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Comment by soperj | Hacker News Reader

I've had the same thing happen with live versions. The Pixies play "Where is my mind" very differently live, the vocal lines especially. First time I heard it was jarring because of the expectation and I didn't think it was good as the recorded version. Recorded version feels much worse now.

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I hate, just hate, the album version of Kiss's God of Thunder, but they speed it up live and it sounds amazing. STP was amazing in the Fargo Civic Center which makes me think the person who mixed their album just hated life because it is noticeably inferior. On the other hand, Aerosmith has sounded like crap the two times I've seen them in concert.

It gets weird when you buy the import (for the US) versions of some songs. A lot of the Seattle bands sounded better to my ear on the versions sold in Europe. Japan is always an odd duck.

Tangential, but I've had a somewhat similar experience. Iron Maiden's "Flash of the Blade" used to be my favorite song by the band, but somehow it was not one of their biggest hits. I had it recorded on tape and would listen to it daily. When I finally had money I bought the album it was in, and couldn't not believe how bland the song sounded. Turns out the cassette player I used to play the song was speeding it up - not super noticeable on its own, but obvious if you compared it directly, and the sped up version is MUCH better.

Thinking about it, that makes a lot of sense. I listen to some of the folks on YouTube that do covers of songs. A lot of them speed up the song and it sounds better than the original. I wonder what causes that.

Is there any software that would allow the minimal speed-up to make it enjoyable to listen to again? Also, maybe check some of the live versions. I get the feeling those might be a bit faster.

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