while we do so. It’s what Razzy would have wanted.

Words by Joe Svetlik

50 Ways To Leave Your Lover by Paul Simon

Sometimes the Spotify algorithm manages to pull an absolute blinder. As I was listening to a relaxing mix curated to my tastes, Paul Simon’s 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover caught me by surprise and had me tapping my toes from the first beat.

From there, it quickly became a go-to in the test room to challenge all sorts of AV kit. Featuring soft '70s folk and taking inspiration from afro-pop, it’s a track that manages to put multiple aspects of a system’s audio to the test.

During the verses, Simon's drummer employs just a bass and snare drum which asks for a huge amount of subtlety and nuance from your system, as the stick bounces off the drum with the delicacy of a dragonfly’s wing fluttering.

This is partly interrupted by Simon’s clear vocals as he mulls over the best ways to leave his partner, but a good sound system will still keep the drum beat in check with the necessary softness. As backing vocals kick the track into a more upbeat tone, the addition of backing vocals and an energetic drum beat creates an absolute hip-swayer that is hard to resist.

Words by Robyn Quick

Down On The Upside by Soundgarden

I love Soundgarden. No, I mean it, I really love Soundgarden. I love them as much as I love the cold side of the pillow, Christmas dinner or meeting a friendly dog. Prod me with a sharp stick and I’d tell you that they’re in my top two favourite bands of all time.

Back to the point. If you’re only casually acquainted with Seattle’s number one export (yes, I love Alice in Chains as well), it’ll probably be via their airwave-hogging anthem Black Hole Sun.

A worthy reason to have gained lasting fame, and few will encourage you to seek out 1994’s peerless Superunknown opus more than I, but it’s the oft-overlooked follow-up Down On The Upside that I regularly dust off for regular testing duties. Yes, it's a whole album, but there's nothing wrong with bending the rules once in a while.

Down On The Upside is a weird one, mainly because I don’t really deploy it to pick out any specific, tangible element for testing. Instead, it’s an album that just has a feeling, an ambience, a colour even; a sort of mournful malaise that puts me in mind of rust and decay, of big old empty rooms and American deserts at night, of an indefinable sadness that creeps into your veins and can’t be shifted.

Not particularly helpful from an outsider’s perspective, but useful on my end.

Just listen to it for yourself, will you?

Words by Harry McKerrell

Lost by The Church

Streaming often gets a lot of FLAC (badum tss) from vinyl snobs, but over my Christmas break, I was reminded of one of its best features: discovery.

Let me paint the scene.

Sitting at the umpteenth pre-Christmas house party, we’d hit that special, special time of night. The one that happens after we’ve all stuffed our faces with enough cheese and wine to make gout a genuine risk, and managed to put the kids to bed.

All eager to prove age hasn’t dulled our ability to party, we sit comatose, trying to find the will to finish our latest “last” mug of mulled wine, too groggy to converse properly but unwilling to be the first to call it a night. In this sad portrait of middle age, the hi-fi box blasts out tunes from a mysterious song radio mix on Tidal that no one remembers putting on.

In the haze, a track starts playing from a band I loved as a teenager, but had long forgotten, shakes me back to life: The Church’s Lost.

Utterly appropriate to the mood, with a transcendental, ethereal style that feels like what would happen if Pink Floyd and The Cure had a baby, I’ve since been hooked on the track and revisiting the band’s work in general.

Trust me, if you’re a fan of new wave, psychedelia or just fancy a solid, introspective band to enjoy during the year’s darker months, you won’t regret doing the same.

Words by Alastair Stevenson

POSTERITY by Ludwig Goransson

I have no idea what Tenet is about. That position likely wouldn’t change were I actually to watch what has become the misunderstood outlier of Christopher Nolan’s outstanding canon, as I’m yet to meet anyone who can tell me in less than five paragraphs what it’s about.

I do know, however, that the music is superb. Ludwig Goransson is fast becoming a sort of Hans Zimmer 2.0 (that’s very much a compliment), with Nolan recruiting his services once again for his 2024 masterpiece Oppenheimer. We all know how well that turned out. "Can you hear the music, Robert?”

POSTERITY is the track you want to go with, although you’ll need quite a bit of time to set aside. At nearly 13 minutes of enthralling build-up crammed with conventional instrumentation alongside some rather distinctively odd sonic quirks (is that a zither being whacked with a bit of old drainpipe?), it’s a treat if you want to see how your system conveys both small scale and big-picture dynamics.

Words by Harry McKerrell

As a collective, our review team listens to a lot of music. Sometimes we rely on old favourites with which we're familiar, but we are always discovering new tracks – be they fresh releases or just songs we haven't encountered before – that give us key insights into new products we are trying out.

We also know that plenty of our readers are on the lookout for new tunes, either to assess the capabilities of a new system or simply to show off the full talents of their established hi-fi set-up. That's why we have come up with our monthly 'Now Playing' playlist, a rundown of everything we've been listening to and loving recently, whether at home with a set of headphones or at work in our fabulous test rooms.

Each instalment will bring you a handful of tracks chosen by our reviews team, detailing why we love them and what they bring out of certain products. So even if you're not looking for new tunes to play on your system, we hope you find something you'll love no matter how you choose to listen to it.

We're always on the lookout for new music, so drop a comment below to share what you have been listening to!

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8 of the best Bruce Springsteen tracks to test your hi-fi system

Check out our ultimate test tracks collection

We know FiiO best for its feature-laden portable music players and affordable digital-to-analogue converters, but, as we take a look at the company’s website, the sheer breadth of its product range is astonishing. You’ll find countless headphones of all types alongside active speakers, desktop audio products, cables and even a portable cassette deck. Record player? Yes, FiiO makes one of those, too.

Clearly, this is an ambitious and adventurous company, so when it launches its first full-size music streamer, we can’t wait to have a listen. FiiO refers to the S15 as a ‘desktop high-res audio streamer’, but we aren’t sure what that actually means.

In the metal, it is a standard, full-width 43cm unit, the same as any conventional hi-fi product, and there isn’t anything in the feature set that screams out dedicated desktop audio use to us. The S15 doesn’t even have a headphone output to suit that purpose.

Design

What we have here is a generally well-equipped but fairly conventional music streamer, and as such, it does everything you would expect from such a unit. The FiiO S15 will play music files from servers attached to your home network or any memory storage connected directly into its USB-A socket. As expected, it can connect to your home network either wired or wirelessly.

The S15’s operating system is based on Android 12, and as such, it is possible to download any appropriate app from the Google Play Store. Our review sample didn’t have either Tidal or Qobuz loaded straight out of the box, but it was the work of minutes to get them downloaded and functioning.

The use of Android undoubtedly gives the FiiO a great deal of versatility compared to most conventional rivals, but its inclusion brings about some usability issues, too, as we will find out later.

Connectivity

There is plenty of connectivity here, mostly digital, of course. You will find a USB-C port on the front panel to connect a computer, alongside a USB-A socket for external memory storage. Look around the back, and there is another USB-A, the usual optical and coaxial inputs (and more unusually, mirrored outputs), plus an HDMI, HDMI ARC and a third HDMI socket that outputs an I2S digital signal to feed a suitably featured external DAC.

Then there is the less common AES/EBU balanced digital connection with separate sockets for both input and output. Two-way Bluetooth (aptX HD/LDAC compatible) is on the menu too. As for the analogue outputs, the S15 has two sets of stereo RCAs and a single stereo balanced XLR.

This FiiO can also work as a server. It has an SD card slot (a maximum of 2TB capacity) and can support an M.2 NVMe SSD drive (also a maximum 2TB capacity).

Add it all up and, in terms of features at least, there is little else we can reasonably ask for from a product such as this, bar the rather odd omission of a physical headphone output.

Take a look inside this FiiO streamer and you will find AKM’s flagship two-chip AK4191/ AK4499EX combo at the heart of its digital circuitry. The AK4191 handles all the processing while its partner is responsible for the actual conversion. The timing of the circuit is controlled by a pair of high-grade Accusilicon AS318B low-jitter femtosecond clocks. The S15’s analogue section is fully balanced to minimise crosstalk and noise levels.

Elsewhere, the power supply uses a custom-made, low noise 35VA toroidal transformer and four 4700uF ELNA capacitors in a bid to deliver a stable, pure feed to the audio circuits. The power feeds to the digital and analogue sections of the circuit are kept isolated to prevent unwanted interactions spoiling the sound.

Build & usability

General build quality is good, as you would expect at this premium level, though there are areas where this FiiO feels a little low rent. We like the crisp 7.84-inch full colour touchscreen display, and the S15’s aluminium casework feels pretty solid, but the sense of quality is let down by the rather insubstantial dual rotary controls. There is very little resistance and a bit too much wobble in their movement for our liking.

While we’re on the negatives, we don’t find the S15 pleasant to use. The Android operating system allows it to be extremely versatile, but it also makes the player feel clunky. There are slight hesitations in carrying out actions, and the touchscreen isn’t always as responsive as we would like.

Its user interface isn’t particularly intuitive, either, and even after a couple of weeks we still find ourselves wondering how to get to a specific setting or function on far too many occasions.

That isn’t the worst of it, though. The partnering FiiO Control app, the main way most users will interface with the product, is one of the poorest streaming apps we’ve come across in years. It is buggy, poorly designed and prone to crashing. Some instructions inexplicably come up in Chinese, and the placement of some of the notifications is occasionally awful.

It also looks like it is optimised for a smartphone screen, and so there are huge empty spaces when using our usual iPad.

We are shocked that a company that has so much experience with streaming products can produce such a sub-standard app and general user interface, and that is reflected in our rating for Build.

Sound

With that out of the way, we can move to the S15’s sound quality, and here it is more of a mixed bag. We spend plenty of time working through the FiiO streamer’s various sound and filter options until we feel that we’ve optimised the results as much as we can.

On the positive side, we think this FiiO makes a generally positive first impression and can certainly see it impressing on a short demo at a dealer. It also sounds pleasingly consistent across its digital inputs, including Bluetooth, which connects to our phone seamlessly.

The S15’s sonic character is smooth and full-bodied, delivering generous doses of warmth and weight that we think many will like. This is mostly an unfussy performer that tends to be kind to thin or aggressive recordings, while still offering a decent level of clarity.

Listen to something easy-going, such as Come Away With Me by Norah Jones or Sade’s Diamond Life, and you’ll find things to like; the FiiO’s tonal balance is decently even, and the midrange relatively clear. Voices come through with solidity, and there is a nice sense of boldness to the presentation. In a market where many manufacturers value agility over authority and natural warmth, the FiiO’s sonic character holds appeal.

However, its limitations soon start to show when we play a wider range of music. As we work our way from The Police’s stark but energetic Outlandos d’Amour through to TLC’s CrazySexyCool, taking in Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony and Coltrane’s A Love Supreme on the way, we can help but notice that the FiiO struggles to deliver the true essence of each musical performance.

It delivers a compressed sound that fails to convey the dynamic ebb and flow of the music properly. The track Roxanne from The Police is robbed of its rawness, while the TLC set sounds oddly sanitised, with the group’s punchy beats and passion-filled vocals lacking their usual verve.

Rhythmic drive isn’t conveyed well, with the FiiO unable to deliver the innate momentum of the music properly. The presentation sounds safe and undemanding, whereas the TLC recording demands punch and attitude. It doesn’t help that lows sound overly plump and poorly defined. Those after taut and tuneful bass definitely need to look elsewhere.

The S15’s limitations are thrown into sharp relief by the similarly priced Bluesound Node Icon rival. This Award-winning streamer has become a firm favourite at What Hi-Fi? Towers thanks to its blend of exceptional sound quality, operational stability and sensible feature list (which includes dual 6.3mm headphone outputs, by the way).

We use our reference Burmester’s 088/911 MkIII stereo amplifier and the ATC SCM50 speakers for much of our testing and comparisons, but also try both the FiiO and Bluesound streamers in a more price-compatible system of the Arcam A5+ amplifier and KEF LS50 Meta stereo speakers. Regardless of set-up, the Bluesound is streets ahead when it comes to sound quality.

The Node Icon is simply more transparent. It sounds considerably more insightful and offers far more in the way of resolution and precision. We can hear deeper into the mix and pick up on low-level details that the FiiO simply ignores; the reverb around a vocal or the acoustic clues that define the recording venue are more obvious. The TLC album is now fun to listen to, while A Love Supreme grips our attention and emotions from beginning to end.

Verdict

The FiiO S15 certainly impresses on paper and offers a degree of versatility that betters most of the competition. But given its premium price, that simply isn’t enough. We feel there could be a solid product here; the raw ingredients certainly seem present, but the S15 needs further development, as does the undercooked app. Until that happens, our money would go elsewhere.

Review published: 8th January 2026

SCORES

• Sound 2
• Build 3
• Features 5

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Read our review of the Bluesound Node Icon

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“Harry, of all the tracks you heard this year, which was the one you used the most for testing hi-fi?”.

OK, I’ve not technically been asked that particular question at all throughout 2025, but I imagine that at least one person has thought about asking it during the past twelve months. I’ve certainly pondered it, although I am admittedly someone who spends all of their time obsessing over the fact that Tidal doesn’t do official track play counts.

That said, I did have the pleasure of Tidal’s ‘Rewind 2025’ retrospective which, while not as in-depth as Spotify’s almost fanatically analytical rundown, did reveal that my top tracks of the year featured the likes of Slipknot, Alice In Chains, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Avenged Sevenfold, Nine Inch Nails, Chris Cornell, Massive Attack and, of course, Lady Gaga.

That list was also decently represented by our old hi-fi favourites Radiohead, with Codex (hidden gem), Everything In Its Right Place (classic) and Decks Dark (underrated) all making the final shakeup. Then, right near the top of the pile, was the tune I used for hi-fi testing more than any other.

Burn the Witch has been my most used test track of 2025. While it was released way back in 2016, it’s taken me a while to get on board with Radiohead’s most recent album, A Moon Shaped Pool, so the delights of its lead track lay as unused and underappreciated as a dusty tome lurking in the corner of a creaky attic.

What a test track I was missing out on. When I gave the tune its own entry on our March edition of Now Playing, I described Burn The Witch as “a prescient, adrenaline-inducing polemic whose ever-amplifying drama and deft-handed orchestration make for a fine challenge of a speaker's organisational and rhythmic abilities”.

Breaking down a breakdown

Let’s break this all down with a handy play-by-play to see why that’s the case.

The whole arrangement is built around strings, which in itself is unusual for a reasonably mainstream record, opening with brisk, metronomic violin stabs underpinned by deeper cellos resonating below.

While those violins do most of the work in giving the track a scratchy, frenzied feel, the overall production has, if you listen closely, a sort of fuzzy softness which only lends to its slightly surreal, unsettling appeal.

Thin, slightly synthetic drums pop in at around the 12-second mark, before Thom Yorke’s unique vocals arrive at around 30 seconds.

Stop listening after a few more seconds and, even at that early stage, you’ll have a decent idea of whether your system has the organisational abilities to keep those varied elements fully in order, while ensuring the song’s relentless forward momentum is being conveyed with appropriate precision.

Things continue to build until the 1:30 mark, at which point a woozy, dreamy interlude should give you a decent idea of how your hi-fi system or headphones handle a change in pace and mood.

The next marker you should be looking out for comes at 2:29, and if you’re seeking a shortcut for your testing convenience, this is it.

Here the final push kicks into gear, with a multitude of strings combining with fullness and intent as the pace seems to quicken and the anxiety dial moves from ‘slight unease’ to ‘I haven't got any fingernails left’.

By the time you’re at 3:20, you should be all but assaulted by a musical barrage overlaid by violent screeches of Psycho-esque strings.

The whole of Burn the Witch is a test of dynamics, both in terms of low-level distinctions between notes and those broader, bolder shifts as things build to a climax, but this is the moment when you’ll really see how much drama your system can produce.

Only the finest components are able to replicate fully the ever-growing assault mounted by that terrifying final third.

The Musical Fidelity B1xi amplifier, for instance, demonstrated an adept handling of those crisp strings and the timbre of Yorke's nervous crooning, but couldn't match the explosive drama of the track's final third as capably as the Award-winning Arcam A5+ thanks to the latter amp's more astute dynamic handling.

(Don't) panic!

This song really is all about feeling. We usually talk about test tracks tapping into those classic emotions – sadness, melancholy, happiness, the desire to tap your toes – but bringing out genuine anxiety is a far rarer thing.

It’s a tricky thing for music to elicit (unless you live on your nerves like I do), but it’s the fundamental marker of how well your system conveys the ever-building dread conjured by a song characterised by a relentlessly panicked, almost accusatory nature.

Burn the Witch has been my go-to test track for 2025, and will likely feature heavily in 2026. As a workout for all of the key fundamentals of what any hi-fi or headphones should be capable of communicating – rhythms, dynamics, textural details, organisation, emotional resonance – it’s hard to beat.

As this is the season of giving and goodwill, consider it my gift to you – I hope it serves you as well as it has served me over the past 12 or so months. Here’s to finding something even better in 2026!

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Ask any self-respecting classical music aficionado who the greatest composer of all time is, and they’ll usually whittle down a shortlist of three key names: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven, and J.S. Bach.

Press them further on the issue and they will probably, though by no means inevitably, place Beethoven at number three and Mozart at two, before giving Bach the lion’s share of the plaudits in that coveted number one spot.

That’s all up for much contentious debate. My piano teacher, for instance, wouldn’t let me play a note of Mozart, considering it too perfect to be mangled by my ham-like fists.

That said, Classic FM and the BBC’s Classical Music sister site both consider Bach to be at the top of the classical tree; while Anthony Tommasini, chief classical music critic for the New York Times, proclaimed Johann Sebastian to be the greatest composer of all time in 2011.

I’m not here to settle that particular debate (I could, of course, given the obvious sway my name holds within scholarly circles). Instead, I’m here to espouse the virtues of Bach as a composer you need to add to your listening line-up, both for the purposes of testing your system’s capabilities and, perhaps more importantly, so that you can enjoy both his music and your setup to the fullest extent.

What's the (counter)point?

When she wasn’t barring me from bashing out a bit of Wolfgang Amadeus, my former teacher imparted some insightful wisdom regarding how Bach’s music (not subject to the same protection) should be played, and it has always stuck with me as being equally revealing with regard to how he should be heard.

In essence, you’re dealing with a pair of hands but up to four ‘voices’, meaning you’ve got the challenge of bringing out two distinct passages with your left mitt and two distinct passages with your right. Each must shine in its own regard, with every one of the distinct but interwoven melodies interacting with the other while retaining its own unique identity.

This is the basis of what clever people with spectacles and bad haircuts would term ‘counterpoint’, and nobody before or since has mastered the concept quite like Bach.

There are literal books devoted to the subject, but in a nutshell, it’s the idea that various melodies are operating concurrently within the same overarching arrangement. Pick them apart and they work as their own distinct tunes; put them all together again and you end up with a cohesive, complete whole. Paintings within paintings, wheels within wheels… something about windmills.

Bach’s works make use of general polyphony (lots of textures and passages all playing at the same time), but his specific mastery of counterpoint is what makes him, to many, the undisputed GOAT.

That is the skill a musician, particularly a pianist or, in the case of the Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, an organist, must master if they are to play Bach ‘properly’.

That, in turn, should be translated by the system playing a given recording. So often we listen out for whether instruments sound mechanical or whether they sound as though they are being played by an actual human being – and that necessity is amplified when dealing with a musician tasked with teasing out all of those various strands to full effect.

All the world's a stage

One useful way to think of counterpoint, and whether your given product or setup is handling it ably, is to think of that classic Shakespeare quote from As You Like It: “All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances…”

That last bit is the key. One of the clearest windows into Bach’s music is to listen out for the entry point of each melody and to follow it to its conclusion. That’s quite easy to do with something such as the Adagio from the Concerto in D Minor, wherein the left-hand melody remains relatively simple while the more expressive right takes the spotlight.

For something more complex, check out the second half of the Little Fugue in G Minor, wherein you should be able, especially if you follow along with the sheet music, to detect at least three, ideally four, voices handling their own respective tunes – a bit like when an a capella group sings different lines to the same song and it all still fits together.

Bach often signifies the start of these passages with two clear signpost notes before moving into an extended ascending or descending run, so it’s useful to listen out for those markers when you’re trying to distinguish when a new passage has started. Again, a good system will announce passages as a trumpeter heralds news; a bad one will allow them to be lost in the melange.

That’s something you really don’t want. With so many voices and complex runs working alongside one another, you can’t afford a muddy or cluttered setup which blurs the lines between notes. Clarity and organisation are key, so that each stroke of the keyboard has its own distinct start, middle and well-defined end.

If all this talk of counterpoint and polyphony is too much for you, it can be useful just to step back and return to basics by asking the simple questions. Is this organised or cluttered? Is it clear and well-delineated or messy and soft? Am I emotionally engaged by the music? What does ‘J.’S’ stand for, anyway?

Going back to Toccata and Fugue in D Minor is handy if you want to assess the questions above, especially as the organ is a less forgiving instrument than the piano in terms of where notes begin and end. A decent pair of headphones, such as the Beyerdynamic DT 990 Pro X, will excel in this regard. They are subtle and revealing enough to tease out each individual note with laser-like precision.

If you seek something piano based, then any of Glenn Gould’s interpretations of The Goldberg Variations will do just fine – they generally stand up as, to this day, the gold standard of playing Bach. Play the music through, say, the beautifully balanced and wonderfully insightful Acoustic Energy AE300 MK2 standmount speakers, and you should start to understand the very mechanics working away behind the overall ensembles.

Bach with more bite

As is the case when great music meets great hi-fi, something of a symbiotic relationship emerges. Yes, you're using the music to reveal more about the capabilities and character of your setup, headphones or anything in between; but you are also using said product(s) to get you closer to the music itself. That's sort of the point, after all.

Bach isn't always the easiest beast to get your head around, but you might find that giving him a go on with some proper hi-fi reveals those quirks and qualities that you might have otherwise missed. Listening to the greatest composer of all time through your iPhone's speakers, let's be honest, doesn't exactly do him justice.

Get hold of the proper equipment, and you'll start to hear how those dizzying complexities and interactions work, revealing the genius of a composer whose talents have yet to be surpassed in the 340 years since his birth. Bach can be a tough nut to crack – but, as can so often be the case with challenging artists and/or genres, maybe you just haven't been listening to him in the right way.

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Spotify might have over 700 million customers around the world, but it has its share of enemies as well.

The anti-Spotify movement has been growing in recent years, animated by what it sees as the service's poor returns for artists, outdated software and focus on profit over fan experience.

For us, despite finally launching its Lossless service recently, it still sounds worse than its rivals, while costing more per month, too.

But there is an alternative – a new breed of streaming services positioning themselves as very much anti-Spotify.

Here you'll find a focus on human curation over algorithms and community over profit. Some also offer better sound quality, though that's by no means a given.

Intrigued? Let's see what these six services have to offer.

1. Cantilever

The newest UK music streaming service, Cantilever launched in November 2025, and it's about as anti-Spotify as it's possible to get.

Not only does it exclusively feature independent music, it only has a handful of albums at a time. Each album stays for a month, and is then rotated out for a new one to take its place.

The idea is to encourage deep listening, rather than the throwaway abundance of Spotify.

Each album is accompanied by articles written by music journalists or even reflections from the artists themselves, for a deeper dive into what you're listening to.

Cantilever is only available in the UK at present.

• Price: £4.99 per month (1-month free trial)
• Catalogue size: 10 albums at any one time
• Sound quality: AAC 256 kbps / 44.1 kHz
• Platforms: iOS and Android
• Website: cantilever-music.com

2. Vocana

This independent music service has a greater focus on community, thanks to a big social element. You can personalise your profile, follow artists, join hubs, react to tracks and join conversations within the community.

Again, the entire catalogue is independent music with no big labels. Discovery happens through other fans and tastemakers, with no algorithms involved.

It's currently free in beta, but will cost $8.99 a month once it launches fully in 2026 (a UK launch is TBC).

• Price: Free in beta and then $8.99 per month
• Catalogue size: 33.5 million tracks
• Sound quality: AAC 160 kbps
• Platforms: iOS and Android
• Website: vocana.co

3. Coda

When experimental rock group Xiu Xiu pulled their music from Spotify in summer 2025, in protest at Daniel Ek's military investments, they chose Coda as their new streaming home.

The platform offers direct fan engagement with artists, and offers a "FanDirect" program that lets subscribers allocate $1 of their monthly fee directly to any qualifying independent artist.

But it's not just independents that are hosted on Coda. Thanks to deals with all three major record labels, it offers mainstream artists like Billie Eilish, Beyonce and Miley Cyrus, too.

This helps it offer a catalogue of over 130 million tracks. They're currently available in the AAC format, but lossless (FLAC 16-bit / 44.1 kHz) is coming early in 2026.

The service is only available in the US and Canada for now, but it hopes to roll out to Europe in 2026.

• Price: from $10.99 per month (14-day free trial)
• Catalogue size: over 130 million tracks
• Sound quality: AAC 320 kbps / 44.1 kHz
• Platforms: iOS and Android
• Website: codamusic.me

4. Lissen

Lissen is unique in that it only distributes your subscription fees to the artists you listen to. So if you only listen to one artist all month, they get your entire subscription fee. It's like you're paying them direct.

As Lissen puts it: "Artists therefore receive royalties based on the proportion of stream time their music received from each individual user's listening activity on the platform, rather than the proportion of streams their music received across the entire platform."

It has an impressive library of over 80 million tracks, and you can import playlists from other streaming apps, such as Apple Music and Spotify.

• Price: £4.95 per month (free ad-supported tier also available)
• Catalogue size: over 80 million tracks
• Sound quality: 16‑bit / 44.1 kHz
• Platforms: iOS, Android, web
• Website: lissen.com

5. Nina

Another service geared towards paying artists more for their work, Nina is an online music store with no subscription fee – instead you pay per track.

Artists receive 100 per cent of their profit – Nina doesn't take a cut. So if you buy a track, album or EP, you know that every penny you spend goes to the artist whose work you're enjoying.

All releases on Nina are self-published, so the catalogue is constantly growing. They're all semi-fungible tokens issued on the Solana blockchain, helping Nina act as a permanent storage space for artists' work, even if the service itself should cease to exist.

There are benefits for customers, too – by owning a semi-fungible token you verify that you own the release, letting you unlock bonus material.

• Price: priced per track
• Catalogue size: constantly growing
• Sound quality: varies per upload
• Platforms: iOS, Android, web
• Website: ninaprotocol.com

6. Subvert

Subvert aims to be a collectively owned successor to Bandcamp. It claims that through a series of corporate acquisitions, Bandcamp has abandoned its core values and community.

Subvert wants to go beyond the original vision of an artist-friendly space to one that's owned entirely by the artists themselves.

It's opening its doors gradually, with founding members being the first to gain access. It's an exciting vision, albeit one that might take time to come to fruition.

Find out more at subvert.fm.

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It’s the end of the year, and that means that, since you’ve been good, you can all wear casual clothes this Friday and bring in your favourite toy to share with the class. Just make sure you’ve got a label somewhere on your fire engine so we know it's yours.

It also means that it's time to share our favourite test tracks of the year in this rather special edition of our 'Now Playing' column. Each month during 2025, we have brought you the test tracks, new and old, which we feel deserve a place on your testing rotation.

Now, for one final time in 2025, we're collating the tunes that we think will get your system purring, providing it's up to the challenge. From Ghost and Deftones to Billie Eilish and Bon Iver, we're making sure this rollercoaster year goes out with a bang.

• Listen to our Now Playing playlist on Tidal

The Package by De La Soul

Best known for their loved-up debut 3 Feet High And Rising, New York hip-hop group De La Soul have gone back to their roots with this single off their latest album. And it’s a doozy.

Like their classics The Magic Number and Eye Know, The Package is built around a catchy sample, in this case the chorus from Seven Years by Curtis Mayfield’s group The Impressions. Producer Pete Rock makes the piano loop almost hypnotic, punctuated by that irrepressible horn. Your system will need a good deal of clarity in the midrange to pick up on the finer details of some of the more obscure vocal samples (Cynthy Ruth was a new one on me).

That all said, I’m not sure about the visualiser video that accompanies it on YouTube. It’s all a bit Monty Python – I keep expecting a massive foot to appear and squash it all.

But sonically, The Package is a treat. And that’s what really matters, right?

Words by Joe Svetlik

Blue by Billie Eilish

While there are plenty of single tracks that I’ve been obsessed with this year – Doechii’s Denial Is A River, Tunng’s Didn’t Know Why, Kendrick Lamar’s They Not Like Us, Marion Black’s Who Knows – there has been an album that I have dipped into every time during testing this year.

No, it’s not KPop Demon Hunters (although that did get a lot of replay); it’s Billie Eilish’s Hit Me Hard And Soft. I got into Eilish a bit late, and I have to credit my colleague Ketan Bharadia for playing Blue during one review, and it has become a staple test track ever since.

The album’s recording is gorgeous: dynamic, polished, intricately layered and intimate. On Blue, there are lush details, hypnotic vocals, and a gripping, rhythmic momentum that deserve to be heard on a great sound system.

Words by Kashfia Kabir

Infinite Source by Deftones

There’s a lot of nostalgia for 2000s metal and rock bands right now. Every big festival, from Download to Primavera Sound, seems to have at least a few acts from the era playing the big stage next year.

While even a greybeard millennial who survived them the first time around will admit most of them haven’t aged terribly well, or weren’t very good to begin with, Deftones are a rare exception. So much so that calling their latest album, Private Music, a comeback leaves a sour taste in the mouth.

Always the cerebral card in the 2000s pack, the band has delivered a steady stream of thought-provoking bangers. Each with its famous hypnotic vocals and incredible interlinking guitar parts that create a distinctive “vibe” – one that’s instantly recognisable to any fan, no matter how long it's been since they last visited the band’s work.

This remains the case with its new 2025 album, Private Music, which is fantastic from start to finish. One track in particular stands out to me, though, and has earned a place on my most-played list this year: Infinite Source. Starting with a riff that instantly hooks you in, it mixes elements of the epic, iconic track Minerva from 2003 with the earlier, heavier work from the band’s self-titled debut album.

The result is a track that feels entirely fresh and accurately conveys singer Chino Moreno’s feelings, celebrating his sobriety while owning and taking responsibility for his chaotic past.

Whether you’re an existing Deftones fan or new to their work, it’s a fantastic song that’s well worth a listen.

Words by Alastair Stevenson

Everything In Its Right Place by Radiohead

This track by Radiohead is undeniably the one I have used the most this year to test out a range of different AV kit. With its ethereal feel and synthy vocals, Everything In Its Right Place properly challenges a sound system from the first few seconds.

The glitchy audio-effects fade in slowly along with a boppy bass track that sounds like something straight of a sci-fi movie and, with a top-quality system, should create a swirling circle of sound around the listener. This is done by the various tracks flitting from one speaker to the other, immediately challenging how well the product can handle organisation and separation.

The chorus ramps this up even more as additional vocal tracks and alien-like buzzing are added to the mix, all layered over the same bass line from the beginning. After this dazzling crescendo, the track simmers down and is stripped to just fading vocals and the synth bass.

It’s a simply exquisite audio experience that makes you feel every note, as well as being a great way to give any sound system a run for its money.

Words by Robyn Quick

From by Bon Iver

I’ve been saving this song in particular for our end of the year test track round-up, because I knew it would be my favourite upon my very first listen.

Cast your mind back to our April edition of Now Playing, and you’ll find that I highlighted Bon Iver’s Walk Home as my top track of the month. In that entry, I implored readers to “keep an ear out for the full album – titled SABLE, fABLE…”. And I’m glad I did, because it turned out to be one of the best records of the year.

The highlight of the album is From, a smooth and melodic track that I’ve had on repeat ever since the album dropped eight months ago. I’ve been listening to it in and out of the test room, and it even soundtracked a week I spent in Tokyo earlier this year.

It features a soulful guitar intro from Mk.gee (whose album Two Star and the Dream Police I’d also recommend wholeheartedly), which gives way to Justin Vernon’s falsetto vocals that glide across the track with ease.

They’re backed up by harmonies that interject during the chorus, which blend with Vernon’s vocals to create a rich and textured-sounding motif throughout the song. The lyricism in this song is also rather special, with themes of acceptance and personal struggle throughout. “Don’t let it trouble your mind, just take my love in your time” are lines featured in the chorus, and I think they sum things up beautifully.

I’ve played From through a range of headphones, earbuds and speakers, and I find that the most important aspects to convey are a solid sense of timing and spaciousness. Allowing the harmonies to breathe and ensuring the percussion in the background is snappy ensures that the dreamy, airy nature of the song is preserved.

Words by Lewis Empson

Satanized by Ghost

Before the entire album from which it’s taken was fully released, I selected Ghost’s Satanized as one of my top testing picks back in June. I was fully justified in doing so – it’s been a go to banger in the intervening months for both personal and professional reasons thanks to its campy orchestral feel and ability to tease out your system's rhythmic capabilities.

Since that time, Ghost released the entirety of their 2025 record Skeletá. And, while it doesn’t hit the heights of their previous untouchable effort Impera, it continues to demonstrate a group that is capable of delighting and bemusing in near-equal measure.

Satanized is probably the standout, but there’s fun aplenty to be had courtesy of the catchy peppiness of Peacefield, the overwrought balladry of Guiding Lights and the tongue-in-cheek ridiculousness of Missoula Amori.

Rock ain’t dead, folks, and if it was, you can thank Ghost for its unholy resurrection.

Words by Harry McKerrell

Absolute Monster by Rene Lavice

As I’ve only recently joined What Hi-Fi?, I have been wracking my brain for tracks that I think would be great to use in our testing rooms. This process has taken me back to Absolute Monster, a song I hadn’t heard for about a decade but that still hits as hard as it did when it was released in 2013.

If you fancy putting the depth of your hi-fi’s low-end to the test over the Christmas period, this thumper from Canadian drum and bass artist Rene Lavice is a great way to do so.

Absolute Monster begins with pounding kick drums that almost feel like they bite. This gives you a glimpse of what is to come before a disjointed, almost terror-inducing backdrop slowly builds until you’re swallowed by a tidal wave of dark, dingy noise.

This track could easily be described as audible filth, and a system with plenty of low-end depth will allow you to bask in it. However, that build up to, and eventual crash of, that gloomy wave is an excellent way to test your system’s handling of dynamics and detail, too.

Words by James Cook

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Halloween is over, people! The jack-o-lanterns who, like proud and ghoulish sentinels, once stood so proud as they illuminated front porches across the nation, now have turned to unsightly mush in the damp of that cold November rain. Spooky season is over and – say it quietly – the festive period approaches at speed.

Before we get to that, we still have November to enjoy – and what better way to accompany the month of light and smoke than with another raft of test tunes? What a diverse mix we have this month, from Tame Impala to Gunship, Killswitch Engage to the man himself, Marvin Gaye.

Either way, there's sure to be something in here that tickles your fancy. Expect there to be fireworks...

MaD worLd by Gunship

Some songs always seem to sound better when they are covered by artists other than the ones who wrote them.

All Along the Watch Tower may have been written by Bob Dylan, but walk into any bar and I’m guessing that, for most people, it's the Jimi Hendrix cover which springs to mind before Dylan's original rendition.

For me, Mad World by Tears for Fears is one such song. That’s not because the original is bad – I actually enjoy its juxtaposed nature with a bopping, rhythmically chaotic backing track distinctly at odds with its dark, almost goth, lyrics.

It’s just that the Gary Jules version recorded for indie hit movie Donnie Darko is oh so much more soulful.

This week, though, I heard a version that I will forever hold in yet higher esteem: the new cover by synthwave powerhouse Gunship. The cover is a darker, gloomy take on the song that uses the band’s diverse arsenal of synthesisers to great effect, creating a dynamic, emotive track.

The textured interplay between the parts makes it feel more complex than both better-known versions, managing to tug at your heart's nostalgia strings while at the same time still feeling fresh.

I strongly recommend any synthwave fan give it a listen. You won’t regret it.

Words by Alastair Stevenson

My Old Ways by Tame Impala

Tame Impala’s latest album Deadbeat comes a whole five years after their previous entry, but oh boy was it worth the wait. The entire album is well worth a listen, but there’s one track that stands out as an excellent entry for testing out a sound system.

My Old Ways starts with a recording of a piano and the lead vocalist singing along in an absent minded way, with the sense we have walked into an intimate rehearsal session.

Then we get a spine-tingling transition as the track seamlessly integrates a synth drum beat and the vocal track moves to the centre channel.

The lines “Here goes nothin’ / I know what's comin', ain't so shockin'” are repeated while layers of sound are slowly built up around it to create an incredibly effective beat that is simply a joy to hear on a good sound system.

This excellently executed track is not only a great addition to an already cracking album, but is a great way to test out your system’s channel integration.

Words by Robyn Quick

Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology) by Marvin Gaye

Marvin Gaye’s 1971 album What’s Going On might be better known for its title track, but for my money, this little ditty is even more seminal. The album is Gaye at his most politically engaged and socially conscious, with tracks such as What’s Going On and Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler) painting a grim picture of life for millions of Americans at the time.

And then comes this little beauty on the damage we’re doing to our environment.

Check out some of the lyrics: “Radiation underground and in the sky / Animals and birds who live nearby are dying” and “What about this overcrowded land? / How much more abuse from man can she stand?” Talk about on the nose. And this was in 1971, before global warming was a well-known concept.

As with most Gaye tracks, it’s a dream of a production, hypnotic in its wooziness, until – fittingly – it all goes a bit sinister towards the end. A true testament to the man’s talents for producing beautiful songs about ugly subject matter.

Words by Joe Svetlik

The Signal Fire by Killswitch Engage

Not only is The Signal Fire an absolute ripper of a modern metal track, there’s also an excellent story behind it.

Killswitch Engage began life and had their first hit (2002’s My Last Serenade) with Jesse Leach as frontman. Leach left after just two albums and was replaced by Howard Jones. Nine years and three hugely successful albums later, it became Jones’s turn to leave the band. His replacement? Original singer Jesse Leach.

Despite their shared history, Leach and Jones apparently weren’t close until several years after their second switcheroo, when a friendship belatedly blossomed. Leach, inspired by this new friendship, The Lord Of The Rings, and the name of Jones’s new band Light The Torch, subsequently wrote The Signal Fire for the two men to duet.

The track, which was released in 2019, is fan service of the finest kind; a perfect sonic blend of the Leach and Jones eras, with swooping vocals and guttural screams working in perfect harmony.

Despite the thrashing guitars and demonic growls, it’s a brilliantly uplifting song about camaraderie and, unless I’m much mistaken, the importance of asking for help rather than trying to go it alone.

A great track with a great story and a great message, then, and it sounds terrific on a properly sorted hi-fi system – particularly one that can deliver bass with both weight and pace.

Words by Tom Parsons

Breakers Roar by Sturgill Simpsons

Country tracks aren’t often found in my playlists, but Breakers Roar by Sturgill Simpson is the one major exception.

It features in a pivotal scene of our AV testing room’s top reference disc of 2025, Civil War; if you have seen the film, you’ll know the exact sequence I’m referring to. I’ve lost count of how many times I fired that 4K Blu-ray up over our Awards testing period, but it was enough to make this particular track leave a lasting impression.

Despite generally not being a fan of country music, not even I could resist this song’s stunning and unconventional instrumental sections, which feature dreamy, warbling strings that are unlike anything I’ve heard before.

It’s all underpinned by an unquestionably ‘country’ acoustic guitar riff that sounds warm and inviting against the sweepy, spacey effects that ride over the top. For me, though, the highlights of the track remain the alien-like orchestral sections.

Simpson’s vocals are presented in a hushed, dream-like manner, and with lyrics such as “so enticing, deep dark seas, it’s so easy to drown in the dream”, the entire track has both an unnerving and comforting quality to it.

The American public broadcasting network NPR called Breakers Roar a “surrealist lullaby”, and I can’t really think of a better way to describe it. If you haven’t watched Civil War, then I’d highly recommend doing so, even just for the sequence that features Breakers Roar.

Words by Lewis Empson

The Veldt by Deadmau5

“Lindsey, come here and listen to this!”

If you want to spend seven minutes of your life having a (comparatively) heart-warming time, search out ‘deadmau5 finds the vocals for The Veldt' on YouTube. The legendary Canadian producer is performing one of his frequent livestreams (the video is from early 2012), and stumbles across a vocal mix for one of his (at the time) instrumental tracks.

Those vocals belong to Chris James, and they would end up gracing a tune on Deadmau5’s third sixth studio release, Album Title Goes Here. It’s bizarre to think that the track’s core elements come together from such far removed origins, especially as James’s lyrics fit so perfectly with The Veldt’s mystic, ethereal feel.

Inspired by Ray Bradbury’s short story of the same name, The Veldt is an enrapturing progressive house mini-epic, characterised by layered electronic stabs and James's natural, sincere vocals, all underpinned by a metronomic, propulsive tempo.

Words by Harry McKerrell

Who Knows by Marion Black

I’ve been in love with this track for the past couple of months. Marion Black’s 1970s soul hit Who Knows is all smooth and lush tones, with gentle but rhythmically delightful instrumentation that’s just lovely to listen to.

The textures of the ’70s recording and Black’s silky, soulful voice transports you to the romantic past, with the whole world turning just a little golden sepia around you.

As a test track, I use it for checking how well a hi-fi product conveys that bygone era of recording – it should get the feeling and mood of its time period across, as well as relaying the easy fluidity of his mellifluous vocals.

Words by Kashfia Kabir

Ain't No Sunshine by Bill Withers

Who said test tracks need to be overly complex? Ain't No Sunshine certainly isn't, it's just Bill's caramel vocals, a couple of simple guitars and one very chilled out drummer coming together to make musical magic. You wouldn't complain that a ham and cheese sandwich was too simple, would you? Or that a football was rendered dull because of its predictable shape. Circular again, how boring.

Ain't No Sunshine is all about feel. Despite its relative simplicity, the track has that gentle rocking that puts one in mind of a lullaby, a sort of blissed out rhythmic sway akin to the easy trot of a gentle mare or the rocking of a calm ocean.

That sway, that feel, rocking easiness, call it what you like, is precisely what an insightful system will reveal, unearthing the natural warmth and reassuring comfort of Withers' seminal tune. Absolute bliss.

Words by Harry McKerrell

As a collective, our review team listens to a lot of music. Sometimes we rely on old favourites with which we're familiar, but we are always discovering new tracks – be they fresh releases or just songs we haven't encountered before – that give us key insights into new products we are trying out.

We also know that plenty of our readers are on the lookout for new tunes, either to assess the capabilities of a new system or simply to show off the full talents of their established hi-fi set-up. That's why we have come up with our monthly 'Now Playing' playlist, a rundown of everything we've been listening to and loving recently, whether at home with a set of headphones or at work in our fabulous test rooms.

Each instalment will bring you a handful of tracks chosen by our reviews team, detailing why we love them and what they bring out of certain products. So even if you're not looking for new tunes to play on your system, we hope you find something you'll love no matter how you choose to listen to it.

We're always on the lookout for new music, so drop a comment below to share what you have been listening to!

MORE:

Read last month's edition: These are the 7 scarily good tunes we've been using for testing this month

8 of the best Bruce Springsteen tracks to test your hi-fi system

Check out our ultimate test tracks collection

We don't know if you've heard, but there's a new Bruce Springsteen biopic.

Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere sees Jeremy Allen White, of The Bear fame, swapping the chef's whites and depressed scowl for a guitar and boot cut jeans, before grappling with the Boss's growing stardom while recording his 1982 album, Nebraska.

Naturally, we'd be limiting the scope of our Springsteen love-in if we recommended tunes solely taken from the aforementioned Nebraska, so we've gone for a blend of classic Bruce and a few lesser known gems to get your system pumping its metaphorical fist. USA flags at the ready for our eight of the best from the Boss...

Highway Patrolman (Nebraska, 1982)

Highway Patrolman is one of the most complex tracks, both narratively and in its composition, from Springsteen’s stark album, Nebraska.

Telling the story of two brothers as they struggle through life, the track exemplifies why Nebraska is often considered Springsteen’s bleakest, darkest take on life in America.

There’s no booming rhythm section or bellowed anthems to be found, instead Springsteen recorded it with a bare-bones arrangement that makes it stand apart from his earlier work.

The song’s quiet acoustic guitar intermingles with Springsteen’s vocals and harmonica as he chronicles the two brothers' fraught relationship, detailing the younger sibling’s fall from grace as his older sibling, the highway patrolman, watches powerlessly. The end result is a gloomy, haunting song that will stay with you long after the final note is plucked.

The subtle, low, muted tone of the song also makes it a fantastic gauge of any system’s dynamics. Just make sure to be prepared for a severe case of ennui when you do.

Words by Alastair Stevenson

Atlantic City (Nebraska, 1982)

Springsteen famously said people don’t like him when he’s happy, and if you’re the sort of fan that agrees that his music is best when it is at its bleakest, then you’ll love Atlantic City.

The second track on his first solo album tells the tragic story of a couple’s escape to Atlantic City as they try to follow the American Dream, before slowly falling into organised crime.

Featuring a bare-bones acoustic guitar part, the tragic song oozes emotion from start to finish, with Springsteen’s vocals, intermittent harmonica and plucked lead guitar parts creating a subtle, textured composition that merits repeat listening.

Whether it’s the haunting vocals lamenting the couple’s demise, or the intermittent spark of hope he adds at the end of each verse like a mantra, Atlantic City is one of Springsteen’s finest and most tragic songs.

It’s rare to hear live in its acoustic glory, with Springsteen preferring to play an electric version with a full backing band, which only makes the Nebraska album cut all the more special.

Words by Alastair Stevenson

Born to Run (Born to Run, 1975)

It’s rare for a song to make you feel like a cheetah racing through boundless grassy savannah, but here we are.

Springsteen’s Born to Run captures the yearning to escape the pressures of life, carried by his emotive vocals and impactful lyrics summed up by the recurring line, “We gotta' get out while we’re young / ‘Cause tramps like us, baby, we were born to run”.

Your sound system will get a run for its money with the addition of subtle tinkling high frequencies that must be balanced against the lively guitar part, as well as the driving drum beat which is sure to get anyone up and boogieing.

Then there’s the excellent saxophone solo, adding to the painful joy of wanting to be free. If you want to challenge your speaker set-up while being unable to stop your foot tapping, this is the Springsteen track for you.

Words by Robyn Quick

Born in the U.S.A. (Born in the U.S.A., 1984)

Born in the U.S.A. might be one of the catchiest songs of all time, but it's also one of the most misunderstood.

While the iconic chorus and stomp-worthy synths might evoke the flag-waving jingoism of a Michael Bay movie, the oft-overlooked lyrics reveal a disillusioned and undervalued Vietnam veteran and the deep emotional scars they endure upon returning home.

The song might be best known for being played at national events across the pond, but it remains an expert critique of the USA in the late 20th Century.

As one of Springsteen’s more unsubtle tunes, it’s also a great choice to test your hi-fi setup. It may be relatively simplistic, but on a good system you’ll be able to pick up every unrelenting whack on the snare drum, while hearing that backing synth blasted on high volume should evoke a wave of sonic joy.

The electrifying recording of Born in the U.S.A. is a key scene in Deliver Me From Nowhere, but there’s no reason you can’t get in the mood early by playing what is still the Boss’s biggest hit. Just try not to sing along.

Words by Daniel Furn

Thunder Road (Born to Run, 1975)

Alongside Born to Run, Thunder Road feels like quintessential Springsteen, like the distilled essence of Bruce's soul poured into a single tune.

We're back in small town America, yearning for something more, with Thunder Road showcasing that earnest heartland sound that went on to influence the likes of Bryan Adams, Sam Fender and The Killers.

Like Bruce's best work, it's the layer beneath the all-American bravado that elevates Thunder Road from generic horizon-gazing to something far richer and earnest.

There's a melancholy lurking in the lyrics and the feel of the melodies that hints at some unfulfilled yearning, and of the possibility that Bruce's, and therefore our, dreams might not fully be realised.

It's that particular feeling that comes through on truly insightful systems.

Words by Harry McKerrell

The Ghost of Tom Joad (The Ghost of Tom Joad, 1995)

If you're not into your 20th Century American literature, you might not be aware that the titular track from Bruce's eleventh studio album draws heavy inspiration from John Steinbeck's punishing opus The Grapes of Wrath, as well as Woody Guthrie's subsequent musical spin on the novel, in the shape of The Ballad of Tom Joad.

Springsteen's original recording has all of the downtrodden, rust-laden melancholy you'd expect – Steinbeck's novel was perfect fodder for Bruce's small-town, working class sensibilities – melding quiet desperation with undercurrents of simmering rage.

Speaking of rage, if you want the definitive rendition, check out the live version of the track performed in 2008, complete with Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello providing twin vocals and, in his signature style, shredding his axe with righteous fury. Goosebumps.

Words by Harry McKerrell

The River (The River, 1980)

The River was the first song of Springsteen’s that really hit me and made me view him as a social commentator and poet as much as he is a chart-topping hit machine.

Based heavily on the life of his brother-in-law and sister, the song tells a deeply personal narrative detailing the struggles of working-class Americans.

Featuring a haunting chorus, the song expertly merges the hopeless odds facing the couple and their noble refusal to give up as they struggle, and keep returning to their special place: The River.

Though it doesn’t have the bombastic, energetic tone of Springsteen’s more famous ballads, the layered, emotional composition, from the sombre acoustic guitar and weeping harmonica intro, up to its desperate peak, makes it a song that expertly plucks at your heart strings.

Words by Alastair Stevenson

Jungleland (Born to Run, 1975)

Jungleland is the final track in Springsteen’s iconic 1975 masterpiece Born to Run, and one of his most interesting.

For one, it’s one of his longest tracks, with the album version clocking in at over nine minutes. And within that timeframe it showcases all the major reasons Springsteen’s work clicks with so many people – hi-fi fans included.

The song is a mini opera, detailing young people struggling to survive in a city that’s stopped caring about them. Delivered with an impassioned, emotively ranged performance by Springsteen and the E Street band from start to finish it’s a flowing, powerful song that still resonates today.

Whether it's the pleading piano and violin intro, Springsteen’s booming wails at its peak or the iconic saxophone solo by Clarence Clemons, Jungleland is one of Springsteen’s most complex and inspiring tracks. Thanks to the interlinked composition and recording, which gives every part room to breathe and shine, it’s also one of the best he’s made for testing hi-fi.

While his more mainstream tracks may get more attention, Jungleland remains one of my favourite and most played songs from the Boss’ multi-decade discography.

Words by Alastair Stevenson

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Check out our ultimate test tracks playlist

It's spooky season! The leaves have turned, the weather's getting worse (or better, depending on your perspective), and we're all getting re-acquainted with our favourite chunky sweaters. Summer, we hardly knew ye.

We haven't completely doubled down on the spooky tunes for this month's edition of Now Playing – there's a dedicated best Halloween test tracks rundown if that's your jam – but we have made a few nods to this very special time of year in the list below.

What all of the tunes have in common is that they'll shock your system into bringing its A-game, be that via brain-melting basslines or blissed-out progressive house beats.

Oh, and there's a tune from a plucky up-and-comer called "Taylor Swift", who has a new album out. Apparently, it's rather a big deal...

• Listen to our Now Playing playlist on Tidal

Uh Uh by Thundercat

If you want a song that will make you question your life choices for just over two minutes, Thundercat’s Uh Uh will almost certainly do it to you. That’s because his fast-paced electric bass guitar playing verges on superhuman, as he effortlessly plucks the strings at an incredible speed.

This makes for excellent sound testing, as even the most premium soundbars and surround-sound speaker packages can struggle to get enough detail into every note. There’s really no hiding place here, with subtle changes in tonality and bass giving life to the track.

Quiet vocals accompany the drums and guitar, providing an extra layer of subtlety that can catch some systems out. Get it wrong, and the track will sound more like an undefined and jumbled mess.

The track's beginning also acts as a brilliant test for your surround speakers, as a distorted whooshing passes around the listener to create a dizzying tunnel of sound. While it may be short, Uh Uh will tell you everything you need to know about your speakers.

Words by Robyn Quick

The Fate Of Ophelia by Taylor Swift

In case you somehow missed it, a new Taylor Swift album has just been released, so of course I couldn’t help but highlight a track for this month's edition of Now Playing.

The Life Of A Showgirl is a lot glitzier and energetic than her previous effort, The Tortured Poets Department, which served up an onslaught of melancholic tracks, and while I still need time to assess this new album, I can already vouch for its opening salvo.

The Fate Of Ophelia opens with a deceiving bar of sombre-sounding piano that invokes the vibe of her last album, though it quickly gives way to a funky bassline which then opens up to an explosive, dangerously catchy chorus.

The track keeps up the pace from here, with a compelling storyline running throughout and a moody bridge that ramps up to one final punch of that infectious chorus.

It sets the tone for the album as a whole, leaning into the theatrics and energy that embodies The Life Of A Showgirl, and it’s an exceptional hook to get you invested into what surely must be one of the most anticipated records of the year.

Words by Lewis Empson

Zombie by The Cranberries

This month I went on a bit of a journey, revisiting Irish protest songs after watching Netflix’s latest divisive show about the Guinness family.

In doing so, I revisited one of my favourites tracks of all time, Zombie by The Cranberries, which also feels oddly appropriate given that the spooky season is upon us.

Written and delivered with fiery fury by lead singer Dolores O'Riordan, the song is a masterpiece from start to finish, full of emotive, evocative lyrics lamenting the violence in Northern Ireland at the time, in particular the tragic loss of children during an IRA bombing in 1993.

With changing dynamics, grungey, distorted guitar parts and shouted lyrics, the song is vastly different to most of the band’s other work and remains one of its best and most memorable to this day.

For hi-fi fans, O'Riordan’s incredible vocals, which rapidly alternate in both volume and pitch remain a benchmark only the best hardware will do true justice to.

Whether it’s simply to enjoy the amazing track, or give your separates a run for their money, If you haven’t heard it, I’d strongly recommend giving Zombie a listen, especially given its ongoing relevance in today’s troubled world.

Words by Alastair Stevenson

Eyepennies by Sparklehorse

Eyepennies joins my list of sad/tender songs – alongside Nick Cave's Into My Arms, Elliott Smith's Between The Bars, and Tom Waits' Martha – that make truly terrific test tracks.

Why? It's less about specific musical elements and more about conveying the emotion of the song: the sombre weight of the track, the heart-achingly tender but definite piano notes, and the late Mark Linkous's whispery soft but carefully sung lyrics. PJ Harvey's guest vocals offer another dimension, but the steady repetitive beat is also a great test of a system's handling of rhythm and dynamics.

This song could easily sound monotonous or dreary through a less capable system, or not have the appropriate balance of weight and delicacy – it's a tightrope that should have your attention hooked to the song's narrative while also feeling every inch of emotion seep into your skin.

Words by Kashfia Kabir

K-Pop Demon Hunters soundtrack

Some songs are just fun. There's no need to pick them apart to parse which note or instrument is faithfully conveyed through your headphones or speaker – they come through as a whole meal, concocted as a perfect pop song for pure enjoyment.

And KPop Demon Hunters has a whole soundtrack full of them.

The mega-hit animated film about a K-pop girl band fighting demons has a cracking soundtrack that I've had on repeat for the past two months – and I'm yet to tire of it. The triple threat of Takedown, How It's Done and Golden are absolute bangers that will be stuck in your head for days and weeks on end. They're propulsive, punchy, catchy and fizzing with energy. Just pure fun.

Words by Kashfia Kabir

You Make Me Feel Like It's Halloween by Muse

It's nearly Halloween, and that means it's time for scary movies, scary costumes and, if you can find then, even a few scary songs. While Werewolves Of London might be a bona fide belter, it's a little too simplistic to be labelled as test room fodder, so it's time to turn to our favourite Teignmouth trio for a scarily good time instead.

We included You Make Me Feel Like It’s Halloween as part of our best Halloween tracks to test your hi-fi system a couple of years back, and, like a zombie crawling from its earthy grave, it feels appropriate to resurrect it now that October is in full swing.

As far as guilty pleasures go, this is as much fun as Muse have been in a long while. A completely overdone pantomime of over-the-top guitar screeches and Psycho-inspired strings, you’ll want a system that can bring out the blend of anxiety and pure camp from the composition.

Words by Harry McKerrell

The Happy Dictator by Gorillaz

Gorillaz have been around so long they're essentially doing side quests at this point. It's not easy to keep up with the band's fictitious overarching story, a tale whose disparate plot points have included the commandeering of a piratical submarine, extended stints in prison and the establishment of a semi-Satanic cult in America.

Suffice to say that, as the title of the band's new track reveals, we're now on to the formation of a totalitarian dictatorship in an unspecified Eastern nation. It's a natural progression.

As the Gorillaz project has never been shy in bouncing around its bizarre narrative, the group has reflected such eclecticism in its musical output. This time, it's the Mael brothers, AKA Sparks, who have been recruited for The Happy Dictator, bringing their idiosyncratic, pleasingly camp electro-pop stylings to Gorillaz's latest release.

It's an odd one on first listen, a sort of airy, chirpy number that borders on the parodic. Once you can accept that's the whole point, of course, it's hard not to get it out of your head as Ron and Russell repeatedly sing, "Oh, what a happy land we live in / Oh what a happy land, oh yeah."

Faux propaganda has rarely been so catchy.

Words by Harry McKerrell

As a collective, our review team listens to a lot of music. Sometimes we rely on old favourites with which we're familiar, but we are always discovering new tracks – be they fresh releases or just songs we haven't encountered before – that give us key insights into new products we are trying out.

We also know that plenty of our readers are on the lookout for new tunes, either to assess the capabilities of a new system or simply to show off the full talents of their established hi-fi set-up. That's why we have come up with our monthly 'Now Playing' playlist, a rundown of everything we've been listening to and loving recently, whether at home with a set of headphones or at work in our fabulous test rooms.

Each instalment will bring you a handful of tracks chosen by our reviews team, detailing why we love them and what they bring out of certain products. So even if you're not looking for new tunes to play on your system, we hope you find something you'll love no matter how you choose to listen to it.

We're always on the lookout for new music, so drop a comment below to share what you have been listening to!

MORE:

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Check out our ultimate test tracks collection