Apeforce

OK, so I’m at work listening to the second disk of the Echoes compliation.  I’ve heard it a hundred times and I love it.  But I need something a little more fast-paced to keep me from falling asleep as I crunch numbers and interpret code.  I need something a little more intense than “Shine on You Crazy Diamond parts 1-7″.

 So do I switch albums?  No way, Jose!  (and that goes for you too, Pedro!)

You see, we have Windows Media Player 10 here at work, and for this I’m thankful.  All I do is open up the media player, and - using the play speed enhancement - play Pink Floyd like it was never meant to be played.  And I like it.

Now for the first part of Shine on You Crazy Diamond, you might crank it up to x2, which produces a quick paced jam session (and turn it down to x1.4 when the verses come in), unless you are completely insane and want to crank it up to x4, in which case I would say “Get thee to a nunnery!”.

Anywho, this ability to essentially be your own desktop DJ is a great way to get yourself pumped.  There is of course a little bit of distortion of the music, but it’s to be expected.  You can essentially turn any music that’s ripped to your hard drive into psyche up music* (the feature doesn’t work when playing CDs or DVDs, as spinning the disc at that speed would probably obliterate the unit or cause mass distortion in the space-time continuum).  Also, bands hardly ever play the same timing in concert as they do on the album, so it’s kinda like emulating a concert in a way.   

Playing “Time” doubletime is a bit unsettling (sounds a little disco-ish), but playing at the recommended “fast setting” (Microsoft enabled a keyboard shortcut of Ctrl+Shift+G to set it to x1.4) is a lot of fun and gets you tapping your foot.  Fletcher Memorial Home - well, at 1.4 it’s just a little sped up but between x2 and x4 it sounds like something out of Spamelot.  Comfortably Numb at x4 almost sounds like a polka but is very hard to make out, at x3 it’s a bit of a joke, x2.5 is still somewhat comedic but much more listenable, at x2 the beat becomes pretty catchy and intense.

As if trying to techo-modify Fletcher Memorial wasn’t hard enough, you’d think When the Tigers Broke Free would be almost as difficult.  But the steady beat lends itself to modification, and at x2 it doesn’t loose a lot.  And since it goes right into One of These Days, x2 works pretty well, but I’d recommend busting it down to x1.5 in order to preserve musical integrity and intensity because at x2 you’re missing a lot of the bass intricacies.  x1.5 works well with Us and Them too, but at x2 it becomes music to fight to, as does Learning to Fly (it sounds a lot like intense Japanese video game music).

If you’ve been following these speeds, do yourself a favor and give your heart a rest by putting Arnold Layne down to at least x1.4 - you deserve it.  Feel free to leave it there for WYWH, or you can move it up to x1.7, but no higher.  Same goes for Jugband Blues - it’s pretty fast paced anyways.  High Hopes isn’t one of my favorite pieces (however meaningful and poetic), so I cranked it to x2 to make it at least foot-tap worthy.  (When you listen to it at that speed, you get a better picture of how repetitively unfulfilling the melody was for both the verse and the chorus.)  Alternatively, you can bust it down to x0.5 if you want to linger in the misery and melancholy.

For the grand finale, a bit of a revalation.  If you listen to Bike at x0.5, you’ll actually hear the music travel from right to left if you’re wearing headphones.  I’m sure they did this on purpose, but you’ll hear the words in your right ear first, then in your left - it’s quite amazing really.  But if you’re looking to “rock it ’till the wheels fall off”, then I recommend x1.4 to x1.6. 

 So that’s my desktop DJ guide to the second disk of Echoes. 

 Other recommendations: 
Pretty Noose by Soundgarden at x2 (techno-trance your face off!)
Umbrella by Rihanna at x2 (make her work for it, sucka!)
Money for Nothing by Dire Straits at x2 (turns the guitar solo into video game music, and the verse into a country boogie, really chuckle-inducing)
The Riddler by Method Man at x1.8 (you can really hear the old 1960’s batman theme in it)
*probably not so much with the Benedictine Monks of Santo Domingo de Silos.  But track 11 at x1.983 (the highest I could get it without popping - probably has to do with the bit rate I ripped at) is pretty funny.