Great stuff in this post, thank you for sharing!
I thought it funny these two were listed together – Elvis Costello wrote “Almost Blue” for Chet Baker, and then went on to marry Diana Krall!
As for a reply to the original question, I’ll add:
Elvis Costello’s “Long Honeymoon” from Imperial Bedroom
All of Rain Dogs by Tom Waits
Raising Sand by Alison Krauss and Robert Plant
EDIT: And “Into Temptation” by Crowded House
Alright fellas. I give you, ‘The Art of Noise.”
DAFT from 1984 is a terrific album to test spatial recognition and imaging on your headphones. I love this album. It is a great listen. 
Great list! Found a quick easy way to convert your list and others into automatic playlists in preferred streaming platform!
If interested I can do a quick writeup. Took me about 5 mins or less to create playlist without having to manually search and add each song
Would love to learn that, if you don’t mind, Peter. Thanks!
Yes, that’s generous of you. I’m the producer so it’d be of value to others. I’ve got a few more tracks that could be added. Someday.
Will add tonight! A few ways to do this and will try to create some options depending on your streamer. See if I can make a quick guide by tomorrow
Ok- Wow, sorry all for delay! I had some minor surgery and just haven’t been able to sit for the last week and some.
Here is a basic guide to make life a “little” easier. There is still work that has to be done, but I was able to streamline the process to 5mins or so, though your first time might take much more since I am throwing this together in a since. If you dont like reading, here is a video " (1) Transfer Playlists between Apple Music, Spotify, YouTube Music & More for FREE - YouTube"
Step 1
The first step is to copy that list. The issue is that there are so many formats that lists come in. We need to get a basic format, so you may need to pull up Word or Excel like applications for some quick formatting if needed.
Here is the format you want:
Jimi Hendrix - Voodoo Child
Sufjan Stevens - Djohariah
Sufjan Stevens - Age Of Adz (Album
Step 2
Tools! Let’s not reinvent the wheel here. There are several tools you can start from, but lets use the best first!
This tool allows you to convert your current playlists and songs from any source you may already have. This works wonders and does its best to align the right/best song from the old to new platform.
You name it, it probably maybe most likely surely has it.
But my dude, what about the lists from here!? I got your back!
From that same link at the bottom there are two options. “Free Text” and “Upload File”.
Free Text
This is the best as you can just copy the lists you all make (formatting aligning) here and copy pasta in
For example, I took @taronlissimore 's list and pasted right in. What this did was create an instant playlist. Go through the list to confirm it. The downside at this point is that you do not know what you will get officially on the other side. It will be spot on or close from my experience.
Step 3
From there, select Destination and any platform! You can also export as a File or Share!!! (sharing allows you to instantly share a playlist, allow the end user to select their Destination)
Just like that I now have his music to share! Someone shared their music library with you via Tune My Music
Exporting allows a TXT or CSV
Step 4
Login to Destination (unless your are exporting or sharing) and click “Start Moving My Music”
That’s it! You did it! Now get back some time to enjoy your cans!
Bonus
Don’t like the music list it spit out! Like I said, generally it will pick the best/accurate song, but if you really want to spend a tad more time, you can do this. The downside is that it only connects with Spotify, but you can still export the file.
Convert Anything to a Spotify Playlist - Spotlistr
Textbox Search - Spotlistr
Use the same textbox interface and slap in the list and then see the song options with the % of accuracy! Choose what you want rather than being assigned, export this list and then import into TuneMyMusic.
I was looking at the Harman thread, then on the net I found this on the Harman website.
Super list, thank you!
Can you help me understand the logic of wanting the Loudness War victims to be listenable? I had felt / understood that records subjected to this kind of mastering mistreatment were effectively audio write offs unless you can find alternative sources? I’ve been unable to listen to the Loudness CD versions of those types of albums really ever since having proper gear and decent headphones. I’ve usually had to locate other souces, vinyl (not for any imagined “quality” improvement but it seems resistant to the brickwall treatment) or earlier versions?
Mitigation and versatility.
My test tracks are not for pleasure per se, but some setups do a better job of getting through the full 3 hours. Sometimes I skip directly from Track 1 or 2 to Californication – that comparison alone may predict fatigue overall.
I chose Californication because it reflects the worst of the loudness era. BUT, it’s a mild vocal and should be easy on the ears. Ironically, I thought it was a good recording when I first heard it in the car, through tiny speakers and with lots of noise in the background. A car setup does indeed mitigate its issues and suggests why it sounds like it does. Also, the band’s hearing was likely shot by the time they approved the master.
There are some decent songs and albums from the Loudness War, and no way to avoid their poor quality. For original releases from the mid 1990s to about 2010, you will be forced to work around. Finally, poor production choices extend beyond the Loudness War too. The 1970s and 1980s involved independent labels (e.g., Punk Rock) that had awful studios (e.g., a lot of brittle/bright synth music and my The Replacements track near the end). Some current 2020s (probably DIY) releases are way too bright and others drive me crazy with wildly excessive soft-LOUD-soft-LOUD modulation.
I want setups that can handle whatever I throw at them, whatever mood I’m in, and random new content that I’ve never heard before. Painful/fatiguing tracks separate good systems from mediocre systems. Fatigue against a fixed set of tracks delivers proof of performance from your body and thereby destroys wishful thinking and placebo effects.
Just a nice album. Terrific recording and a great evaluator of headphones and amplifiers. Pitch, tone, space and DNR.
Thanks to Peter Gabriel for being a genius at work.
Thanks for the detailed reply and it’s given me plenty to think about.
I also experienced the same in the early 00s and had pretty much the same experience with Californication on my average car speakers.
On the Loudness Wars I’m still dismayed to see a number of releases being mastered very loud (not quite to the same extremes) but still loud, from artists I’d hoped would have known better.
Believe What I Say by Kanye West, it has some nice hard hitting bass and uses a lot of different frequencies from both the sample and lead vocals, and it contains dialogue so you can get a feel for clarity. Besides that it’s a really fun track to listen to and the lyrics are great.
Curious as to what you mean by this? I don’t want to misunderstand, but there are some songs that are just fatiguing almost no matter what I listen on. However, I keep tracks like this in my personal test list just to see if it can be more bearable on some gear over others. I reference Selena Gomez’s song Wolves. Her voice is so very sibilant and man does it show it on more sibilant gear.
I think the one annoying thing I encounter with all music is just the loudness of the recording. I’ve finally just gotten used to turning the volume pot up/down on my amp instead of using the dreadful normalization. I’ve not actually put the extra testing in to see if normalization can actually degrade a song..but I just feel wrong doing it. Not to get off track (haha pun) with that!
Yes, some songs have rough, random, or excessive treble and noise artifacts that have proven difficult or impossible to avoid. These flaws apparently follow from either misconfigured studio equipment and/or the damaged hearing of the creators and producers. People in the music industry are often exposed to excessive noise, and they often have either high-range hearing loss or tinnitus. “It sounded great to me” doesn’t mean it’ll sound great to regular people.
Excessive loudness follows from dynamic compression and an effort to be heard, draw attention, or generate excitement. The total volume can measure “the same” as other music, but that means there are no soft or peak sounds, and everything is loud and flat. TV and radio commercials were notorious for sounding much louder than the program content – then the content producers (recorded music industry) started doing the same thing on singles and albums. This reached a terrible and obvious excess during the 1990s to early 2000s “Loudness War” (i.e., Californication and similar songs). These songs were normalized and had their peaks and valleys cut off before you had a chance to play with the pot.
This has been my default track for bass extension. Warning - this does qualify as Grado abuse at higher volumes
Great explanation, thank you for that. Very true on musicians and engineers in the industry with hearing. My brother has been in theatre all his life and his hearing definitely is not good. He cranks everything up and I’m sure it’s from those loud musicals and things he played in. More education on hearing protection back then would have gone a long way.
Sorry again and don’t want to get far off topic so I’ll leave at that!
Also appreciate this thread as I’m always on the lookout to add more to the testing arsenal.
Reflection by Tool is one of my go to test tracks, especially when it comes to imaging. In the intro, every piece of the drum kit should come from a different spot.
Absolutely nice choice. TOOL record their music so well. I wish more metal bands took some understanding by how they record. The fidelity of Tool records may be the best in all of metal. 
I mean listen to this.
This is a terrific track to evaluate just about every bass region there is.
I concur on the fidelity of their records. Whenever I go back to Iron Maiden records, I’m slightly disappointed that they’re not as well recorded. Not enough to detract from the music just makes me ask “what if this was recorded better?”