Here's a really interesting article on NPR's website about digital technology, overuse of compression, and recorded music's economically driven trend to get louder and louder. I have to say, I completely agree with the article...
http://tinyurl.com/y9an23a
4 comments:
Haven't listened to the NPR thing yet, but this issue has been around for a while. Here's a classic youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Gmex_4hreQ
(How does one embed youtube vids here? I get an "HTML cannot be accepted" alert when I use the embed code)
Also, there are some engineers trying to get some traction in reversing it (good luck): http://www.turnmeup.org/
This whole thing is why I listen to the Talk Talk record "Spirit of Eden" at least once a month; it's a palate cleanser.
I like that Talk Talk joint.
I notice this on some new music, but mostly it seems an issue for stuff I wouldn't listen to anyway. I'm always pretty happy with remasters of old stuff being louder. My reference point for uncompressed (and/or vinyl) is the shitty record player I had as a kid or cassette tapes, so mp3's are usually fine with me (or at least no worse than 1st generation CDs). Plus my hearing is actually pretty bad, too many years in a small room with a drummer and Twin Reverb.
Spirit of Eden is one of the greatest things ever. Their was an amazing feature in Mojo a few years back about the recording sessions, worth seeking out.
The music industry is giving people what they want. Quality is not what most people care about. I want it now, portable, and free. When you can convert a terabyte of music from youtube, download for free on blogs ect. quality is not number 1, cause it don't cost nuthin! Metallica release had complainers, but who cares it went double platinium anyway.
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