Ah, Doofy, not all At&t services are built the same. I'll bet you weren't affected by the general loss of service a month a ago?
Anyway, I've discovered a short term fix: within seconds of knowing that a dl might time out (the dl time start out high, and keeps getting higher), select "click here," then cancel the download. A new one should start that will finish in seconds. If necessary, repeat.
I know some of these have probably been mentioned before, but my recent downloads have included: Blur, Doves, Dungen, Miss Kittin, The Free Design, Crystal Castles, Parliament, Amy Winehouse, Jawbox, Nick Drake, and School of Seven Bells. Finally having consistent success downloading again so I'm going through some of P4K's other best decade lists along with all of the ECM lists GP has mentioned.
That reminds, I also grabbed Steve Reich's Music for 18 Musicians which is one 56 minute track.
Oh, and I found a copy of Jarrett's Köln Concert on vinyl for 2 bucks. But that doesn't help any of you...
@BT (upthread, Feb 10), I listened to most of three albums by Stephan Micus (Bold as Light, The Music of Stones, Darkness and Light) and even though it sounds like the kind of thing that I should in principle like a lot I've not really connected with it yet. I see from reading reviews that folk have to defend it from the charge of being "new age", and I can see that; even though if "new age" means "crappy fluff" I am sure the defense is warranted, I do think that if "new age" points to some genre features including use of flute-like instruments in a manner suggestive of meditation exercises then that may be part of the barrier here for me, as that particular vein tends not to appeal to me, much as I like meditative music. The Stones album was perhaps the most interesting when droning.
Does anybody here listen to/know much about new age? In the discussion about hip-hop, the "I listen to everything but hip hop" and "... everything but country" were mentioned; I think for me it would be everything but new age, but I'm willing to try something if there are any good pointers.
Methinks that New Age often gets booked together with various types of environmental music because it is often associated with mediation. I had hoped that Micus might appeal to you because it is more conceptual.
As for appreciating New Age, I have few answers. I downloaded some 70s and 80s Vangelis that I find very interesting. I tried out other albums, which were highly rated by Allmusic, but I was generally disappointed by them. Like GP, there are lots of elements that I should appreciated--elements of world music, keyboard textures, drones, etc.--but it never comes together. On the one hand, I never find it to be either as expressive or adventurous as I would like. On the other, I can't separate it from its functionality. Overall, I feel like I am listening to something once or twice removed from a great album rather than a great album itself. I like some of the Micus albums because he makes use of interesting instruments.
ETA: When it came to Hip Hop, I know that I can find something authentic even if I don't like it. New Age, be comparison, seems contrived at its roots, processing the authentic experience rather than representing.
@amclark2 I like the defunct Australian band "Single Gun Theory". Dancy and full of samples that work for me. I find three tracks up on Guvera, but I like listening through the full albums.
As much as the term "new age" can invoke the heebie jeebies, there is a baby in that bath water. I have some Windham Hill stuff from way back that was pretty good, a lot of it being acoustic guitarists who got tarred with the new age brush because there wasn't an appropriate "acoustic" brush at the time. Winter Solstice was a good album. The Antarctica soundtrack by Vangelis was so good you could feel cold listening to it (if you have any fondness for dogs do not ever watch the movie BTW). Finally I had a cassette copy of Sea And Sky by Stomu Yamashta which was a great album - haven't had any luck replacing it though.
@BT, yes, the conceptual side of Micus did appeal - for that reason alone I badly wanted to love the Music of Stones album and will probably give it another listen. @amc2, one thing that complicates your question is that the term "new age" can function either as a genre identifier or as a term of abuse, as BDB says a brush to tar with, so that reviews of serious albums that in terms of genre markers might plausible be said to be "new age" feel a regular need to show why they are not really new age but actually jazz, ambient, drone, etc. So it depends whether you want new age or music accused of being new age that allegedly isn't. That has had the result that any albums I might have that might count as new age I probably don't think of under that rubric. The list of nominees hereis interesting. (Example of what I just said: I have a lot of Jean Michel Jarre music, but I think of him as a pioneer of electronic music, not as new age, and of his work it would never have occurred to me that Rendez-vous was a new age album - it's hardly restful.) People in the "best of ECM" discussions seem to rate David Darling.
Further re new age, it turns out I have music by very, very few of the artists listed here as new age artists. I'm slightly surprised, I thought there might be more overlap with what I generously call "ambient", though I do tend to shy away from the glossier kinds of ambient.
However, if you want to try a track that probably does belong under new age, is by an artist on that list, that I think is gorgeous, and that can be streamed for free, try Sounds of the Seen Part 1 and Part 2 by Erik Wollo.
@GP, that Grammy article is interesting. I see that the Windham Hill A Winter Solstice I mentioned was one of the nominees the first year. I got the CD (long box, remember them?) for $5.99 from a cutout bin at The Wiz and thought that was way cool at the time. There are people like Ottmar Liebert, the phenomenal guitarist, who get called new age but he's not really - if anything new flamenco would be closer to accurate - and Michael Hedges doesn't deserve to be called new age either. Also take Kitaro, whom I consider to be a serious musician, getting lumped in with John Tesh, whom I do not, I'm sorry, take seriously and would be the quintessential representative of all the negative things "new age" might connote (coming in ahead of Yanni by a nose).
As for the New Age Artists list, what have acoustic guitarists and some Celtic performers done to deserve relegation to this musical purgatory?
Finally, the New Age artist that encompasses all the best things about the genre for me is Loreena McKennit.
Edit - Well, dang me, I thought I was just making up "new flamenco", but it appears such is not the case. I don't know most of these artists off hand, but Ottmar Liebert, and Strunz and Farah are big favorites of mine.
Found some more Oscar Peterson Trio goodness, and G.'s got all the tracks including the 13:52 Album Only Daisy's Dream - must give props to eMu for finding this in the Trio section there (and the picture) -
Also saw this one at G. - all the tracks are there as well -
I have been getting download failures lately - I don't lose credits because you can open the "click here" link in another tab and keep trying till it works. But it is a pain.
BT, what's your retry schedule? Mine will repeatedly fail for several minutes, but come back in a little while and they start up again. However, if you're in a "all" situation, I guess it is something particular with you, unfortunately.
Karg: I don't have a good grasp of what times I'm failing or succeeding. It got one through today, but turned my attention to other things. Later, more failure. Yesterday, I dld five before I couldn't anymore. I might have some issue with the router/modem, but I don't think it is persistent.
Let me add that I tend to get problems when there are other users (like when my son is using his kindle to watch videos or has left one computer on without my knowledge). I also avoid downloading between 9 and 11 am. These problems are more persistent. I don't get better results with Firefox.
I have not had download failures for a while. I used to get them when trying to download while other people in the family were using the Internet. It seems to require a reasonably generous bandwidth, otherwise it gives up. As long as I have made sure there is no other traffic I have tended not to have issues.
Ditto on occasional probs that seem possibly related to heavy traffic on the home network. My impression is that Guvera fails are generally due to problems on my end, not theirs. DL typically completes OK when I retry later (including occasional times when the DL seems to complete but the track is cut short).
Are you using AVG by any chance? After a recent AVG update, I have to disable it entirely to be able to download anything - it's sucking up all the CPU resources.
That's interesting amc, as I also use AVG, and I have wondered if it is making a difference, especially early after I have turned the computer on.Sometimes just getting onto a website takes ages in those circumstances.
That notice has been up all night. Maybe another content drop?
It does seem like they have a weird timeout problem - something that is more dependent on the user's end rather than theirs. If you guys are having problems with AVG I'll toss out a recommendation for Avast as a free alternative. I switch back to it after a couple years with MS Security Essentials and haven't had any problems.
My older XP machine (which I don't use for Guvera DLs) has been running slower lately, wonder if AVG could be the issue? Yet the other XP computer (running AVG) has been fine, including Guv.
I forgot about MSE - ! Tried to use that for a while, gratefully went back to AVG.
Last Sunday's downtime was just downtime, ddanmar said. I was able to add credits at one point this morning.
I'm not sure that either failures to initialize or timeouts can be attributed to any one factor. dddanmar explained that that interruptions can cause failure to initialize: the system can be touchy. I think such failures could be common on a particularly noisy network. However, it seems that changes made at the other end can make a huge difference as well. During the first weeks of February I had excellent luck. I never lost a dl, and it seemed that the system was going out of its way to initialize each download. All that happened after a lot of labels (I believe all IODA) were reintroduced. I feel that the two aren't coincidental: there must have been a repair that allowed older content to be brought back.
If the dl is threatening to timeout--literally take more time to dl than what is allowed--try my trick. Immediately, when you know it will take minutes, not seconds, press click here. Then stop the current download. After that, a new one should start up that will complete in seconds. If not, try again. So long as it will initialize, keep trying.
I see there's a daunting quantity of Dave Brubeck albums on GUvera. Any advice as to where to start for the person who only owns Take 5 (and just now bought "The Complete 50s Concerts" compilation from Amazon)?
Comments
Anyway, I've discovered a short term fix: within seconds of knowing that a dl might time out (the dl time start out high, and keeps getting higher), select "click here," then cancel the download. A new one should start that will finish in seconds. If necessary, repeat.
That reminds, I also grabbed Steve Reich's Music for 18 Musicians which is one 56 minute track.
Oh, and I found a copy of Jarrett's Köln Concert on vinyl for 2 bucks. But that doesn't help any of you...
As for appreciating New Age, I have few answers. I downloaded some 70s and 80s Vangelis that I find very interesting. I tried out other albums, which were highly rated by Allmusic, but I was generally disappointed by them. Like GP, there are lots of elements that I should appreciated--elements of world music, keyboard textures, drones, etc.--but it never comes together. On the one hand, I never find it to be either as expressive or adventurous as I would like. On the other, I can't separate it from its functionality. Overall, I feel like I am listening to something once or twice removed from a great album rather than a great album itself. I like some of the Micus albums because he makes use of interesting instruments.
ETA: When it came to Hip Hop, I know that I can find something authentic even if I don't like it. New Age, be comparison, seems contrived at its roots, processing the authentic experience rather than representing.
However, if you want to try a track that probably does belong under new age, is by an artist on that list, that I think is gorgeous, and that can be streamed for free, try Sounds of the Seen Part 1 and Part 2 by Erik Wollo.
As for the New Age Artists list, what have acoustic guitarists and some Celtic performers done to deserve relegation to this musical purgatory?
Finally, the New Age artist that encompasses all the best things about the genre for me is Loreena McKennit.
Edit - Well, dang me, I thought I was just making up "new flamenco", but it appears such is not the case. I don't know most of these artists off hand, but Ottmar Liebert, and Strunz and Farah are big favorites of mine.
Also saw this one at G. - all the tracks are there as well -
("We Insist" is not there, btw)
It does seem like they have a weird timeout problem - something that is more dependent on the user's end rather than theirs. If you guys are having problems with AVG I'll toss out a recommendation for Avast as a free alternative. I switch back to it after a couple years with MS Security Essentials and haven't had any problems.
I forgot about MSE - ! Tried to use that for a while, gratefully went back to AVG.
Last Sunday's downtime was just downtime, ddanmar said. I was able to add credits at one point this morning.
I'm not sure that either failures to initialize or timeouts can be attributed to any one factor. dddanmar explained that that interruptions can cause failure to initialize: the system can be touchy. I think such failures could be common on a particularly noisy network. However, it seems that changes made at the other end can make a huge difference as well. During the first weeks of February I had excellent luck. I never lost a dl, and it seemed that the system was going out of its way to initialize each download. All that happened after a lot of labels (I believe all IODA) were reintroduced. I feel that the two aren't coincidental: there must have been a repair that allowed older content to be brought back.
If the dl is threatening to timeout--literally take more time to dl than what is allowed--try my trick. Immediately, when you know it will take minutes, not seconds, press click here. Then stop the current download. After that, a new one should start up that will complete in seconds. If not, try again. So long as it will initialize, keep trying.