Mike Mettler

The acquisition of Bandcamp by Epic Games could lead to some quite intriguing, game-embedded music-streaming opps that could further enhance the already large appeal of the Fortnite franchise and its Soundwave Series.

I hesitate using trendy acronyms when writing reviews — but in this case, saying I had a clear-cut case of FOMO when Eric Clapton’s slightly misnamed 24 Nights 2 CD clamshell collection first came out in October 1991 actually might be an understatement. The 15 tracks on that release — five culled from E.C.’s 18-night 1990 Royal Albert Hall residency in London, and the remainder from his 24-night 1991 stretch there — seemed more like a tease. Hence, I resigned myself to being somewhat content at the time. But now, E.C.’s 1990-91 live largesse at “The Hall” has gotten considerably fuller on The Definitive 24 Nights.

Spoiler alert: Rush’s February 1981 masterpiece, Moving Pictures, is my personal No. 1 favorite album of all time, so I was very much looking forward to hearing the entire album in its full glory in Atmos. Interestingly, stellar Atmos mixes of two great Pictures tracks, “Tom Sawyer” and “Limelight,” were released last year on Apple Music in anticipation of celebrating the album’s 40th anniversary, but the balance of its seven tracks were held back until now, mostly due to supply-chain issues in order to align with the physical release of the Moving Pictures Super Deluxe Edition box set that finally came to market earlier this month—a mondo-disc collection that features a 24-bit/96kHz Atmos mix of the entire album on its included Blu-ray.

A year into the pandemic, the improved quality of livestream concerts is helping to bridge the gap between artists and their socially distanced fans.