What are your top 3 "go-to" surround music demo tracks?

[blitztorte]

When demoing 'hi-rez' to someone, I generally (when time permits) start with a 2 channel release, then move on to 5.1, and then ATMOS. The songs should be recognizable and enjoyable to the listener. A sample session may be:

Peter, Paul & Mary: In The Wind (perhaps Blowin' In the Wind or Don't Think Twice...)
Talking Heads: Speaking in Tongues (Burning Down the House, alternate version for something different)
Beatles: Abbey Road (Come Together)

Great idea!

 

[CPR]

Aqualung/Blu-Ray, & Cross Eyed Mary
Us & Them/Parsons 4.0
Donald Fagen/Maxine/DVD/A
Honorable Mention: Funeral For a Friend/LLB/DVD/A
Money For Nothing, Walk of Life/DVD/A

 

[JonUrban]

Babylon Sisters (5.1) - The opening 30 seconds are a 100% guarantied to impress, a sonic masterpiece
Us and Them (4.0) - A deeper track than Money, but the revolving vocals show how effective non-sound effects can work in a tune
Funeral for a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding - The Funeral for a Friend part is another 'grab them by the yarbles' surround demo
-----------------------------------------------------------
Burning Down the House - Alternate Version - A must have demo track that's not ancient
Cousin Dupree - How about a kiss?

 

[CPR]

LOVE Cousin Dupree; CLASSIC
Babylon Sisters is also GREAT in DTS!
Us & Them never ceases to amaze people sitting in my Acura/TLX/A-SPEC/ELS
It was converted for me to DTS for the car

 

[skherbeck]

Babylon Sisters (5.1) - The opening 30 seconds are a 100% guarantied to impress, a sonic masterpiece
Us and Them (4.0) - A deeper track than Money, but the revolving vocals show how effective non-sound effects can work in a tune
Funeral for a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding - The Funeral for a Friend part is another 'grab them by the yarbles' surround demo
-----------------------------------------------------------
Burning Down the House - Alternate Version - A must have demo track that's not ancient
Cousin Dupree - How about a kiss?

How about that ending on the track "Terra Nova" on JT? (you mentioned this somewhere else around here a while back)... The other night I created a cool surround track by splicing the ending of "Terra Nova" to "Traffic Jam"... I bumped up the levels on the Carly section, as well as bumping up the rears and fronts on "Traffic Jam" relative to the center lead vocal, and ended up with a really nice surround demo track (the vocal harmonies on "Traffic Jam" really shine, so I figured why not turn them up a bit )

 

[IMachine]

1) Chicago - Aire 4.0
2) Elton John - Come Down In Time (when the strings come in....a wave of sound)
3) Steely Dan - Babylon Sisters
Bonus: Talking Heads - The Great Curve

For Atmos: Kraftwerk!

 

[IMachine]

When demoing 'hi-rez' to someone, I generally (when time permits) start with a 2 channel release, then move on to 5.1, and then ATMOS.

Thats also my way to do....from 2 to Atmos!

 

[Sal1950]

For immersive
Auro3D. The BBB Featuring Bernie Dresel - Bern, Bern, Bern. Incredible use of the codec even though my ceiling speakers are in Atmos configuration.
Atmos. Kraftwerk
5.1 Just about any Steven Wilson mastering.

 

[scottm18]

Just off the top of my head...

Donald Fagen "Goodbye Look". (Awesome maramba shakers in the back channels)

The Band "The Weight" concert version on Last Waltz (Staples Sisters & singing all four corners of the room!)

Deep Purple "Lazy". (Who would expect the subwoofer track to rattle your house?)

Elton John "Honky Cat" (the whole freaking album!). In particular the title track, Rocket Man, and the absolutely gorgeous Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters. IMHO, this is the best sounding disc of the remastered series by a wide margin.

Grover Washington "Just the Two of Us" (rare full version with the awesome tropical percussion in the rears)

America "Moon Song" (Wait... who would have thought one of the best surround/subwoofer tracks would come from...America?)

ELP. Incredible recording and surround masterwork of "Lucky Man" and "Still, You Turn Me On".

 

[markshan]

I won't say Money since so many already have. Beck - Golden Age was also said and is another I go to regularly.

Dire Straits - Ride Across the River (amazing separation which actually seems to advance the lyric).
Steely Dan - Babylon Sisters (a great one to play for people who are unfamiliar with surround audio as the layers come up in intervals, first fronts, then rears, then center, it wakes up the mind to what surround does).
Flaming Lips - Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots (the most aggressive surround mix I have ever heard and demonstrates the outer limits of the technology).

 

[markshan]

Honorable mention to Lyle Lovett - Church (just because the choir really does seem to come from a loft above you, it's almost magical how they did that in 5.1 and again the effect really enhances the lyric).

I don't expect it to ever happen, but I would love for them to reissue this one on Blu, just to see how much improvement can be realized compared to the already spectacular sounding DTS disc.

 

[soesbeout]

1. Gold Dust Woman Fleetwood Mac Rumors 5.1
2. Cross Eyed Mary Jethro Tull 4.0
3. Money Pink Floyd AP mix. 4.1

 

[J. PUPSTER]

too many good ones to choose from...

 

[HomerJAU]

I could swear we had a thread on this same subject years ago. I couldn't find it doing a search

There is a few threads here. When I first joined QQ I made a m3u playlist of all the tracks mentioned (if I had them). I’ve added more since. That playlist has well over 50 tracks, in fact I now have another QQ Best Quad tracks playlist as well.

I play different demo tracks from those depending on the audience.

My personal favourites are:
Talking Heads: Burning Down the House (5.1 Alt Version) - this is long, not to be played unless music fans are involved, otherwise the audience loses interest and want to move on.

David Essex: Rock On (Quad) - My 24yo daughter has heard this one so many times it’s on her iPhone (stereo) and she plays it to her friends ha ha

Doobie Brothers: Black Water (Quad)

Pink Floyd: Any Colour You Like (Quad)

I never play PF’s Money. It’s just too gimmicky with the sound effects.

Music Video in DTS:X
Nigel Stanford: Cymatics (7.2.4 with grinding bass. Very discrete sound and awesome video)

EDIT: I found these threads with Best Songs:
https://www.quadraphonicquad.com/forums/threads/the-5-song-surround-demo-playlist.21051/https://www.quadraphonicquad.com/fo...adraphonic-mixes-and-5-1-too-songs-only.2045/https://www.quadraphonicquad.com/forums/threads/quad-go-to-songs.15659/

 

[Doug G.]

"St. Thomas, Everybody" - CD-4

Doors "Moonlight Drive" - CD-4

Carly - "You're So Vain" - CD-4

Honorable mention - Gordon Lightfoot - "High and Dry" - CD-4

 

[efb18]

DIfficult. I agree with these already named:

Talking Heads - the Great Curve
Queen - The Prophet Song
Kraftwerk - Autobahn
Flaming Lips - Yoshimi
King Crimson - Frame by Frame

Back in the day, these tracks were also among the ones that really cemented my excitement for 5.1:
Frank Zappa - Chunga Basement
Porcupine Tree - Gravity Eyelids
Depeche Mode - Clean
Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds - Stagger Lee

These days everything Wilson is pretty much guaranteed to be fantastic. I'll pick the tracks "Drag Ropes" from the Storm Corrosion album, and "New Europeans" from Ultravox' "Vienna," but really the quality of his mixes is so high that really anything would do. For as far as I've heard them, anyway.

To me, the "cream of the crop" are the albums "Oedipus Tyrannus" by Tangerine Dream and "async" by Ryuichi Sakamoto (in their entirety). These are as good as it gets IMO.

Yeah, that's more than three. BUT YOU'RE NOT THE BOSS OF ME

 

[mongojr]

Mannheim Steamroller : Carol of the Bells
Eagles : Hotel California
Genesis : Entangled

H.M :
Steve Miller Band : Fly Like an Eagle
Pink Floyd : Us & Them
Billy Joel : Scenes from an Italian Restaurant
Elton John : Holiday Inn
Queen : Bohemian Rhapsody
Santana : Savor/Jingo
Chicago : Saturday in the Park

 

[--Moe--]

Wow, two posts in a row citing two of my favorite songs, from two of my favorite albums:

Porcupine Tree - Gravity Eyelids
Genesis : Entangled

 

[hirez]

I really don't demo to people anymore but if I did I would play in order
1) Paramarbio, Chet Atkins:; DV SACD absoulety superb and look up Paramaribo, interesting!
2) Atom Heart Mother, Pink Floyd, Blu-ray, fantastic surround, and basically instrumental.
3) Tomita: Golliwogg's Cakewalk, from Clarie De Lune, Denon; I remember my very young children, in the 1970's, hrunning from speaker to speaker when playing the cd-4 disc and I love the memories and the surround effects which are great.

 

[Mark Anderson]

1. Marooned (Video) from the Pink Floyd-The Division Bell (Bluray) box set. Great visuals and 5.1 surround
2. Elton John-Rocket Man SACD
3. ELP-Still... You Turn me On 2014 DVD-A

These are great for firing up my faux wide channels and 3 back channels using Kenwood receivers with circle surround to drive them