Death of High Fidelity?
At first glance, I thought they were suggesting that the world was going low-fi and that everything was going to start sounding like the first couple of Sebadoh albums (which were made on cheap cassettes in leader Lou Barlow’s living room). What they really mean, though is that music is getting TOO hi-fi: Today’s engineers are compressing everything and cranking the volume to the limit, so that recordings have no dynamics anymore: It’s all full-blast from start to finish. Engineers are assuming that you’re downloading low-quality MP3’s, so they overdo the high frequencies to compensate for what you’ll be losing. But the CD itself is likely to be overwhelming; while MP3s inherently sound like crap, so everybody loses.
Rolling Stone’s favorite example of an overloaded song is the Arctic Monkeys’ “I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor,” which hits peak levels from first note to last.
It’s a compelling argument, and you’re bound to have found examples in something you’ve played lately. For me it was the recent double CD by Say Anything, “In Defense of the Genre”—They’re just a humble emo band, yet the CD is so overloaded that you get a headache halfway through the first disc (this could also be because singer Max Bemis is a bit of a windbag). Rolling Stone’s favorite example of an overloaded song is the Arctic Monkeys’ “I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor,” which hits peak levels from first note to last. To my mind that’s an exciting song and the full-throttle assault works fine; but it may also be the reason I always play that album one or two songs at a time. Another notorious example of overloading is Rush’s next-to-latest album “Vapour Trails”-- sonic diagrams of that album amount to a blue blur. But you could argue that Rush purposely aimed for a harsh and brittle sound to suit the moods of those songs.
On the other hand, lack of volume can be a beautiful thing. Listen to any Radiohead album for great use of dynamics: The Kid A album stays spooky and sparse until midway through the third song, when all the horns knock you over. I once saw Sonic Youth play a small club and everybody knew their reputation as noise and distortion-mongers. So they played at way below the normal volume, which had the effect of making everyone stop short and come closer to the stage. I also recall a show by art-rock guitarist Robert Fripp, who was doing electronic soundscapes and dealt with some catcalls from the audience. “I heard this gentlemen suggest I play louder,” said the unflappable Fripp. “In response, may I suggest that he listen more attentively.” Well put, sir.
Posted
January 3
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