Whenever people on the radio talk about Liz Phair, they mention that her previous album was a low fi classic.
What is low fi and why do people record albums that way?
Fidelity is a measure of signal reproduction accuracy. An amplifier that produces an output signal exactly equal to its input signal (with the exception of being amplified, of course) is said to have perfect fidelity.
Since there will always be some tiny amount of error or distortion during analog signal processing, perfect fidelity isn’t attainable. So we have to settle for “Hi Fi”.
Low Fi is short for Low Fidelity. The term is coined, since it’s not really a industry catch phrase like Hi Fi is.
Nobody would record an album with lots of distortion on purpose, so I can only guess that whoever this artist is (was?), her music is available only on vinyl with all of the accompanying scratches, pops & clicks that come with that format.
“Low fi” is a term that is used to offer credibility to a project, meaning that is lacks the sheen and over-production that has come to curse most of today’s music. Minimal production - just set up the mics, turn it up to 11, and let it rip. Kick out the jam, motherfuckers and all that.
Lo Fi involves the use of older, analogue equipment and sparse production values, in search of a more “honest” sound. Other Lo Fi artists include Pavement and Guided By Voices.
Weeeelllll, Bruce Springsteen’s “Nebraska” was a collection of demos recorded at home on a four-track cassette deck. He thought the starkness of the sound complimented the songs so much that he had it released as-is. Elvis Costello’s first was recorded inexpensively at a studio featuring a simple eight-track deck and the LOish-FI sound complimented the music’s minimalism. Recordings like this are often made as a reaction to sterile production values that place a higher premium on the sound than the songs.
GbV has gone to higher production values now, since their brief stint with the “major” record label a few years back.
I think, at least with respect to them, the lo-fi sound really works for the acoustic stuff, makes it seem nice and raw. For the louder electric stuff, it sometimes just turns into noise.
Unfortunately, most music fans aren’t used to the lo-fi sound, making it pretty hard to turn them on to bands like that. But it does make anyone with a four-track and a guitar feel like they could make it big too 