Pound-for-pound, Vogue by Madonna is one of the most remarkable examples of artificial stereophonic sound ever produced.
As a lover of hi-fi, Madonna wasn't really on my radar until someone steered me toward this gem. After about 50 listens and some really interesting research on QSound (the tech used to produce it), I ended up featuring it in my hi-fi music recommendation newsletter.
I don't know, I always thought it sounded simplistic, cheap and dated, even at the time. Placing stuff in the stereo field has been bog standard music production since the 70s. Q sound adds a _little_ bit to it, but somewhat importantly if you are actually listening to this song in a dance club it's all completely lost, a lot of clubs don't have any kind of stereo separation.
Just compare it to stuff that was coming out of the acid house scene at the same time (yes i know this song isn't really acid house -- but it does have a lot of fun stereo effects):
Some cool stereo effects, but not something I'd ever want to listen to. I don't see anything interesting about putting nature sounds and a Pink Floyd sample over a very repetitive electronic loop. Maybe I didn't get far enough, since it's 20 goddamn minutes long. To me, Vogue is ear candy. De gustibus!
A lot of stereo/3d stuff translates differently to each listener. Q sound might not work for you the way it does for others (none of the 3d sound stuff seems to work for me).
Yeah I agree as an electronic music fan the idea that this track is particularly special in terms of digital stereo even at that time seems weird to me.
As a lover of hi-fi, Madonna wasn't really on my radar until someone steered me toward this gem. After about 50 listens and some really interesting research on QSound (the tech used to produce it), I ended up featuring it in my hi-fi music recommendation newsletter.