10 ms·

Why Do All Records Sound the Same?

149 points by wsdan 12y ago

k-mcgrady 12y ago
>> "In a very few years, we’ll have 1 terabyte iPods, easily capable of handling thousands of recordings in their original high-definition form." I doubt it. I think we'll be lucky if Apple has increased the maximum configuration to 256GB in a few years. The other issue is that people have moved to streaming and the connections aren't good enough to stream high-quality audio. I signed up for Tidal (lossless Spotify) and even on a decent internet connection it had to buffer and the experience wasn't good enough for me to stick around.
- krallja 12y ago
  > This article originally appeared in the March, 2008 edition of Word Magazine.
graycat 12y ago
I like music, really like music, but haven't been able to listen to pop music since I discovered Beethoven late one night on a radio while going to sleep. Now I like, say http://grooveshark.com/#!/s/Cello+Suite+No+1+Bach/3seBIM?src=5 http://grooveshark.com/#!/s/Cello+Suite+No+1+Bach/3seBIM?src...
- edejong 12y ago
  It has been mentioned on HN before, but you might still be interested in http://allofbach.com/nl/bwv/bwv-1007/detail/ http://allofbach.com/nl/bwv/bwv-1007/detail/ It's relevant to the discussion, since the masterful recording of these pieces is itself a work of art.
  - RobertKerans 12y ago
    This is so beautiful; I'd never seen it before, thank you.
  - graycat 12y ago
    Gee, it can be played that way, too! Well, the interpretation is consistent across the parts! The cello sound is gorgeous beyond belief: I can't believe it's just performer, rosin, strings, bow, and room and also has to be one totally gorgeous cello. Beyond belief sound! Don't dare move the sound post or change the bridge! Thanks!
dankoss 12y ago
Nitpicks: "A great deal of quality is lost as those huge files are squished to the CD format, before being further squished into MP3s on your iPod." Not true, AAC files at high bitrates are proven to be indistinguishable from the original. http://xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html http://xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html "Every part of the signal chain—from earbuds to digital/audio converters—is improving and getting cheaper." Like other technologies, digital audio had rapid improvements in the first 10 years but has mostly leveled off as we have reached the limits of physics, signals and sampling. Good audio equipment is still expensive and power hungry in every part of the chain. Technology won't save what are fundamentally psychological issues. We respond emotionally to louder signals. We like songs that sound similar but not identical to things we've heard before. We listen to things that our friends like. All of this points to why top 40 songs sound the same, but "all records" is pretty broad. There has never been a better time to create something new in music, and yet we lean heavily on what has worked before -- in songwriting, in arrangement, in production -- so that others will like and identify with the creative output.
- forgottenpass 12y ago
  You beat me to posting Monty by a few minutes. I agree on the psychological factor and think the article gave unnecessary focus on the tech. Beyond "it is now possible to X" the tech bits were irreverent to, if not detracting from the overall point.
- davidgerard 12y ago
  And you should be so lucky as to get even 8 bits of dynamic range out of a LOUDNESS WARS production.
- sp332 12y ago
  The format is not the limitation, but audio engineers (for major studios anyway) tend to crank the volume up on CDs more often than vinyl releases. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war
  - dankoss 12y ago
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
Gracana 12y ago
> Worse still, the technology behind systems like Waves Ultramaximizer could easily be built into an iPod, automatically remastering all those dull old Neil Young records into BIG LOUD IN-YOUR-FACE BANGERS. I believe Museum of Techno has done some work on this problem. http://archive.museumoftechno.org/exhibition_detail.php?id=5 http://archive.museumoftechno.org/exhibition_detail.php?id=5
- davidgerard 12y ago
  :-D Loudness wars is the sound of the genre, to be fair. But not everything is ear-bashing techno.
swills 12y ago
Found this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPQiHyJj7Wk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPQiHyJj7Wk introducing the Google Radio Automation suite which seems to be what came after the SS32 thing mentioned in the article. Seems like Google got out of that business in 2009: http://www.wideorbit.com/wideorbit-acquires-google-radio-automation/ http://www.wideorbit.com/wideorbit-acquires-google-radio-aut...
api 12y ago
Stuff like this reminds me a lot of sugary simple-carb-laden junk food. The holy grail of popular marketing is to find a way to tap into some kind of simple and probably very evolutionarily ancient "craving" or "desire" pathway in the brain. Seems like they've learned a whole collection of hacks to do this with music, and are now just cranking out manufactured pop music full of those hacks. Combined with repetition in the radio (familiarity, another cognitive bias), they can churn out predictable hits. The question is whether people will ever get smarter and start being picky. We've seen a bit of this in food. The whole/natural/craft/whatever foods movement contains a fair amount of superstitious nonsense, but at its core it's ultimately about consumers being a lot pickier about what they eat. I think the overall effect is good -- people eating healthier food and deliberately turning down addictive nutritionally devoid junk. Maybe we'll eventually get an equivalent movement in music.
- zild3d 12y ago
  Plenty of markets have a similar effect. If you only take a shallow look into the market you will find the junk that is heavily advertised, but there are always experts/aficionados deeply involved in the craft. And this is true in music as well, I don't see why a "movement" is needed. millercoors : craft beer Beats by Dre : Beyer Dynamic Lipton Tea : loose leaf top 40 : jazz/metal/classical/progressive rock/...
- wvenable 12y ago
  > The question is whether people will ever get smarter and start being picky. The market for music is typically youth. So people probably do get smarter, start being picky, and stop being youth. But there's always another generation right behind.
  - agumonkey 12y ago
    At the same time other factors kicks in. As you get older you have less free time, you may or may not want to discover new things, you just listen to some easy songs on your way to work, and start to like them because they're part of your daily routine.
chiph 12y ago
This is why I enjoy listening to records that people like Alan Parsons have engineered (Dark Side of the Moon, Al Stewart's Year of the Cat, as well as his work with The Alan Parsons Project). Also good are those remasters reissued by Mobile Fidelity Sound Labs. www.mofi.com I'd probably enjoy modern pop music (even teen hits like Meghan Trainor) if it didn't all sound the same.
evo_9 12y ago
Mainstream music, sure, but there will always be bands like The Flaming Lips, or My Bloody Valentine releasing records that are completely counter to this approach. I would argue that any 'true artist' - aka one that is consumed with the perfection of their art - is not going to be swayed to produce a 'hit' no matter what the studio wants (they simply won't sign with a big label to begin with, I know plenty of musicians that feel this way and are happy on an indie label).
- davidgerard 12y ago
  The mainstream is fragmenting now that people can get access to music without it, per Steve Albini's recent update to "The Problem With Music": http://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/nov/17/steve-albinis-keynote-address-at-face-the-music-in-full http://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/nov/17/steve-albinis-k... Per the article, the "mainstream" is literally music for people who don't like music.
  - sparkzilla 12y ago
    >Per the article, the "mainstream" is literally music for people who don't like music. No doubt your parents thought the same about your music choices.
    - yzzxy 12y ago
      Believe it or not, this stock-standard response to criticism contemporary of popular music actually doesn't apply here. >Per the article, the "mainstream" is literally music for people who don't like music. This is because people (including and especially young people) have an unprecedented level of access to music, allowing deep dives into alternative genres that become popular. Radio is no longer the herald of a generation's taste, SoundCloud is. This isn't Silicon Valley masturbatory tech-advocation: SoundCloud and the like are far more popular than radio or anything like it is on high school and college campuses. Radio doesn't play trap, vaporwave, etc - the genres young people listen to right now. Mainstream/Top 40 is the default music for people who don't care about having a taste or exploring a genre, because people who do can do it with almost no effort today.
chromaton 12y ago
This reminds me of this recent popular YouTube mashup: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vapt5C3yDeY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vapt5C3yDeY 6 recent hit country songs combined into one. They blend into each other perfectly.
- Jgrubb 12y ago
  That's hilarious, but it sounds like those tunes were pitch shifted into the same key. Nashville producers have more skill than that. Oh, and FL/GA line is frigging awful.
  - twerquie 12y ago
    And time-stretched.
  - baddox 12y ago
    The pitch and tempos are shifted, but more nefariously, the pieces of the songs which don't fit the VI-I-V progression are removed and replaced by pieces of other songs which do fit. It's deliberate and meticulous cherry-picking. The only thing all the songs have in common is that they're in 4/4 and the verses and choruses all start on the VI chord. I should make a table showing the actual chord progressions from each song and how the creator deliberately masked out the parts of each song which are different from the baseline the creator chose.
    - ChuckMcM 12y ago
      Please do, that would be an interesting companion piece to this.
    - Giulalbez 12y ago
      Please, if you do it, let us know.
      - baddox 12y ago
        I took a stab at it: http://baddox.github.io/six_country_songs.html http://baddox.github.io/six_country_songs.html
SixSigma 12y ago
Records? What are records daddy ?
- davidgerard 12y ago
  "They used to sell YouTube video soundtracks on big pieces of plastic. I have some in boxes in the attic."
bobstobener 12y ago
Live mics. Live guitars, bass & drums. One take. Play loud. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iaINsgFHVs&spfreload=10 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iaINsgFHVs&spfreload=10
- agumonkey 12y ago
  Reminds me of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXzFCS72QIA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXzFCS72QIA intro piano glitch. 4 guys in a small room, 4 track recorder, no edit.
  - bobstobener 12y ago
    Nice!
- TillE 12y ago
  I love all the Beatles songs where you can hear the guitar amps causing the bass drum to rattle a bit. Reminds me of when I played in bands. More recently, Greg Graffin's folk album "Cold as the Clay" was very deliberately recorded with everyone in one room. It sounds good.
  - soylentcola 12y ago
    Off topic but thank you for informing me that Greg Graffin made a folk album. Had no idea even though it's apparently not new at all. Just goes to show that for all the access I have to music these days it's still easy to miss something due to just not hearing about it.
- tmuir 12y ago
  Neil Young talks a lot about how important it was to capture early takes. The newness of the music seems to give it a different character. A lot of his recordings have a fair amount of mistakes. Young calls it "rust". Tonight's the Night is a good example of this. Miles Davis also had the philosophy that first takes produced the most ingenuity in improvisation.
mrbill 12y ago
Even twenty years ago when I worked in radio (89-93), the song playlist was determined 2-3 weeks in advance. The station had software that ran on a TRS-80 and I had a printout to follow every shirt.
sideshowb 12y ago
We are already starting to win the loudness war now thanks to iTunes SoundCheck. I'm not an iTunes user but as far as I understand it, it causes iTunes to adjust all tunes in a mix to the same perceptual loudness. If everyone adopted this or a similar technology (such as the open ReplayGain) there would be no incentive to master loud any more, for albums at least, because the player will only turn it down again meaning the net result is only loss of quality. Hopefully iTunes support for this tech is a turning point in the loudness war.
- clay_to_n 12y ago
  Though it also has drawbacks, especially when listening to full albums - suddenly the ambient interlude track in the middle of an album is sounding as loud as the loud tracks around it.
  - FreeFull 12y ago
    Can't it be set to have a single per-album volume setting?
- KeytarHero 12y ago
  > Hopefully iTunes support for this tech is a turning point in the loudness war. Don't hold your breath - iTunes has had Sound Check since 2002.
  - sideshowb 12y ago
    Damn. But I can still hope.
- SwellJoe 12y ago
  That can't actually account for perceived loudness, which modern mastering processes do account for. The absolute amplitude of a song has always been fixed, by the technology delivering the audio. Radio, the primary medium for music discovery throughout most of our lives, has a very hard upper bound (set by both the technology and the FCC), thus a compressor/limiter is employed at the final stage before sending the audio out of the radio station to go up the tower and out over the waves. There has always been that sort of leveling going on. Modern tools provide an entirely new dimension in the form of multi-band compression, digital phase alignment, etc. It is now possible (and being done in nearly every genre) to make a recording perceptively louder than other recordings by maximizing amplitude in specific bands (those humans are most sensitive to), reduce phase cancellation between speakers, and hype the sound (boosting high and low frequencies, which tricks the ear into hearing it in the same way as louder music...but also causes listener fatigue faster), often all at once. Amplitude compression, even when it's smart enough to recognize that there's more activity across a broader spectrum as provided by SoundCheck, does nothing to restore the damage to dynamic range, natural frequency response curves, and "real" sounding recorded music. The music is broken by these processes...the listener has no power to fix it, other than to not buy it, and choose music that hasn't been mutilated in such a way.
sparkzilla 12y ago
So many problems with this article. I recently started recording music after a long break and I love that everything is in the computer now. I had one of the very first Pro tools systems and it cost $12,000 (25MB hard drive). Gear that used to cost hundreds of thousands of dollars is now available with a click. I had always wanted to use great compressors and they are almost all available now as plug-ins. I also took some old tracks and ran them through the Waves maximizers - what a difference. What this means is that anyone with some musical and recording skills can compete against record companies. It seems to me that the writer of the article just doesn't like pop music, and doesn't understand the business of pop music. Pop music, and especially pop music on the radio, has its own rules. It's no use getting upset about them. There's a lot of skill in engineering recordings that work on the radio. And Autotune is great. It's like getting upset that a movie director uses special effects. Good music always transcends the technology. Do you care that Gravity wasn't actually filmed in space? If you want your music to sound like it was recorded in the sixties you can do so either by getting the vintage equipment or using vintage-style plug ins. But if the Beatles were around today they would be using all of the latest techniques, just like they were at the forefront of recording technology back then. Meanwhile, my ten-year-old daughter just bought a record player and Taylor Swift on vinyl.
- joe_the_user 12y ago
  So many problems with this article. ... Pop music, and especially pop music on the radio, has its own rules. It's no use getting upset about them. ... So many problem with post... And if I was following your style, I'd not make any of them clear but just pop a bit of authority, a bit of folksy wisdom and get some factual points. But I'll just mention - do any of your arguments imply that modern pop hits don't sound the same? Perhaps if everyone possessing the technology to create a song that satisfies the formula perhaps makes even more music satisfying the formula appear? That naturally creating the absolute winning track involves a lot of skill even if it all sounds the same (except to the connoisseur, perhaps?).
  - sparkzilla 12y ago
    I didn't write the post to get points, but to share my insight as a person who could not get access to the tools mentioned in the article in the past, and is currently using them as part of a process of learning to create some modern pop. I disagree with the writer's argument, which is based on a misunderstanding of the pop music market, and the role of technology in that market. The fact that most pop songs played on the radio have their volume maximized is not an issue related to their musicality. All compression does is help you hear the song better, which is especially important for radio play. Some of the other tools that are used in pop music, notably Autotune, are specifically used for that market because the audience wants them. The author lauds bands like The White Stripes for using vintage equipment and for "real" performances, but they are not part of the pop music market. You use the tools that fit the market. That said, even if you find the perfect formula for a pop song, including using a particular technology, people will get tired of the formula very quickly. BTW, here are some videos that give insight into how a pop vocal is built and some mastering techniques... [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9R0q6QKAPmo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9R0q6QKAPmo [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2V9d6zQzcrg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2V9d6zQzcrg
S_A_P 12y ago
In my flirtation with being a musician I've learned a fair bit about how to record in a home studio. I think he has simplified a lot of this but considering the audience of this article I get it. The one point I do agree with is that technology isn't the problem. I use Logic, Sonar, Reason and FL Studio quite extensively depending on the project and really have very little problem sounding like it was recorded in the 1960s or 70s. Technology is good enough that all but the most trained ear won't notice whether you used a real Fairchild compressor or the UAD dsp version.(or substitute your favorite vintage compressor/effect/synthesizer/amp vs software) However most people don't want the whole record to sound that way. It's great for setting a mood, but the average pop listener wants loud repetitive and catchy hooks. Experimenting is for the established "wealthy" and "bored" artists that need to find long term relevance. In general the labels don't subsidize the breadth of records that they used to. One of the best ways to make the point that the industry is the problem is to thumb through my dads collection of vinyl. Some notable records he owns that would never be produced today are "Big Sounds of the drags" http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pEdfuX1ni9E http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pEdfuX1ni9E The Zodiac:cosmic sounds http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Zodiac:_Cosmic_Sounds http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Zodiac:_Cosmic_Sounds I have a ton of old vinyl from people who are not attractive enough to make a record today. Like it or not the recording industry is about image, marketing and recipes more than music. I don't think this is a revelation to anyone and it may not even be wrong. I think what many musicians get wrong is that they think they can try to latch on to the old business model and "make it"- becoming rich in a few years. These days that is .01% of artists. However if you think of a record as marketing and look for other ways to monetize your band and its brand you can get by in the middle class. Even in the hey day it wasn't a golden ticket for most artists. Really there has always been a problem with the record industry in some form or fashion, but since power is shifting towards artists and home studios labels are much more risk averse. No matter how good you are, it's a risky profession.
enos_feedler 12y ago
“Musicians are inherently lazy,” says John. “If there’s an easier way of doing something than actually playing, they’ll do that" Musicians sound a lot like developers
101914 12y ago
"Rick Rubin's recordings of Johnny Cash are extraordinarily intimate and affecting. But they don't sound anything like Johnny Cash sitting in your living room playing some songs. They sound like you're perched on Johnny Cash's lap with one ear in his mouth and a stethoscope on his guitar."
zaroth 12y ago
I started up here, and I ended up here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOAowiF3y_8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOAowiF3y_8 The lead up is a little long, but when the music finally starts it's bliss. I say, lament all you want. That's fine, some of it is cheap entertainment. But here's the thing, some artists will strive to create at that level, because that level is there, and it's never been more accessible. My takeaway is that the tools have never been greater. The level of access to other people, to grow organically, if not virally, has never been better. Has this resulted in us discovering greater artists and getting better music created? That would be an interesting article. @sparkzilla - 'What this means is that anyone with some musical and recording skills can compete against record companies.' Yes. It's not about being a 'fair fight' but there is a fight there. @dankoss - 'There has never been a better time to create something new in music' Totally agree. Let's hear it. Seriously, the response is, bring it. Great music will always draw an audience.
kokey 12y ago
I often recommend people read the little book "The Manual" by the KLF. http://freshonthenet.co.uk/the-manual-by-the-klf/ http://freshonthenet.co.uk/the-manual-by-the-klf/ It was written by them after they made their first number 1 hit single, back in 1988. They went ahead and had a few number ones since. That was over 25 years ago. It's a good overview of the chart music industry and much of the book is still relevant even now, and they were even able to predict that a lot of the studio work should be possible to do in the bedroom in the future.
mproy 12y ago
Hard to pick the best nugget to use as I email this to friends, but I like this: "The Strokes recorded Is This It on an old Apple Mac in Gordon Raphael’s basement studio. But it was mastered by Greg Calbi, who also did Born To Run and Graceland." Great essay. Really sums up modern commercially recorded music.
simonh 12y ago
You think pop is homogenous, try Country: http://kbia.org/post/you-know-exactly-what-these-6-country-songs-have-common&ei=Izq1VOS-F4mpogTrt4HoBQ&usg=AFQjCNG58rzCHZqBOLGaZRv70TfXIUxy4A http://kbia.org/post/you-know-exactly-what-these-6-country-s...
- soylentcola 12y ago
  This was referenced in earlier posts here but these are also chopped up and edited to fit. And besides, this is also pop. The original article mostly discusses pop rock (compared to rock music generally created for other markets than top 40 pop) but country follows the same industry trends. There's country music that's meant to get on the radio and sell hit records and there's country music that is going for something different. Just as you have a Maroon 5 for every White Stripes, you have an Old 97's or Eddie Spaghetti for every band on this list of 6 nearly identical songs.

149 points by wsdan 12y ago

>> "In a very few years, we’ll have 1 terabyte iPods, easily capable of handling thousands of recordings in their original high-definition form." I doubt it. I think we'll be lucky if Apple has increased the maximum configuration to 256GB in a few years. The other issue is that people have moved to streaming and the connections aren't good enough to stream high-quality audio. I signed up for Tidal (lossless Spotify) and even on a decent internet connection it had to buffer and the experience wasn't good enough for me to stick around.

krallja 12y ago
> This article originally appeared in the March, 2008 edition of Word Magazine.

graycat 12y ago

I like music, really like music, but haven't been able to listen to pop music since I discovered Beethoven late one night on a radio while going to sleep. Now I like, say http://grooveshark.com/#!/s/Cello+Suite+No+1+Bach/3seBIM?src=5 http://grooveshark.com/#!/s/Cello+Suite+No+1+Bach/3seBIM?src...

edejong 12y ago
It has been mentioned on HN before, but you might still be interested in http://allofbach.com/nl/bwv/bwv-1007/detail/ http://allofbach.com/nl/bwv/bwv-1007/detail/ It's relevant to the discussion, since the masterful recording of these pieces is itself a work of art.
- RobertKerans 12y ago
  This is so beautiful; I'd never seen it before, thank you.
- graycat 12y ago
  Gee, it can be played that way, too! Well, the interpretation is consistent across the parts! The cello sound is gorgeous beyond belief: I can't believe it's just performer, rosin, strings, bow, and room and also has to be one totally gorgeous cello. Beyond belief sound! Don't dare move the sound post or change the bridge! Thanks!

dankoss 12y ago

Nitpicks: "A great deal of quality is lost as those huge files are squished to the CD format, before being further squished into MP3s on your iPod." Not true, AAC files at high bitrates are proven to be indistinguishable from the original. http://xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html http://xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html "Every part of the signal chain—from earbuds to digital/audio converters—is improving and getting cheaper." Like other technologies, digital audio had rapid improvements in the first 10 years but has mostly leveled off as we have reached the limits of physics, signals and sampling. Good audio equipment is still expensive and power hungry in every part of the chain. Technology won't save what are fundamentally psychological issues. We respond emotionally to louder signals. We like songs that sound similar but not identical to things we've heard before. We listen to things that our friends like. All of this points to why top 40 songs sound the same, but "all records" is pretty broad. There has never been a better time to create something new in music, and yet we lean heavily on what has worked before -- in songwriting, in arrangement, in production -- so that others will like and identify with the creative output.

forgottenpass 12y ago
You beat me to posting Monty by a few minutes. I agree on the psychological factor and think the article gave unnecessary focus on the tech. Beyond "it is now possible to X" the tech bits were irreverent to, if not detracting from the overall point.
davidgerard 12y ago
And you should be so lucky as to get even 8 bits of dynamic range out of a LOUDNESS WARS production.
sp332 12y ago
The format is not the limitation, but audio engineers (for major studios anyway) tend to crank the volume up on CDs more often than vinyl releases. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war
- dankoss 12y ago

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

Gracana 12y ago

> Worse still, the technology behind systems like Waves Ultramaximizer could easily be built into an iPod, automatically remastering all those dull old Neil Young records into BIG LOUD IN-YOUR-FACE BANGERS. I believe Museum of Techno has done some work on this problem. http://archive.museumoftechno.org/exhibition_detail.php?id=5 http://archive.museumoftechno.org/exhibition_detail.php?id=5

davidgerard 12y ago
:-D Loudness wars is the sound of the genre, to be fair. But not everything is ear-bashing techno.

swills 12y ago

Found this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPQiHyJj7Wk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPQiHyJj7Wk introducing the Google Radio Automation suite which seems to be what came after the SS32 thing mentioned in the article. Seems like Google got out of that business in 2009: http://www.wideorbit.com/wideorbit-acquires-google-radio-automation/ http://www.wideorbit.com/wideorbit-acquires-google-radio-aut...

api 12y ago

Stuff like this reminds me a lot of sugary simple-carb-laden junk food. The holy grail of popular marketing is to find a way to tap into some kind of simple and probably very evolutionarily ancient "craving" or "desire" pathway in the brain. Seems like they've learned a whole collection of hacks to do this with music, and are now just cranking out manufactured pop music full of those hacks. Combined with repetition in the radio (familiarity, another cognitive bias), they can churn out predictable hits. The question is whether people will ever get smarter and start being picky. We've seen a bit of this in food. The whole/natural/craft/whatever foods movement contains a fair amount of superstitious nonsense, but at its core it's ultimately about consumers being a lot pickier about what they eat. I think the overall effect is good -- people eating healthier food and deliberately turning down addictive nutritionally devoid junk. Maybe we'll eventually get an equivalent movement in music.

zild3d 12y ago
Plenty of markets have a similar effect. If you only take a shallow look into the market you will find the junk that is heavily advertised, but there are always experts/aficionados deeply involved in the craft. And this is true in music as well, I don't see why a "movement" is needed. millercoors : craft beer Beats by Dre : Beyer Dynamic Lipton Tea : loose leaf top 40 : jazz/metal/classical/progressive rock/...
wvenable 12y ago
> The question is whether people will ever get smarter and start being picky. The market for music is typically youth. So people probably do get smarter, start being picky, and stop being youth. But there's always another generation right behind.
- agumonkey 12y ago
  At the same time other factors kicks in. As you get older you have less free time, you may or may not want to discover new things, you just listen to some easy songs on your way to work, and start to like them because they're part of your daily routine.

chiph 12y ago

This is why I enjoy listening to records that people like Alan Parsons have engineered (Dark Side of the Moon, Al Stewart's Year of the Cat, as well as his work with The Alan Parsons Project). Also good are those remasters reissued by Mobile Fidelity Sound Labs. www.mofi.com I'd probably enjoy modern pop music (even teen hits like Meghan Trainor) if it didn't all sound the same.

evo_9 12y ago

Mainstream music, sure, but there will always be bands like The Flaming Lips, or My Bloody Valentine releasing records that are completely counter to this approach. I would argue that any 'true artist' - aka one that is consumed with the perfection of their art - is not going to be swayed to produce a 'hit' no matter what the studio wants (they simply won't sign with a big label to begin with, I know plenty of musicians that feel this way and are happy on an indie label).

davidgerard 12y ago
The mainstream is fragmenting now that people can get access to music without it, per Steve Albini's recent update to "The Problem With Music": http://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/nov/17/steve-albinis-keynote-address-at-face-the-music-in-full http://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/nov/17/steve-albinis-k... Per the article, the "mainstream" is literally music for people who don't like music.
- sparkzilla 12y ago
  >Per the article, the "mainstream" is literally music for people who don't like music. No doubt your parents thought the same about your music choices.
  - yzzxy 12y ago
    Believe it or not, this stock-standard response to criticism contemporary of popular music actually doesn't apply here. >Per the article, the "mainstream" is literally music for people who don't like music. This is because people (including and especially young people) have an unprecedented level of access to music, allowing deep dives into alternative genres that become popular. Radio is no longer the herald of a generation's taste, SoundCloud is. This isn't Silicon Valley masturbatory tech-advocation: SoundCloud and the like are far more popular than radio or anything like it is on high school and college campuses. Radio doesn't play trap, vaporwave, etc - the genres young people listen to right now. Mainstream/Top 40 is the default music for people who don't care about having a taste or exploring a genre, because people who do can do it with almost no effort today.

chromaton 12y ago

This reminds me of this recent popular YouTube mashup: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vapt5C3yDeY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vapt5C3yDeY 6 recent hit country songs combined into one. They blend into each other perfectly.

Jgrubb 12y ago
That's hilarious, but it sounds like those tunes were pitch shifted into the same key. Nashville producers have more skill than that. Oh, and FL/GA line is frigging awful.
- twerquie 12y ago
  And time-stretched.
- baddox 12y ago
  The pitch and tempos are shifted, but more nefariously, the pieces of the songs which don't fit the VI-I-V progression are removed and replaced by pieces of other songs which do fit. It's deliberate and meticulous cherry-picking. The only thing all the songs have in common is that they're in 4/4 and the verses and choruses all start on the VI chord. I should make a table showing the actual chord progressions from each song and how the creator deliberately masked out the parts of each song which are different from the baseline the creator chose.
  - ChuckMcM 12y ago
    Please do, that would be an interesting companion piece to this.
  - Giulalbez 12y ago
    Please, if you do it, let us know.
    - baddox 12y ago
      I took a stab at it: http://baddox.github.io/six_country_songs.html http://baddox.github.io/six_country_songs.html

SixSigma 12y ago

Records? What are records daddy ?

davidgerard 12y ago
"They used to sell YouTube video soundtracks on big pieces of plastic. I have some in boxes in the attic."

bobstobener 12y ago

Live mics. Live guitars, bass & drums. One take. Play loud. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iaINsgFHVs&spfreload=10 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iaINsgFHVs&spfreload=10

agumonkey 12y ago
Reminds me of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXzFCS72QIA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXzFCS72QIA intro piano glitch. 4 guys in a small room, 4 track recorder, no edit.
- bobstobener 12y ago
  Nice!
TillE 12y ago
I love all the Beatles songs where you can hear the guitar amps causing the bass drum to rattle a bit. Reminds me of when I played in bands. More recently, Greg Graffin's folk album "Cold as the Clay" was very deliberately recorded with everyone in one room. It sounds good.
- soylentcola 12y ago
  Off topic but thank you for informing me that Greg Graffin made a folk album. Had no idea even though it's apparently not new at all. Just goes to show that for all the access I have to music these days it's still easy to miss something due to just not hearing about it.
tmuir 12y ago
Neil Young talks a lot about how important it was to capture early takes. The newness of the music seems to give it a different character. A lot of his recordings have a fair amount of mistakes. Young calls it "rust". Tonight's the Night is a good example of this. Miles Davis also had the philosophy that first takes produced the most ingenuity in improvisation.

mrbill 12y ago

Even twenty years ago when I worked in radio (89-93), the song playlist was determined 2-3 weeks in advance. The station had software that ran on a TRS-80 and I had a printout to follow every shirt.

sideshowb 12y ago

We are already starting to win the loudness war now thanks to iTunes SoundCheck. I'm not an iTunes user but as far as I understand it, it causes iTunes to adjust all tunes in a mix to the same perceptual loudness. If everyone adopted this or a similar technology (such as the open ReplayGain) there would be no incentive to master loud any more, for albums at least, because the player will only turn it down again meaning the net result is only loss of quality. Hopefully iTunes support for this tech is a turning point in the loudness war.

clay_to_n 12y ago
Though it also has drawbacks, especially when listening to full albums - suddenly the ambient interlude track in the middle of an album is sounding as loud as the loud tracks around it.
- FreeFull 12y ago
  Can't it be set to have a single per-album volume setting?
KeytarHero 12y ago
> Hopefully iTunes support for this tech is a turning point in the loudness war. Don't hold your breath - iTunes has had Sound Check since 2002.
- sideshowb 12y ago
  Damn. But I can still hope.
SwellJoe 12y ago
That can't actually account for perceived loudness, which modern mastering processes do account for. The absolute amplitude of a song has always been fixed, by the technology delivering the audio. Radio, the primary medium for music discovery throughout most of our lives, has a very hard upper bound (set by both the technology and the FCC), thus a compressor/limiter is employed at the final stage before sending the audio out of the radio station to go up the tower and out over the waves. There has always been that sort of leveling going on. Modern tools provide an entirely new dimension in the form of multi-band compression, digital phase alignment, etc. It is now possible (and being done in nearly every genre) to make a recording perceptively louder than other recordings by maximizing amplitude in specific bands (those humans are most sensitive to), reduce phase cancellation between speakers, and hype the sound (boosting high and low frequencies, which tricks the ear into hearing it in the same way as louder music...but also causes listener fatigue faster), often all at once. Amplitude compression, even when it's smart enough to recognize that there's more activity across a broader spectrum as provided by SoundCheck, does nothing to restore the damage to dynamic range, natural frequency response curves, and "real" sounding recorded music. The music is broken by these processes...the listener has no power to fix it, other than to not buy it, and choose music that hasn't been mutilated in such a way.

sparkzilla 12y ago

So many problems with this article. I recently started recording music after a long break and I love that everything is in the computer now. I had one of the very first Pro tools systems and it cost $12,000 (25MB hard drive). Gear that used to cost hundreds of thousands of dollars is now available with a click. I had always wanted to use great compressors and they are almost all available now as plug-ins. I also took some old tracks and ran them through the Waves maximizers - what a difference. What this means is that anyone with some musical and recording skills can compete against record companies. It seems to me that the writer of the article just doesn't like pop music, and doesn't understand the business of pop music. Pop music, and especially pop music on the radio, has its own rules. It's no use getting upset about them. There's a lot of skill in engineering recordings that work on the radio. And Autotune is great. It's like getting upset that a movie director uses special effects. Good music always transcends the technology. Do you care that Gravity wasn't actually filmed in space? If you want your music to sound like it was recorded in the sixties you can do so either by getting the vintage equipment or using vintage-style plug ins. But if the Beatles were around today they would be using all of the latest techniques, just like they were at the forefront of recording technology back then. Meanwhile, my ten-year-old daughter just bought a record player and Taylor Swift on vinyl.

joe_the_user 12y ago
So many problems with this article. ... Pop music, and especially pop music on the radio, has its own rules. It's no use getting upset about them. ... So many problem with post... And if I was following your style, I'd not make any of them clear but just pop a bit of authority, a bit of folksy wisdom and get some factual points. But I'll just mention - do any of your arguments imply that modern pop hits don't sound the same? Perhaps if everyone possessing the technology to create a song that satisfies the formula perhaps makes even more music satisfying the formula appear? That naturally creating the absolute winning track involves a lot of skill even if it all sounds the same (except to the connoisseur, perhaps?).
- sparkzilla 12y ago
  I didn't write the post to get points, but to share my insight as a person who could not get access to the tools mentioned in the article in the past, and is currently using them as part of a process of learning to create some modern pop. I disagree with the writer's argument, which is based on a misunderstanding of the pop music market, and the role of technology in that market. The fact that most pop songs played on the radio have their volume maximized is not an issue related to their musicality. All compression does is help you hear the song better, which is especially important for radio play. Some of the other tools that are used in pop music, notably Autotune, are specifically used for that market because the audience wants them. The author lauds bands like The White Stripes for using vintage equipment and for "real" performances, but they are not part of the pop music market. You use the tools that fit the market. That said, even if you find the perfect formula for a pop song, including using a particular technology, people will get tired of the formula very quickly. BTW, here are some videos that give insight into how a pop vocal is built and some mastering techniques... [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9R0q6QKAPmo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9R0q6QKAPmo [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2V9d6zQzcrg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2V9d6zQzcrg

S_A_P 12y ago

In my flirtation with being a musician I've learned a fair bit about how to record in a home studio. I think he has simplified a lot of this but considering the audience of this article I get it. The one point I do agree with is that technology isn't the problem. I use Logic, Sonar, Reason and FL Studio quite extensively depending on the project and really have very little problem sounding like it was recorded in the 1960s or 70s. Technology is good enough that all but the most trained ear won't notice whether you used a real Fairchild compressor or the UAD dsp version.(or substitute your favorite vintage compressor/effect/synthesizer/amp vs software) However most people don't want the whole record to sound that way. It's great for setting a mood, but the average pop listener wants loud repetitive and catchy hooks. Experimenting is for the established "wealthy" and "bored" artists that need to find long term relevance. In general the labels don't subsidize the breadth of records that they used to. One of the best ways to make the point that the industry is the problem is to thumb through my dads collection of vinyl. Some notable records he owns that would never be produced today are "Big Sounds of the drags" http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pEdfuX1ni9E http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pEdfuX1ni9E The Zodiac:cosmic sounds http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Zodiac:_Cosmic_Sounds http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Zodiac:_Cosmic_Sounds I have a ton of old vinyl from people who are not attractive enough to make a record today. Like it or not the recording industry is about image, marketing and recipes more than music. I don't think this is a revelation to anyone and it may not even be wrong. I think what many musicians get wrong is that they think they can try to latch on to the old business model and "make it"- becoming rich in a few years. These days that is .01% of artists. However if you think of a record as marketing and look for other ways to monetize your band and its brand you can get by in the middle class. Even in the hey day it wasn't a golden ticket for most artists. Really there has always been a problem with the record industry in some form or fashion, but since power is shifting towards artists and home studios labels are much more risk averse. No matter how good you are, it's a risky profession.

enos_feedler 12y ago

“Musicians are inherently lazy,” says John. “If there’s an easier way of doing something than actually playing, they’ll do that" Musicians sound a lot like developers

101914 12y ago

"Rick Rubin's recordings of Johnny Cash are extraordinarily intimate and affecting. But they don't sound anything like Johnny Cash sitting in your living room playing some songs. They sound like you're perched on Johnny Cash's lap with one ear in his mouth and a stethoscope on his guitar."

zaroth 12y ago

I started up here, and I ended up here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOAowiF3y_8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOAowiF3y_8 The lead up is a little long, but when the music finally starts it's bliss. I say, lament all you want. That's fine, some of it is cheap entertainment. But here's the thing, some artists will strive to create at that level, because that level is there, and it's never been more accessible. My takeaway is that the tools have never been greater. The level of access to other people, to grow organically, if not virally, has never been better. Has this resulted in us discovering greater artists and getting better music created? That would be an interesting article. @sparkzilla - 'What this means is that anyone with some musical and recording skills can compete against record companies.' Yes. It's not about being a 'fair fight' but there is a fight there. @dankoss - 'There has never been a better time to create something new in music' Totally agree. Let's hear it. Seriously, the response is, bring it. Great music will always draw an audience.

kokey 12y ago

I often recommend people read the little book "The Manual" by the KLF. http://freshonthenet.co.uk/the-manual-by-the-klf/ http://freshonthenet.co.uk/the-manual-by-the-klf/ It was written by them after they made their first number 1 hit single, back in 1988. They went ahead and had a few number ones since. That was over 25 years ago. It's a good overview of the chart music industry and much of the book is still relevant even now, and they were even able to predict that a lot of the studio work should be possible to do in the bedroom in the future.

mproy 12y ago

Hard to pick the best nugget to use as I email this to friends, but I like this: "The Strokes recorded Is This It on an old Apple Mac in Gordon Raphael’s basement studio. But it was mastered by Greg Calbi, who also did Born To Run and Graceland." Great essay. Really sums up modern commercially recorded music.

simonh 12y ago

You think pop is homogenous, try Country: http://kbia.org/post/you-know-exactly-what-these-6-country-songs-have-common&ei=Izq1VOS-F4mpogTrt4HoBQ&usg=AFQjCNG58rzCHZqBOLGaZRv70TfXIUxy4A http://kbia.org/post/you-know-exactly-what-these-6-country-s...

soylentcola 12y ago
This was referenced in earlier posts here but these are also chopped up and edited to fit. And besides, this is also pop. The original article mostly discusses pop rock (compared to rock music generally created for other markets than top 40 pop) but country follows the same industry trends. There's country music that's meant to get on the radio and sell hit records and there's country music that is going for something different. Just as you have a Maroon 5 for every White Stripes, you have an Old 97's or Eddie Spaghetti for every band on this list of 6 nearly identical songs.