Thursday, August 23, 2007

Your Music Sucks!

You remember the good old days, before downloads, when the music on the radio was really good. You could listen for hours. Every song sounded distinct and even the ones you didn't like that much were pretty good. Ahhhh... the good old days.

Things were better when I was young. It would be a cliche except, it turns out, it's true. The music recordings available today are all mastered with a "wall of sound" approach. (This is also why commercials -- on radio and TV -- are always louder than the show you're watching, and why they're consistently so annoying).

It's also why all popular music seems to sound alike. It's meant to sound best when you're driving with the windows open.

There's a fantastic visual & audio demonstration of this effect here.

2 comments:

Could-be-a-model said...

And here I was thinking the reason all music sounded the same to me was because the antenna(sp?) on my car was broken and the only radio station I can get is Central Jersey easy listening. I should have known something was wrong when I began to enjoy Fergie's "Big Girls Don't Cry".

your small american said...

I watched the UTube video--wow, that like, flatness that all the songs seem to have now is from the loudness treatment! That sucks.