Some Documentaries About Creative People

The Zen Diaries of Garry Shandling

As I said in a recent episode of the podcast, I have spent many evenings in the pandemic watching old shows. HBO Max has "The Larry Sanders Show", which remains compelling. I noticed they also had Judd Apatow's 2018 documentary about Garry Shandling, "The Zen Diaries of Garry Shandling". I started the first of its 2 parts expecting a typical hagiography by a series of talking heads.

I got something more inspiring and interesting. 

The movie highlights a fundamental conflict within Shandling. He is knowledgeable about Zen Buddhism. He meditates. He journals.  He is clearly looking to alleviate the suffering that comes from attachment. But Shandling is also striving for success and personal happiness, and his hunger for those achievements is palpable. 

The documentary gave me new appreciation for Shandling as a person, and for his work. As funny and entertaining as both Shandling and this movie can be, I also found something melancholy and poetic in both.

George Carlin's American Dream

Judd Apatow also made a documentary about George Carlin -- "George Carlin's American Dream" was released earlier this year. Carlin's work remains extremely relevant. 

The documentary traces Carlin's evolution as a person and thinker, and shows how his ambitions and feelings drove his extremely clever material. The film, like the critics, can be overly dismissive of some of his early work. It seems unfair to expect Carlin to make us laugh and think for his entire career. Most comedians would have settled for an entire career built around Carlin's lesser bits, and we would have considered theme to be great. Check it out, but be sure to watch a few George Carlin specials, too.

Get Back

This documentary about The Beatles making what would become "Let It Be" is an impressive achievement in some ways. Peter Jackson and his team had mountains of footage to wade through, all needing clean-up, and still missing coverage of essential bits and moments. All those shortcomings were resolved, through technology and hard work. The film looks vintage, but good. The sound is great. A modest framework has been added to help give some shape -- there's a calendar, and each of the three sections of this 6-hour film focuses on a particular slice of the project.

But it's way too long. Perhaps it is truly capturing how these interminable and aimless sessions must have felt to the participants. Perhaps it is just difficult for me to appreciate, because much of the footage isn't "revelatory", it's somewhere between "Well, this is what writing songs and rehearsing with a band is like. What's the big deal?" and a kind of PTSD flashback of the worst band practices and arguments you've ever had.

Overall, the film does help remind us The Beatles were just a band. A really good band, made of talented players and writers, hardened by a few years of intense gigs, who made some foundational records and had incredible influence...but also just a band. 

And this is what bands do, what practices feel like. Long. Boring. Full of goof-off covers, space jams, multiple tries at songs, and occasionally, transcendence when you hit on something good or play a song particularly well. Crankiness, fights, people trying to push things into shape, and people quitting.

There is something nice about sticking with the original footage and resisting the urge to supplement it with modern interviews, voiceovers, or anything additional. But this also makes "Get Back" somewhat  monochromatic, and combined with the sort of shapeless nature of the film, it made watching it feel a bit like a chore. The titles next to every single musical moment seem a bit overblown, too.

Nothing really happens. We don't get much context around why The Beatles want to do this (or even if they want to). If you know The Beatles and their story, there's foreshadowing inherent in the project. But if you don't...you aren't told this would be their last album. There's also so much left out, including how these sessions turned into the very different album that was ultimately released, what the band thought, how it was received, and so on. 

And then the movie just sort of ends. Recommended only if you're a hardcore Beatles fan.

Here To Be Heard: The Story of The Slits

Like the Moog documentary, it is unfortunate this project is not better, because it is now likely the only non-fiction film we will get about The Slits. I can look past the extremely low budget -- it has no real lighting, most of the dialog is picked up with ambient mics, and the movie seems to have been shot on consumer-grade gear. OK, fine, but this is such a compelling story about critical people from the original UK punk scene, so the story will be great, right?

Director William Badgley does not manage to tell it well. The best bits of the documentary come from the "where are they now" aspect of the film, though the answers are mostly sadly predictable (dead, in recovery from drugs, etc.) with a few shining exceptions. 

Badgley spends a lot of time with some of the members of the band, and what feels like hardly any with others. Viv Albertine, in particular, seems to get almost no camera time. This is odd, because she is the most articulate of the former members, and because she wrote an excellent memoir which does a far better job of telling not just her story, but the band's story as well.

I suspect Badgley was intent on staying in the good graces of the band, and/or that the band had final cut. This is because several critical bits of information are simply left out of the band's story. One of those critical bits of information is that Ari Up's mother -- publishing heiress Nora Forster -- married Johnny Rotten (John Lydon) in 1979. (Forster is 13 years older than Lydon, and Lydon is 6 years older than Ari.) 

Lydon and Forster adopted two of Ari Up's children 10 years before her death. You can do some internet research as to why, but it does not cast Ari Up in a good light. 

Lydon does not appear in the documentary, nor is he really mentioned. He probably didn't want to be in the documentary, and he can be litigious. Still, facts are facts.

Another fact is that Ari Up refused treatment for her cancer, which could have saved her life (and would certainly have prolonged it). Again, a known fact that goes unmentioned.

These omissions make me wonder what else was left out of the story. Read Viv Albertine's book instead.

Best Reissues of 2010

2010 continued the record industry's trend of jamming out reissues, remasters, and deluxe editions. Selling updated versions of existing products is a marketing trick nearly as old as commerce itself. Clearly, it is working for the music business.

Cynicism aside, many of the first CD releases sounded terrible for a variety of reasons. In some cases, the wrong master tapes were used or the best master tapes couldn't be found. In other cases, the tape-to-digital transfers suffered from the (relatively) poor quality of the early analog-to-digital converters.

Most of the top-shelf musical canon has already been reissued multiple times. So now the industry can turn its attention to albums more off the beaten path. Fewer sales but more devoted fans with high willingness to buy.

The good news is that in many cases, the people working on the reissues do a fantastic job, unearthing rare or lost tracks, cleaning up audio, and producing nice packaging. The bad news is these reissues are often harmed by cut-rate packaging, sloppy audio remastering, a surfeit of tracks, and too-high price tags.

Without further ado, here are the awards...

Best Bonus Tracks:
Duran Duran "Duran Duran"

Duran Duran were one of the first bands that made me hunt and search for tracks and inspired the largely lost art of locating the obscure.

Duran Duran released all kinds of remixes, singles, and 12" maxis which were only available as imports. Their first album even swapped out one of the original tracks ("To The Shore") for a hot single ("Is There Something I Should Know?") when it was widely released in the USA.

And many of those early tracks were great stuff - as good or better than what was on the record.

This year, Duran Duran continued rolling out their reissues. The best was their first album. Sonically, it's not a substantial improvement. Some argue that it sounds worse than the original release.

Of course, it includes all of the b-sides from the singles and 12" maxis, and the "Night Versions". This is less of a revelation since the previously-released "Singles" boxes put them all out there several years ago.

What it does include, however, are some demo versions that are really interesting. The demos are simultaneously both more "rock" and more "disco" than the album versions. The early version of "Girls On Film" has an awkward cadence which would be dropped for the final release version. Mostly they sound like what they are - a live band composed largely of enthusiastic young men.

Artwork and photography is pretty and comes in a nice box. Band loses huge points for not including lyrics, however, which they did even on the previous cheap-o standard release.

Ultimately, this reissue serves to validate the quality of the band's early work and the freshness of their sound, without wearing out its welcome.


Too Much of a Good Thing:
Arcadia "So Red The Rose"
Propaganda "A Secret Wish"

Sometimes, reissues rekindle your love for an old favorite. And sometimes it's like having dinner with your ex-wife: too much, and you remember why you stopped listening in the first place.

The reissue of Arcadia's "So Red The Rose" is fantastic. Seriously. It sounds great. It includes rare videos and specials. A whole second disc of bonus tracks including a whole single I'd never even heard before.

The artwork is mostly an improvement, though the credits contain some typos and fail to reproduce the full artwork the way the initial CD release did.

I also like this record a lot - in some ways, it's the best "Duran Duran" album made, even though technically it's not Duran Duran.

But 2 CDs filled to the rim is a bit much. There are a number of remixes of the same tracks (single versions!) which aren't tremendously different from the album mixes - this is the sort of stuff that makes collectors happy, but makes most listeners reach for the "skip" button.

Propaganda's "A Secret Wish" is also a study in obsession.

Originally released in 1985, "A Secret Wish" was the first album by a new band signed to Trevor Horn's legendary Zang Tuum Tumb label (whose name, like his band "The Art of Noise", comes straight out of the Italian Futurist movement).

The album is a masterpiece of orchestral synth pop. The new (at the time) Waldorf PPG synthesizer is mixed with sampled strings and the unusual voices of the singers to produce something dark, Teutonic, and Expressionistic. Their hand is tipped with "Dr. Mabuse", which also features a sly homage to musique concrete at the beginning. David Sylvian played guitar on the record, even.

The band fell apart after this record, losing one of their female singers and most of their momentum. Their much-anticipated second album (featuring Derek Forbes, Simple Minds' amazing bass player) was not very good. And then they basically broke up.

In 1985, I remember looking at the CD version, which I could not afford, and marveling at the technical information presented on the back, including the producer indicating which songs had digital clicks and "overs". Then I realized the mix durations were different from the vinyl album I had...were they different mixes?

I never was able to find out. The CD version I bought many years later sounded just like the vinyl.

This year, Propaganda's masterpiece received the Deluxe treatment. Turns out the producer did a separate set of CD mixes after the "analog" mixes were done and sent off to the duplicator. These CD mixes are considered the definitive versions, and the original "analog" mixes are relegated to the end of disc 1.

The CD mixes are surprising in a few details. They're not necessarily "better", per se, but they show how nuts the producer was going, clearly obsessed with the project and adding breakdowns, build-ups, crazy string sections, and so forth. The songs stretch out, taking their time through their intros. One is over 11 minutes long.

I suppose it's fitting that music that has been so obsessed over by creators and fans deserves this kind of treatment. You get the definitive album - all 9 tracks, now with great sound. It's all anyone could ask for. But then there are the six analog mixes right after. Didn't I just hear this?

And then there's also disc 2, which features all sorts of odds and ends, including "rare cassette-only promotional mixes". 11 tracks, which are nearly all remixes of the same 9 songs you just spent an hour with.

Too much! Back on the shelf for now!

Way Too Much of a Good Thing:

David Bowie "Station To Station [Super Deluxe Edition]"

Start by noting the original album "Station To Station" consists of 6 songs. It barely hits its 38-minute running time due to the long introduction on the title track.

It is a classic of the rock canon and one of Bowie's better and more listenable records.

The reissue costs more than $100.

It consists of 5 discs: the original album, the 1985 remaster, 2 live CDs, and a disc of singles mixes. To clarify, you get the original mastering (too murky!) and a new master from the original tape (too tinny!), a live concert spread across 2 discs, and a disc with slightly different mixes designed for radio.

They throw in vinyl versions of the original album and live set.

There's also a DVD with more than one set of high resolution and 5.1 mixes of the same 6 songs.

Because that's not enough, they throw in a bunch of other junk, too: liner notes with "never before seen photos", a poster, replicas of backstage passes, concert tickets, fan club folders, membership cards, bio sheet, and some buttons.

It's a great record, essential listening. But the rest of it is the definition of overkill.


Most Welcome Sonic Improvement:

The Cure "Disintegration"

When this record came out, I listened to the vinyl and thought it sounded murky. It had the tired rock disclaimer "this music was meant to be played loud", which meant the band had mixed it too loud and due to the Fletcher-Munson curve, it was going to sound weird unless you actually played it back loud as well.

"Disintegration" is a really good record. It took me a while to realize this when it first came out, but seeing the band at Great Woods sealed the deal for me. If you only listen to one record by the Cure (as many recommend), this should be it.

The remaster largely fixes the murky sound of the original at the expense of adding a bit more unneeded compression (an unfortunate trend in nearly all of these reissues, which I suspect will allow the labels to release "full dynamic range" versions in another 5 or 10 years!)

The "Deluxe Edition" throws in 2 more discs. One is the set of demos for the entire record. Like most Cure demos, these are relatively boring: they're rough versions of the album songs, sometimes instrumental, generally nearly identical to the final versions except not as nicely recorded. No real revelations here, nor anything even die-hard fans will revist.

The other disc is a reissue of "Entreat" (called "Entreat Plus"), a live concert where the band performs the entirety of "Disintegration". The Cure are a great live band, and their live recordings tend to be quite solid. "Entreat Plus" doesn't disappoint, but like many of the reissues this year, by the time you've finished this disc you've heard the songs on the album 3 times. That's a bit much for anyone, and while The Cure play well, they do play the songs just like the album, so again, not much discovery here.

The better sound makes it worth the price of admission, but try to track down the single-disc remaster!


Biggest Surprise:

Nine Inch Nails "Pretty Hate Machine"

It's not fashionable to like Nine Inch Nails anymore, and if you do, it's not fashionable to like this record. The remaster, however, is rather exciting.

It sounds great - arguably the biggest sonic improvement and best overall sounding record of the bunch. I couldn't find a playback system that didn't make this sound amazing.

It's also become an interesting historical document. Some of the tracks on the album have not aged well, but the good stuff ("Head Like A Hole", "Terrible Lie") still sounds ahead of its time.

The record sounds unusually drenched in reverb by today's standards. Otherwise its bracing digital textures sound even fresher today than they did back when it was released 20 years ago. It's easy to hear why this record was so influential for so many aspiring musicians. It's also very easy to hear Trent Reznor's influences - "Down In It" is clearly derivative of Skinny Puppy's "Dig It" (which Reznor freely admits), and much of the rest of the album pulls from various flavors of the near-industrial music of its time.

Apple Shuffles On

As predicted, Apple has abandoned their button-free iPod Shuffle design for a return to the "ring button" layout of the very popular clip-style iPod Shuffle. It's a much better design.

The "new" iPod Shuffle, now in many colors. (image courtesy of Apple)

Overall, it's still expensive and feature-poor compared to the Sansa Clip, which offers more memory, an FM tuner, and a screen, but it is a much nicer-feeling product. The Sansa Clip still feels like a toy, as do most non-Apple MP3 players.

Ultimately, the new iPod Shuffle is a mature, solid product and in many ways, a perfect design.

The new Nano is a bit more baffling. I suspect it's just marking time and covering a price point for Apple, as they can't yet get iPod Touches down to a cheap enough price point, can't charge more for the Shuffle, and are unwilling to leave a gap in their iPod price line for a competitor to fill.

The current iteration of the iPod Nano (image courtesy of Apple)

As a technological achievement I suppose the new Nano is rather nice, but as a product, it's sorta goofy.

I did somewhat anticipate their grafting a touchscreen onto such a tiny form factor, but after the addition of the camera to the Nano in the previous round of revisions, I expected it to be the Shuffle that got it, rather than the Nano.

That would have allowed Apple to claim they were still moving forward on the Shuffle design rather than "retreating" to a previous one, and would have left the door open for more advancements in Nano land (the lack of a camera on the new one is arguably a big step backwards).

In its current design, the Nano is intended to be clipped onto one's clothing, like the Shuffle. But in practice, this means both the display and the controls for the unit are facing out and away from the user, so the user has to look down at their clothes and/or pull the Nano towards themselves to see and manipulate it. Because the screen is the control surface, and because it is so tiny, it is very difficult to hold the Nano while controlling it, and while you are pushing its surface, much of the screen is obscured.

Contrast that with the "candy bar" Nano design. Its hardware controls and orientation allowed for "blind" operation - you could skip tracks or pause in your pocket, without looking at the screen. Because it was "candy bar" style and size, it afforded gripping in the hand while looking at the screen, without obstructing the screen.

The new Nanos also don't allow users to install or run apps (and I'm glad about that, because otherwise there would be yet another Apple mobile configuration to design for), but their visual interface design picks up many of the cues of Apple's higher-end products, including fancy animations, a pivoting display, "multi-touch", and more. Much of this is simply gratuitous, but goes a long way to justifying the pricing in consumer's minds.

I find the much-vaunted "multi-touch" control silly and inferior to the simple elegance of the click wheel for something like the Nano. The Nano itself is hard to pin down - it's too fancy and fiddly for the gym, the Shuffle being far superior for that.

Eventually, I expect Apple to merge these two products - their design framing suggests they're headed this way. Again, I suspect it's a matter of covering price points while they wait for component and design costs to come down, for all aspects of the product line. When they do, I hope they manage to keep more of the ring button design and less of the touchscreen, but past behavior sadly indicates otherwise.

In the meantime, Apple manages to monetize its quirky design choices and its decisions to emphasize the "feel" of products as much as their actual features.

Most people, even hardcore audiophiles, are better off using a smartphone or iPod Touch-type device as a music player. If you need a portable for the gym, I'd still recommend the Sansa Clip over the Shuffle unless you're an all-Mac person. The Sansa Clip may feel like a toy, but that minimizes the pain you feel when you drop it or lose it.

My Favorite Albums of 2009

I listened to a lot of music in 2009, but little of it was "new". I heard most of the releases that will show up on everyone else's list. I didn't really care for most of them. Here's what I did like:

Album of the Year: David Sylvian - "Manafon"

David Sylvian worked with some top-notch musicians known for their improvisation work. He recorded some sessions of them playing, selected sections he liked, and them improvised vocals over the top. Record finished.

He packaged it as digital downloads, a compact disc, or a deluxe hardback book. Built a lovely website, too.

The music is beautiful, sad, and thought-provoking, and the execution is masterful. It's also all completely in line with where I think interesting musical art should be going. Hands-down winner this year.

If you liked Talk Talk's records "Spirit of Eden" and "Laughing Stock", you'll probably like this.

Best New Album by Old Band: (Tie)
Nitzer Ebb - "Industrial Complex"
Nitzer Ebb has long been a favorite of mine, but they hadn't released any new material since "Big Hit" in 1995.

They returned this year with a vengeance. "Industrial Complex" doesn't break any new ground for the band, but it produces a re-cap of their unique take on EBM and industrial. Few bands are both so catchy and so abrasive. The album is solid all the way through with plenty of references to all of the great things about all of their records. I could even hear some pop tart making "Hit You Back" a Top 10 single. Only available as downloads for now. Skip iTunes' AAC format for some good ol' MP3s from Amazon.com.

If you like Nitzer Ebb, Depeche Mode, Nine Inch Nails, or dancing to synthesizer music, check it out.

The Church - "Untitled #23"
The Church has managed to make my lists almost every year they've released an album. They really earned it in 2009 with "Untitled #23", which made a number of other people's best-of lists as well.

A solid, mysterious album with songs that reminded me of my own "Overcast" in places. They stretch a bit here, too, with Steve Kilbey marking the outer edges of his vocal range and style, including one of his more aggressive vocal takes on "Anchorage".

Masterful work from veteran musicians. Obviously great if you are a fan of The Church (or a newcomer). Also great if you like Television, or other post-punk guitar bands.

Best Reissue: Kraftwerk's "The Catalogue"
There was a lot of competition for this slot, with the runner-up being the nicely-packaged and chock-full of rarities re-issue of Duran Duran's "Rio". But Kraftwerk absolutely dominated with "The Catalogue".

Unfortunately delayed several times, and then released in the USA with a "well, this is what you have to buy if you want the good albums" approach, The Catalogue shames most other reissues.

The packaging is top-notch. A 12"-record sized proper box. Tiny reproductions of the albums, using proper 3-dimensional boxes with spines and slide-out envelopes. And then massive, gorgeous booklets with full art and liner notes as the band always intended.

The sound quality is also incredible, to the point where you can hear obvious flaws in the original recordings or sound programming. Well worth the price, and a fitting tribute to a band as influential on the pop music of this century as The Beatles were on the music of the last century.

Essential listening for any music fan. These guys are part of the modern cultural canon. Also essential for packaging designers.

Best Björk Album (Not by Björk): Fever Ray - "Fever Ray"
Or perhaps it's the best album by The Knife. The Fever Ray album made a bunch of folks' top lists this year. It's...good.

In particular, its strengths lie in its production, packaging, and total impact. In many ways it's the Björk record of the year. "Quirky" vocals by a non-native English speaker delivered with a charming accent, a unique vocal style, and funny/mysterious/borderline nonsense lyrics.

Nice synth/electronic production, but overall bearing a very strong resemblance to her other band, The Knife. Not surprising, but I sort of expected more. The record skates by a lot on style. The songs have moods, but don't really go anywhere or lodge deeply in the mind. Lots of reliance on 5ths, weird sounds, and the same sort of vocal processing and effects that made The Knife sound so fresh.

For fans of Bjork, The Knife, film soundtracks, and "headphone music". Not so good for parties.

Fever Ray also gets points for actually making the single "When I Grow Up" available for free download. Try BetterPropaganda, where I find a lot of music.

Video for "If I Had A Heart":


Doubtless part of Fever Ray's success lies in her willingness to use the Internet for promotion.

David Sylvian finally put "Small Metal Gods" up on YouTube, but he's got no free download. Neither The Church nor Nitzer Ebb put up free downloads, and neither of them have "official" videos on YouTube yet. In their case, it may be they simply don't have the budget or interest in such things. To The Church's credit, they haven't pulled down any of the fan-made videos for their new album.

Artists, remember: In the 21st century, you should worry about getting people to pay attention to your music, and less about getting them to pay for your music. The former is becoming more difficult but remains a pre-requisite for the latter.

I look forward to more great music in 2010!

Virgin America

I flew Virgin America for the first time on my last trip to DC. Is it an incredible new experience?

Well, no. It's a budget airline. But they do things a little differently, wrapping their experience in some nice design:

• Many of the airports I've flown in and out of on Virgin (SFO, JFK, Dulles) use the "International" terminal. These are usually nicer and less-crowded than the usual domestic or commuter terminals. That, coupled with Virgin's British legacy immediately "classes up" their image. The SFO International terminal is beautiful compared to the dumps the other ones have become.
• The self-check machines are fancy touch screens on nice tables, with concealed printers. They put vases of fresh flowers on top. This has the advantage of making them very easy to find as well as immediately changing your perception of the airline. Airports are generally incredibly sterile industrial environments, all vaulted concrete and steel. Flowers immediately make you relax and feel different about things.
• The ticket counter areas have some carpet mats, and friendly staff dressed in black. They smile a lot and politely ask if they can help. Some are even out from behind the shield wall of the counters.
• The boarding passes are nice cards printed on substantial paper. A minimum of cryptic junk. Large, readable type. They fit in a back pocket without folding.
• Boarding times are at least 10-15 minutes more optimistic than the actual boarding time, presumably to minimize the number of people boarding late. Smart.
• The planes themselves are brand new. Black carpet on the floor, white walls, and violet blue mood lighting instead of the usual white industrial fluorescent gothic. It's probably just gels over the same ol' tubes, but it does look very nice.
• Transparent violet dividers. Pleasant and "modern".
• Seat backs are hard white shiny plastic. They remind me of Kubrick's "2001" space sets. They seem to get marked up and scratched easily, but when the mood lighting is on they pick up the purple nicely.
• Seats are pretty close together, on par with any other old airline. Definitely not as nicely spaced as JetBlue or Alaska.
• Seatbacks feature Virgin's special entertainment system, called "RED". Has TV channels, "premium" (i.e. you pay) TV, movies (you pay)...and some other fun stuff - built-in video games (which I've seen people of all ages play), seat-to-seat IM (this will never get used!), and a built-in live Google Map that shows where you are, how fast you're going, etc.
• RED also features the food-and-drink ordering system. Touch what you want, swipe your credit card (cash is not accepted, only credit cards), and they bring it right to your seat. When you want. This is very nice.
• Only problem is that RED is flaky. It worked great on this flight, but on later flights it was either not working at all or had particular failures and required several "resets" per seat.
• Seats are (probably fake) leather. Black for coach, white for first class. First class looks very cushy.
• Safety presentation is by video rather than attendant. It's reasonably entertaining, which is to say it is like Chapelle's Show compared to the normal presentations. A bit of humor, all done with animation.
• Prices are quite affordable.

Recommended.

My latest favorite book

I just finished Austin Grossman's book "Soon I Will Be Invincible". Very entertaining. Loved every minute of it.

Review: Ultimate Ears

I don't shill. Never have, never will. I only suggest things to my cohort if I actually like and use them. So I'll start documenting some of those things here.

First off: Ultimate Ears Super.Fi headphones. I got a pair of these for free several months ago, and I love them. These are in-ear headphones - they actually slide into your ear canal - with silicone rubber earpieces. They are very small, and provide very good isolation.

Those last two points are critical for me - I've been doing a lot of traveling and this has typically meant lugging 2 pair of additional headphones. One "noise-cancelling" set for the plane rides, one "normal" set of Sony StreetStyle cans for regular walking around (the noise-cancelling 'phones are enormous, not that good, and require their own battery!).

The Ultimate Ears have replaced everything. They fit in a tiny metal box not much bigger than an Altoids case. Their isolation is so good that they remove the need for any noise cancelling. And because the drivers are so close to your ear, they don't suck up a ton of power.

They also sound really, really good, if a bit bass-shy. There are fancier versions one can purchase that have better bass response, but hey, these were free, and a little "custom EQ" on the ol' MP3 player fixes that right up. They are some of the clearest headphones I've ever used, and in my 20+ years of making music, I've tried a lot.

They're also not entirely suitable for working out, as the fit is so tight that foot impacts cause conduction noise - the vibration from your feet/body shakes the earpiece which shakes the air in your ear canal. It's not awful, but I'll stick to my "workout" headphones.

Note also that some people really hate the feeling of having things stuck in their ear canal, and it takes some experimentation to find out which of the 4 types of plugs they ship the headphones with work best for you.

Regardless, I liked these so much, I gave sets as gifts last Christmas.

Highly recommended.