BLOG: The Fav Album Of…. – Headfonia Lieven

In this weekly series of articles you will discover what are the business insider’s favorite albums and tracks. We have contacted a broad selection of industry experts and each Wednesday you can discover one of those guy’s favorite albums and why this is so. Check out our previous “Favorite album of” articles here: https://www.headfonia.com/category/fav-album-of/

This week’s honor goes to Lieven from Headfonia.com. Yep, me myself and I. This (for now) is the last article in this series, I’ve enjoyed making them but getting all the companies to fill out the forms has been quite time consuming. A lot of them still haven’t replied so I might pick this series back up some day.

 

 

 

Who am I:

My name is Lieven. I’ve been doing reviews for about 6 years on Headfonia and I took over from Mike (see last week’s post) early 2014. I’ve been running Headfonia.com ever since with the help of Nathan and recently Linus and Berkhan joined the team. Dave joined a few years ago already.

The Band
When I wake up in the morning, my first thought often is that I’ll be listening to awesome music on great gear in a few hours. I’ve always been into music since I was a kid, sitting next to my tape recorder day after day, ready to push record when that one tune came on. In my pre-teen years I was into trucker music for some reason and to this day I still know several of the trucker song lyrics. In my teen years my musical taste evolved and then when I was about 14-15yo the Grunge revolution happened. Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Sound garden The Peppers, … that was my music. In my twenties I started listening to a lot of different music and  nowadays I listen to a large variety of music, from Jazz, to EDM, to rap to metal to country. I absolutely hate pop music that was produced after the nineties. Like so many who were on this series it’s very hard to select just one band but that’s where Last.FM comes in. My account shows me that System Of A Down is the band I have listened to most since I joined the service back in October 2005. I have seen them perform only once though, as they basically left the scene after releasing both their latest albums at the same time. I have seen Serj Tankian, the band’s singer, several times at festivals though.
Why SOAD? The rhythmic changes, the a-typical voices, the lyrics, the speed, the guitar work, etc etc. System Of A Down is ferocious, this is the music I can go crazy on, this also is the music that relaxes me after a hard day of work and most importantly: it is the music that puts a smile on my face. My neighbours’ face, less so. Most of you have probably heard their most famous song “Chop Suey!” before.
The Album

My most played SOAD album is there fifth one, called “Hypnotize“. From track one to track twelve, the songs are all masterpieces. The album is a constant mix of styles, speed and aggressiveness. With Tankian’s voice, Hypnotize delivered a unique album, even more, a unique style that no other band has. It unfortunately also is System’s last studio album but there’s hope for a new one.

Hypnotize is the fifth album by Armenian American rock band System of a Down and the second half of the Mezmerize /Hypnotizedouble album. It was released on November 22, 2005, six months after the release of companion album Mezmerize. Mezmerize and Hypnotize both debuted at number #1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart making the band one of the few to achieve this with two albums in the same year. Hypnotize was System of a Down’s last studio album before their four-year hiatus from August 2006 to November 2010. ~Wikipedia

While I’m typing this I suddenly remember a video I once say on Youtube about how “elders” reacted to first hearing System Of A Down

 

The Song

My absolute favorite tune of the album is the track that shares the album name: Hypnotize

Besides the fact that this song obviously rocks, there are lots of theories on what it is about: The media controlling us. People doing things to be hip. Some say it’s about how governments manipulate people, essentially hypnotizing them into believing what they say. Make of it what you will.

Listening preference

The advantage of being a reviewer is that we get to listen to a lot of awesome gear. My favorite setup for this album still is the Audeze LCD-2.1 with the Violectric V850 DAC and the V281 amp, all in balanced mode.

When my wife is out, I tend to use my 1991 speaker system with a good old Kenwood amp and B&W 6-series speakers. 26 years after I bought it, it still plays like on day one. Recently I have been getting more in to vinyl and I bought a Pro-Ject Audio turntable together with all my fav albums on vinyl. On a me-time day, I’m pretty sure my neighbors wished they bought that other house.

Discover

If you want to check out Lieven’s favorite album, you can do so here:

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uNXY_LrOk8

TIDAL: https://tidal.com/album/1660385

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/3QxX3NbWyLlLG6lP1xveL3

Qobuz: http://play.qobuz.com/album/0827969387122

Enjoy!

Thank you all for having followed the the series. I certainly enjoyed discovering what some of my favourite “brands” like listening to.

Now up to something new….

5/5 - (24 votes)
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Lieven is living in Europe and he's the leader of the gang. He's running Headfonia as a side project next to his full time day job in Digital Marketing & Consultancy. He's a big fan of tube amps and custom inear monitors and has published hundreds of product reviews over the years.

6 Comments

  • Reply March 23, 2017

    Dave

    Man, cocaine makes me feel like I am on this review.

  • Reply March 27, 2017

    tronco

    Excellent choice! I am going to listen to this album right now!

  • Reply April 10, 2017

    Roberto

    I like so much your reviews. They are very well done and very precise. I’m afraid with the decision of break with the favorites musics section.

  • Reply April 10, 2017

    Lieven

    That’s very kind of you 🙂

  • Reply November 26, 2019

    Steven Zore

    Garbage.

  • Reply June 19, 2022

    tk

    Nice! SOAD is great at ending songs as the content is actually done, not stringing out the chorus for 8 more bars. And they often cut 4 bars down to 3 or 2 in the middle–why waste people’s time?

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