I agree, in this sense: There is way too much bass on most recordings now, and way too much heavy percussion, and probably way too much meddling with various effects. It's kind of like comparing a massively airbrushed photo of a woman with an unretouched photo of the same woman. It's the deliberate creation of a fantasy.

If you like the fantasy, I guess that's good for you. If not, it isn't.

I think there's some very good recording happening nowadays...but that about 98% of it is overproduced shit. I think Bob may have been referring to that 98%.

As for CDs, they are great in terms of clean sound without hiss, and they're very handy to navigate. But...they are a crummy package next to the old record albums, because they're too small. That means tiny, inconsequential artwork and tiny, hard-to-read lyrics and info.

As far as I can see, we gained some and we lost some in the process.

In any case, like I said, 98% of what is commercially recorded now is meaningless shit, in my opinion. We live in a disposable society with a 15-minute attention span, so why should it be any surprise that the music is just as disposable as the rest. In Bob's heyday, it wasn't like that. Things lasted longer. That's probably why he hates all the new stuff...because it's so damned ephemeral and weightless.

If you watch Scorcese's whole movie "No Direction Home" and you compare the spirit that was moving in the music then to what is happening now...! It's sad how far this society has gone down. No wisdom. No idealism. No purpose. No nothing.

It's the general attitude now that's "atrocious". An atrocious attitude could certainly tend to produce atrocious recordings, I suppose.