The One Thing I Hate About Music 2000 to Present... (bands, country, cd)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Maliblue
To give the issue some context, you have to keep in mind that brickwalling a recording and killing its dynamic range is a practice most employed by the major labels (of which, consolidation has left us with only three worldwide: Universal Music Group, Sony Entertainment, and Warner Music Group, and their myriad of formerly independent subsidiary labels).
Those three labels account for about 80%-85% of all music released. On top of that, their parent companies also own many of the radio stations that play the songs and the TV stations that promote the songs. Way, way back in the day, this was called "synergy", but its end result is that every record sounds the same, a narrow range of artists are promoted and visible to the public, and more music is designed and produced by committee than ever before. If the Big 3 want everything brickwalled and drenched in autotune, then everything will be.
To compare this to what things were like in the 1960's: there were dozens of major labels back then, each with its own sound and roster specializing in certain genres. Radio was regional, and you could break through in one part of the country, even if you didn't in the rest. Artists were given time to mature; if the first couple of albums didn't hit, it was part of a growing process, and you weren't expected to start showing a big return until the third or fourth record. This helped keep music and recording techniques more diverse. TV networks could invite anyone they wanted to perform on TV; they weren't owned by same company that owns the record companies and forced to promote only artists from that label.
The brickwalling issue is really inseparable from all this consolidation; it is a symptom of a business which, while never especially artist-friendly, is set up in a way now to defeat art entirely and encourage production of unambiguous product. Sure they brickwall the music; dynamic range hardly matters to them. They want their records to sound louder on the radio than those of the other two companies.
As a consumer myself, I responded to this unconsciously by gravitating to independent labels (real ones; not the fake indie labels owned by major labels, of which there are many). I would even go out on a limb and say the most rewarding albums of all released since 1980 have been released on independent labels. Probably 90% of new music that I listen to is on indie labels, and it is not because I am some late-blooming hipster. I simply followed the music; when MTV started warping mainstream musical development in the 80's (and, yes, I trace a lot of this back to MTV, but only part of it), I looked for good, organic music, as I always have. It was still there, even if nobody knew about it and MTV didn't play it. It was all on indie labels.
Most indie labels still work the way they did in the 60's; they specialize in niches, they have a limited budget for production, and artists have more leverage to take chances and create art. They generally are averse to drenching productions in autotune or expensive studio gimmickry, and they seldom bother with brickwalling, since nobody plays the records on the radio anyway.
I point all this out, because a lot of people simply rail on "new" music, claiming it is brainless, stupid, autotuned, and recorded too loudly. For 30 years now, I would have said "Duh. What do you expect from huge corporate machines? Art?" But it really isn't a "duh" issue; a lot of people genuinely are unaware of independent music because there are few mainstream outlets that promote it. Sadly, this means the same people who want good-sounding, well-written, clever or fun music are unwittingly killing it off with neglect, while at the same time asserting it hasn't existed since the 70's. If you are looking for real musical talent, it still exists out there.
Sick of crappy, auto-tuned, brickwalled, faceless, sleazy pop product in your quest to quench your musical thirst? Check out Pandora, or Spotify, or Last.fm, or Pitchfork, or Popmatters, or Stereogum, or Youtube or go to your local bar or whatever and give a deserving indie artist a shot at life. They need your help more than ever.
At any rate, no quarrel from me about brickwalling itself; I hate it too. But the Big 3 labels aren't gonna be changing that for the foreseeable future.
I don't use streamers regularly to listen to music. Not at home at least. I cannot verify if they pass the music un-effed-with or otherwise. With my CDs, I know what I'm getting.
And unfortunately, the hyper-compressed brickwalled sausage processing applied to top-40 pop has also infected country, r&b, and niche genres such as jazz, acoustic, classical, and folk. Which is why I seek out older, original relesase CDs of popular stuff, and earlier CDs of classical and jazz. The stuff least likely to have suffered excessive 'processing', to put it politely.
As for reissues and remasters, here's a page that analyzes just how the music-buying public has been duped!
There's definitely been a dumbing down in audio engineering over the decades. We're seeing smarter folks at the helm being replaced by younger ones who simply don't know how music is to sound (or more accurately, how music shouldn't sound).
In the most basic terms - as a musician and audiophile - there is the weird modern belief that music volumes should remain at a near constant level, and (if that wasn't bad enough) that the volume level should be at maximum essentially the entire time. This is unnatural to music and the way the voice, music, and most instruments work. Unless you are using everything electronic and digital, this approach is alien and mismatched to music.
One of my favorite types of music is 70's progressive rock. It's been interesting and disturbing to hear how younger engineers and mixing techs have re-approached and remixed music with this newer approach. It's been like taking a classic painting and applying Photoshop to it (shop of horrors). I'm just glad I kept the original CDs with older and smarter mixing approaches (lots of room for dynamics, volume changes, and color/mood variations). The new approach sucks the life out of songs, and adds a bombastic bastardization to what might otherwise be quality music.
Location: Removing a snake out of the neighbor's washing machine
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Thoreau:
"This is unnatural to music and the way the voice, music, and most instruments work. Unless you are using everything electronic and digital, this approach is alien and mismatched to music."
Just want to clear up what I perceive is a misconception: That digital audio is naturally un-dynamic and loud.
Digital audio is simply another vehicle by which to record, engineer, and distribute music. Nyquist, and other scientists in the field, worked out all the details to ensure that digital audio provides a flat, noise-free and distortion-free canvas for capturing and reproducing any sounds humans are capable of hearing.
Unfortunately, it is possible to perform all the same types of processing via digital as it was in analog. So any differences you hear between an analog and digital version of a recording you admire are more than likely differences in processing/amounts there of, in one or the other.
You can leave a recording as dynamic as the day the group was in the studio, even more so than is capable with analog, or you can squash it to within 1dB of crest factor and boost it up so loud it clips the input stages of consumer playback equipment, lol!
Last edited by TheGrandK-Man; 07-30-2017 at 11:43 AM..
Since 2005 no creativity you hear the same basic beat in just very trap swag song no and auto tune it is killing music
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