Why Do Critics Single Out Mid/Late 1980s Music Production? (techno, album)

[svband76]

I'm thinking songs like Phil Collins' "Sussudio", Paul McCartney's album "Press" (Hugh Padgham), anything by Chicago during that time period..(David Foster)..

I get the criticism, but never understood why the singling out of hatred and despise of the mid to late 1980s music recording techniques and not other decades? I'm sure someone has done a dissertation. Any random thoughts?

Thanks.

[ApartmentNomad]

It sounds especially crude and exaggerated to many of us (not that I am a critic). It's as if people were just learning to use new digital recording technologies and hadn't yet figured out how to not make it sound like crap.

[mickey mouse is dead]

Was it only the production? Because I think many musicians became infatuated with synthz, and electronic drums, and syhthetizer guitar pedals....ugh!

[Gungnir]

Originally Posted by zalewskimm

I'm thinking songs like Phil Collins' "Sussudio", Paul McCartney's album "Press" (Hugh Padgham), anything by Chicago during that time period..(David Foster)..

I get the criticism, but never understood why the singling out of hatred and despise of the mid to late 1980s music recording techniques and not other decades? I'm sure someone has done a dissertation. Any random thoughts?

Thanks.

Over compressed is basically it, there's little dynamics, everything is right there in your face, or it's missing. Especially in vocals (see Jennifer Rush "The Power of Love", everything is exactly the same volume there's no natural dynamics), but everywhere else too, there's Console EQ Compression, master bus compression, its compression everywhere.

Then there was oversaturation of Mike's, digital and gated reverbs, gating the tail of drum beats to stop natural decay and make them snappy (Sussudio does this exact thing), and reverbing snare for more sizzle. Then harmonizers were also used to double or more track various instruments and vocals, often the same exact track with a millisecond or two offset to add width or depth. In effect making analog sound digital.

I think the hatred is just Sound Engineers collectively lost their damn minds when digital toys appeared that they played with incessantly.

[svband76]

Originally Posted by Gungnir

Over compressed is basically it, there's little dynamics, everything is right there in your face, or it's missing. Especially in vocals (see Jennifer Rush "The Power of Love", everything is exactly the same volume there's no natural dynamics), but everywhere else too, there's Console EQ Compression, master bus compression, its compression everywhere.

Then there was oversaturation of Mike's, digital and gated reverbs, gating the tail of drum beats to stop natural decay and make them snappy (Sussudio does this exact thing), and reverbing snare for more sizzle. Then harmonizers were also used to double or more track various instruments and vocals, often the same exact track with a millisecond or two offset to add width or depth. In effect making analog sound digital.

I think the hatred is just Sound Engineers collectively lost their damn minds when digital toys appeared that they played with incessantly.

Thanks for this by the way. Informative

[GTB365]

Originally Posted by Gungnir

Over compressed is basically it, there's little dynamics, everything is right there in your face, or it's missing. Especially in vocals (see Jennifer Rush "The Power of Love", everything is exactly the same volume there's no natural dynamics), but everywhere else too, there's Console EQ Compression, master bus compression, its compression everywhere.

Then there was oversaturation of Mike's, digital and gated reverbs, gating the tail of drum beats to stop natural decay and make them snappy (Sussudio does this exact thing), and reverbing snare for more sizzle. Then harmonizers were also used to double or more track various instruments and vocals, often the same exact track with a millisecond or two offset to add width or depth. In effect making analog sound digital.

I think the hatred is just Sound Engineers collectively lost their damn minds when digital toys appeared that they played with incessantly.

And drums ....the drumming was dumbed down....
much more heavy use of drum machines playing a steady emphasized simple beat
on many songs....few of those nice drum fills we heard in the 70s
no Keith Moon style drumming ..that's for sure