Another reason for compression today is that CD has a much greater dynamic range than LP. So quiet passages can easily drop through the noise floor of a typical room when the loudest passages are set to comfortable levels. Without some compression, it just can’t be heard. It’s difficult to experience a full 96db of dynamic range in a typical residential house without either blowing the walls off or having a soundproof, quieted room.
That said, it does seem that today’s recording engineers are going overboard on the compression thing.
I’d never heard of the Kaiser Chiefs until I heard them open for Weezer and Foo Fighters last October. My husband and I looked at each other and went, “They’re fucking great.” We liked them way better than Foo Fighters, who we walked out on. (We came to see Weezer anyway.)
This technique absolutely destroyed the sound of Rush’s Vapor Trails CD. Instead of the intricate layering of multi-tracked instruments we Rush fans have grown accustomed to, VT sounds like a solid wall of mush.
So true. In fact, the concurrent Oldies thread provides some great examples of horrifically dreadful schlock that (unbelievably) some folks think deserves more airplay now. There are actually posters demanding to hear things like:
I’ll Have To Say I Love You In A Song, Jim Croce
Harper Valley P.T.A., Jeannie C. Riley
The Night Chicago Died, Paper Lace
Rock Me Gently, Andy Kim
Billy Don’t Be A Hero, Bo Donaldson and The Heywoods
Rock The Boat, Hues Corporation
Oh Babe What Would You Say- Hurricane Smith
I Like Dreamin’- Kenny Nolan
Eres Tu- Mocedades
Last Song- Edward Bear
Just looking over this list, I’d have to say that current popular music is overall better than what was available in the '70s by a factor well off the logarithmic scale.
That’s why I love the Alternative Rock station of Launch. They really do play quite a bit of new music. That’s what I listen to most of the time. I ran over the MSN Music and bought “Oh My God” the first time I heard that song several months ago. By the time our local FM station plays “new music,” it’s already old to my ears.
(Plus, I don’t have to hear bleepbleep all the time. Right now Buckcherry’s “Crazy Bitch” is playing on my station, and I can actually hear “Hey, you’re a crazy bitch, but you fuck so good…” and not “…but you [blank] so good…”)
I love new music. I get tired of songs easily, so I suspect I’ll always listen to the latest tunes.
I’m going to be a bit provocative here. I know I know it may be just an age thing (44),
I know I know about Sturgeon’s Law and how it applies here, but I have to say it
anyway:
Today’s music DOES suck harder.
And the main reason: it’s all been done before folks. You could pick a date when
all rock music forms ended up all played out (mine would be 1981), but that year was
quite awhile ago in any event. It simply is going to sound fresher, cleaner, and
less self-conscious the first time than it will on the umpteenth time.
Sure I can find some stuff sniffing around the margins. I recently found a new band,
The Engineers, playing some psychedelic-tinged “heavy” folk rock, and they’re
pretty good, but it was better when Ride was doing it 15 years ago, and The Church
25 years ago, and so on. It’s impossible to swim uphill against the grain of history.
Best stuff today typically cross-pollinates several genres (such as my current fave,
Porcupine Tree), but I’m still not going to pretend they are doing something new
that hasn’t been done before, because it has.
Other bands (some good some bad) seem to attempt to devise a new harmonic
scale or something, avoiding any note sequences which smack of melodies and
grooves already done before, either by them or someone else. The results usually
aren’t very interesting or gripping, because there’s only a finite number of notes/
beats which will sound pleasing to the human ear/mind, most of which have…well
you know.
Exhibit A is the melody for REM’s Everybody Hurts, which dates back several
decades before AFTP, and which I keep hearing on new songs once every
half-dozen years or so.
This thread is WAY out of my ken, because you might as well be talking about African Pygmy music for all I can relate, but if any lurker reading wants to hear (what I think is) really good music, from various genres, that pays little attention to fads or fashion or trends, bookmark this for if/when you get tired of cock rock (meant with much affection, from someone who used to be a Black Sabbath and James Gang fan).
I wouldn’t say all of commercial radio sucks. But if you’re not happy with what they’re giving you, make a little effort to find somethiing that you will like. It’s out there. Modern music most definitely does not suck.
Doing a little research is much better than the heard-every-generation complaint about modern music.
Go to Amazon or something else that has free clips, and listen to a little of the following three groups. Then tell me who from before 1981 had already done what these groups each are doing today.
I don’t take the three groups to be in themselves utterly unique or new. But I doubt your claim that whatever they’re doing was already being done before the year 1981.
The groups are:
Bishop Allen
Sufjan Stevens (actually that’s not a group but the name of an artist)
Postal Service
If you can tell me about some groups that are doing the same kind of stuff as any of these three, who existed before 1981, I’d be thrilled to find out about them.
You will, of course, be able to name styles of music from pre-1981 which have surely influenced these three groups. (A friend of mine listened to one from Bishop Allen, and said ‘sounds like some Ska influence?’ My reply: “It’s just a couple of years old. It’s everything-influenced.” This sort of plays into your point, but I don’t think being “everything-influenced” is the same as being such that whatever you’re doing has already been done. To be influenced by something is not to simply repeat it.) But I’m wondering about groups or artists which it would be fair to say directly anticipate any of these groups, doing the same as what these groups do 25 years ago or more.
Please tell me about all the wonderful Grime from the mid '70s. Can you inform me what your favorite early '80s Hyphy records were? And, just for kicks, what late '60s Reggaeton really rocked your world?
I’m going to be a bit provocative here, and it may just be due to you being 44, but just because you don’t care about music that’s doing anything new doesn’t mean that nobody’s doing anything new with music.
Or did old folks tell you music in the '60s sucked because they couldn’t hear anyone taking Big Band in new exciting directions?
Do they still play videos on MTV after about 9am? Since the 90s it seems like one long episode of The Real World vs Road Rules.
I have to agree that the music today, while not “sucking” per se, seems to be lacking something that the music of the 60s and 70s had. Recently, I’ve been updating my MP3 collection with a lot of 60s and 70s stuff:
-AC/DC
-The Beattles
-Billy Joel
-Boston
-The Clash
-The Doors
-Elton John
-Jimi Hendrix
-Led Zeppelin
-The Police
-The Ramones
-Rush
-Van Halen
and so on.
One thing I noticed is that rock music back then actually ROCKED. It doesn’t really rock so much these days. It’s all melancholy commercialized post-grunge alt-rock bands complaining about their girl leaving them.
The other things is that I’m not so sure about the longevity of today’s music. In 30-40 years will anyone remember Hoobastank or Staind?
Y’all sound like Ol’ Blue Eyes. Senior citizens, I’m sorry the Who has been replaced by SUVs and PTA meetings. But y’all need to find somewhere else to take your midlife crisis. Buy a PT Cruiser, and blast your Bread in that, OK?