Author: Mark Pearce

Mark Pearce is the author of the YouTube Channel MarkPMus. Check it out if you're interested in Hi Fi, songwriting and music reviews. Nuggets include 2 series of ABBA Gold Anomalies / More ABBA Gold Anomalies, the Magical Musical Moments series and Hi Fi 101. You'll also find examples of the author's songwriting and photography.

Introducing The Hardline According To Terence Trent D’Arby – 30 Years On

It’s been 30 years since the man “Smash Hits” magazine christened Terence Tea-Towel released his debut album, “Introducing The Hardline According To Terence Trent D’Arby”. In order to understand this album’s significance, one has to place it in context. 1987 was a pretty depressing year as far as mainstream pop music was concerned. The charts…… Continue reading Introducing The Hardline According To Terence Trent D’Arby – 30 Years On

Music Recording – A Logic Pro X Workflow

What follows is a method of music creating using Apple’s Logic Pro X recording software, but so much of what I say here will apply to pretty much any software package, as it’s more about a philosophy, rather than “click this, then click that”. I hope this workflow will prove useful for all budding musicians, and that it entertains you more than wading your way through one of the many enormous books on the subject.

Yamaha KX-580 Cassette Deck Review

What? A cassette deck review in 2017? A little anachronistic, surely? A few weeks ago, I mentioned to AA’s own Ashley that I’d been getting a bit nostalgic for the defunct format, especially after seeing Andy Hall’s extensive collection of Beatles cassettes on his great YouTube channel. Search him, and you’ll see what I mean. I mentioned to Ashley that my favourite cassette deck had been my Yamaha KX-580 SE which I’d owned from new since 1999, and which I’d sadly sold for the price of a plate of beans on toast a few years later. I’d also thrown away a lot of tapes that I’d kept in the loft, when I made a necessary downsize in accommodation. I couldn’t quite kick the cassette habit though, and shortly after I bought a NAD 613 deck.

Cassette Tape Nostalgia (Rick Astley Nearly 30 Years On)

In the past, I’ve described the inherent sound of cassette tape as “the analogue goodness of vinyl, just less of it”. It wasn’t always so however.  Back in 1963, when Philips developed the cassette format, it was never intended to be a music medium, let alone a hi-fi one.  The cassette (and the machine to play and record on them) was compact and simple enough to make a good dictation system for the office.  There were a number of restrictions that hindered the cassette’s use for music playback.

Sade – Diamond Life – Nearly 35 Years On

It’s quite dangerous to visit your local cocktail emporium late at night, find yourself chatting to a music enthusiast, and then start hankering for an album that you couldn’t have given a toss about back in the day. The danger is exacerbated by the fact that most of us carry a veritable shopping mall in our pockets in the form of a smart device loaded with eBay.

Scouring Charity Shops For Used Vinyl

After the initial expense of buying a quality record deck, the newbie vinyl enthusiast will doubtless be wanting to build up his or her record collection quite quickly. The good news is that this needn’t be expensive. The purpose of this article is to provide a few tips for those scouring charity shops, used vinyl stores and the like, in search of hidden gems.

Phono Stages Explained

Buying a record player is not always as easy as acquiring the most expensive turntable you can afford and plugging it into an amp and speakers. In this article I will guide the prospective purchaser through the minefield of phono stages, since upgrading the phono stage can provide one of the most dramatic improvements to sound quality.

Stevie Wonder – “Songs In The Key Of Life” At (Nearly) 40!

The 3 stunners from Stevie Wonder were Talking Book, Innervisions and the culmination, Songs In The Key Of Life. Recording began in 1974 and ended up being about a year late. It was released at the end of September 1976. It was a phenomenal success, and yielded many hits and cover versions, as well as countless samples on other artists’ songs.  Now that “Songs In The Key Of Life”  is coming up to 40 years old this year, it deserves a revisit.

Remembering Prince

In this round up I’ve barely scraped the surface of Prince’s prolific output, but rather than playing the Hits compilations released by Warners when the boss felt he needed to buy another mansion with a swimming pool, look out for these albums, which show a true genius (a flawed true genius maybe) at work. Heaven must be dancing now.

Take A Chance On Me and Honey Honey – A compare, contrast of two ABBA Songs

It seems that ABBA are a band that, despite not having recorded together since 1982, simply refuse to go away. This is evident from the multi-million selling compilation, “Gold”, through CD and vinyl box-set reissues of the original albums, right up to the phenomenal success of the stage musical and film, “Mamma Mia”. This is due in no small part to the combination of the girls’ voices, but often overlooked is the song writing talent of Bjorn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson. In this article, I review, compare and contrast two songs, Honey Honey and Take A Chance On Me, and attempt to analyse the song writing devices that lift these songs out of the ordinary, and turn them into works of art.