Dylan says modern records 'atrocious'

Subject: Dylan says modern records 'atrocious'
From: Goose Gander
Date: 22 Aug 06 - 08:56 PM

Dylan says modern recordings atrocious

Subject: RE: Dylan says modern records 'atrocious'
From: Goose Gander
Date: 22 Aug 06 - 08:59 PM

Sorry, the link doesn't work, here's the article . . . .

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Bob Dylan says the quality of modern recordings is "atrocious," and even the songs on his new album sounded much better in the studio than on disc.
"I don't know anybody who's made a record that sounds decent in the past 20 years, really," the 65-year-old rocker said in an interview with Rolling Stone magazine.
Dylan, who released eight studio albums in the past two decades, returns with his first recording in five years, "Modern Times," next Tuesday.
Noting the music industry's complaints that illegal downloading means people are getting their music for free, he said, "Well, why not? It ain't worth nothing anyway."

"You listen to these modern records, they're atrocious, they have sound all over them," he added. "There's no definition of nothing, no vocal, no nothing, just like ... static."
Dylan said he does his best to fight technology, but it's a losing battle.
"Even these songs probably sounded ten times better in the studio when we recorded 'em. CDs are small. There's no stature to it

Of course, he could go back to recording live to 2-track analogue tape if that's the sound he wants.

Subject: RE: Dylan says modern records 'atrocious'
From: Bill D
Date: 22 Aug 06 - 09:04 PM

pre-release disclaimer "You don't like it? It's the recording, not me!"

Subject: RE: Dylan says modern records 'atrocious'
From: bobad
Date: 22 Aug 06 - 09:05 PM

Sounds to me like Bobby is becoming marketing savvy.

Subject: RE: Dylan says modern records 'atrocious'
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 22 Aug 06 - 09:07 PM

Cause every 65 year old guy who has spent that much time playing loud concerts can hear worth beans...

Subject: RE: Dylan says modern records 'atrocious'
From: number 6
Date: 22 Aug 06 - 10:34 PM

It's Just Bob being Bob.

sIx

Subject: RE: Dylan says modern records 'atrocious'
From: catspaw49
Date: 22 Aug 06 - 10:36 PM

Actually Bob just discovered how bad his voice actually is. Somebody needs to tell him we already knew and don't care.

Spaw

Subject: RE: Dylan says modern records 'atrocious'
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 22 Aug 06 - 10:47 PM

i never liked him

but since "masked and anonymous"

the mad old nasty cunt is growing more and more in my estimation..


i was drinking in a cider pub tonight with a wiry tanned old teddy boy
with tatoos
all over his arms..
dark greasy black quiff...

and a threatening demenour..

the old bugger was 70..

and i wouldnt want to be surprised by him late at night in a dark ally..


so i want old man dylan to make the most of his privaleged multi million dollar pedastal..

and be as ornery and contrary as he fuckin well wants to be

while he still has limited time to breath and annoy folks on this planet..



nice one bob !!!

Subject: RE: Dylan says modern records 'atrocious'
From: John O'L
Date: 22 Aug 06 - 10:52 PM

Well I think he's probably right. I haven't the ear to be able to give an educated opinion on his recordings, but I think the quality of everything has plummetted over the last 20 years. When was the last time you bought something new that didn't have to be taken back within the period of the warranty? Everything put up for sale is as cheap and shoddy as it can be, there's no reason to expect commercial sound quality to be any different.

Subject: RE: Dylan says modern records 'atrocious'
From: Little Hawk
Date: 22 Aug 06 - 11:14 PM

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.

Subject: RE: Dylan says modern records 'atrocious'
From: Scoville
Date: 22 Aug 06 - 11:16 PM

That's because people piss and moan if they have to pay what it costs to make stuff right. If people only want to pay for cheap and shoddy, all they'll get is cheap and shoddy. Wal-Mart approach to goods, services, and music.

There's lots of good music out there, it's just not on the radio or in the chain record stores.

Subject: RE: Dylan says modern records 'atrocious'
From: Little Hawk
Date: 22 Aug 06 - 11:20 PM

Agreed!~ There is wonderful live music out there. Plenty of it. That's not what you will hear on the radio, and it's not what you will find being pushed in the chain record stores, as you said.

"Shit" sells, because it's about all that the business is interested in marketing. If people are used to it, they don't know the difference, and it it's all they hear about on TV anyway, they will go out and buy it, of course. Sheep eat what is put in their trough, don't they?

Subject: RE: Dylan says modern records 'atrocious'
From: GUEST,Art Thieme
Date: 23 Aug 06 - 12:58 AM

Yes, folks are easily satisfied now. They just don't know any better. It's the stuff that paradigms are made of. Things change, generations come along, and nobody knows what they're missing. The voices that "know" -- because they were there -- don't have the energy, or the testosterone, or the feeling that it's worth the fight, given the roads things are taking now, to use up their last years arguing in silly B.S. threads like this one even if, ostensibly, it's about music.

Such is life! And it's cool---whatever. "Is what is." Don't sweat this small stuff. Go with the damn flow.

Art

Subject: RE: Dylan says modern records 'atrocious'
From: GUEST,Bubba
Date: 23 Aug 06 - 01:23 AM

Dylan sounds atrocious and I have been a fan for 200 years. One of the strangest pairings I have heard is Dylan and Ralph Stanley but they sound good together.

Subject: RE: Dylan says modern records 'atrocious'
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 23 Aug 06 - 02:01 AM

I totally disagree.

and I wish I was young again - starting off with all the nice things that there are now.

cheap playable guitars, the internet, cheap digital recording equipment, cheap more freely available classic recordings,better tuition material on dvd.

it might have been okay to have been a Beatle, a Rolling Stone or Bob Dylan in the 1960's, but for most of us the daily reality was getting shit and confidence kicked out of us in crap jobs, schools and colleges run by squadrons of the SS, and totally uncomprehending parents. The Times were a Changing - but not bloody fast enough.

As for Dylan. that first few albums - they just burned with talent. All the producer had to do was point the microphone at him. Probably no one artist has better understood and internalised the folk process than Dylan did in those years when Guthrie's recordings were his mentor.

he has tried to do what Paul Simon has done. develop by adding fresh sounds of the latest and most in vogue musicians and producers - like when he had Knopfler around. Its not worked bcause he and Paul are coming from a different direction as artists. Whereas Paul is a second generation musician - word smithery, and musical cleverness and studio know how in his bones - Dylan was a real visionary. Its like Bob Dylan's vision was Paul Simon's plaything.

If he wants to start making better records - perhaps he should be looking harder at the stuff that got him fired up in the first place. Don't think anone would accuse Woody Guthrie's records of being well produced with too much bass eq.

Subject: RE: Dylan says modern records 'atrocious'
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 23 Aug 06 - 02:07 AM

"starting off with all the nice things that there are now"

The 21st Century is a great time to be around....

Subject: RE: Dylan says modern records 'atrocious'
From: Goose Gander
Date: 23 Aug 06 - 02:27 AM

I have to agree with Bob. Thirty of Forty years ago, you had to know how to sing and play to make a record. Now, you need a producer and a marketing theme.

Subject: RE: Dylan says modern records 'atrocious'
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 23 Aug 06 - 02:46 AM

The recordings are much better. Simple fact that the technology is there to capture what was done more accurately, and to manipulate it more effectively.

Now what gets recorded, and what the producer does to it, that's another matter.

Popular stuff seems to depend almost wholly on looks and visual obscenity (I like obscenity, but it's not music) - consider Robbie Williams and his current video "rude box".

Where are the great singers to compare with Mary Wells, Aretha Franklin, the Supremes, Steve Marriott, Grace Slick, the musical visionaries like the Pink Floyd, Captain Beefheart, the Grateful Dead, the electric presences like the young Mick Jagger, the Ramones, the New York Dolls, Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard?

Subject: RE: Dylan says modern records 'atrocious'
From: Goose Gander
Date: 23 Aug 06 - 03:10 AM

"The recordings are much better. Simple fact that the technology is there to capture what was done more accurately, and to manipulate it more effectively."

I'm not sure they are. I completely agree that the talent is lacking among current artists, but contemporary recording techniques don't cut it either. Outside the realm of folk and traditional, I doubt a 64-track digital recording would improve upon the first Ramones record or Little Richard's early sides.

Subject: RE: Dylan says modern records 'atrocious'
From: Peter T.
Date: 23 Aug 06 - 03:23 AM

I remember the days before bandaids -- when wounds used to heal by themselves, none of this plastic wrap, what is that? We had cloth back then, or moss, or you left your wound to heal in the open air that God made. Where are the scars? People just don't suffer the way they used to, man.

yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: Dylan says modern records 'atrocious'
From: catspaw49
Date: 23 Aug 06 - 03:26 AM

Thanks PT.......This thread needed that. LOL

Spaw

Subject: RE: Dylan says modern records 'atrocious'
From: treewind
Date: 23 Aug 06 - 03:48 AM

Two things:
- cheap digital recording equipment
In the past recording engineers were highly talented with excellent ears and technical knowledge and knew how how to make great recordings (and they did have good equipment too, but it was very expensive). Now any idiot can buy a couple of mics, press the red button and make an indifferent recording whose mediocrity is reproduced with deadly digital accuracy. Of course there are still highly talented engineers in the business, but they're tearing their hair out over the flood of amateurs who think they can do the same thing on the cheap.

(Like if I could afford a $10000000 violin I'd become Maxim Vengerov overnight)

- CDs sound like shit
Much of the reason for this is the mastering. Every band that makes a record wants their CD to be as loud as possible, and louder than everyone else's. There's an absolute ceiling to the level that can be recorded on a CD, so the only way to make it sound louder is to compress all the dynamic range out of it so not only do the loud bits hit 100%, the not-so-loud bits hit 100% too, and the quiet bits hit 100%. Result: a predictably uninteresting track, but it doesn't sound lame compared with your rivals' CDs.

Anahata

Subject: RE: Dylan says modern records 'atrocious'
From: Grab
Date: 23 Aug 06 - 08:14 AM

Where are the great singers to compare with Mary Wells, Aretha Franklin, the Supremes, Steve Marriott, Grace Slick, the musical visionaries like the Pink Floyd, Captain Beefheart, the Grateful Dead, the electric presences like the young Mick Jagger, the Ramones, the New York Dolls, Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard?

Singers? I've seen Beverley Knight live, and she could go head-to-head with Aretha Franklin any day of the week. Her recording of "Piece of my heart" is great, as was her single "Come as you are" a couple of years back.

Electric performers? Robbie Williams ain't a great singer, but by all accounts he's a top-notch live performer. Pete Doherty is apparently also very good when he's not off his head on drugs, but then you could say the same about any or all members of the Doors, the Dead or the Stones. And Lordi are out-Meatloafing Meatloaf.

Visionaries? I'll match your Pink Floyd with Porcupine Tree.

New equivalents of the New York Dolls and the Ramones? Trivium, possibly. Actually the New York Dolls and the Ramones were triumphs of style over any kind of musical substance, so it's more likely to be modern pop-punk bands like Green Day or Blink-182. And it's hilarious, Richard, that you slate modern acts for relying on looks and obscenity, and then quote two punk acts as examples of how to do it "right"! Obviously they weren't relying on that at all, were they? and nor were the Sex Pistols... :-)

Other categories. Inspirational guitar players, perhaps, like Renbourn or Hendrix? Eddie Van Halen started the ultra-technical stuff, and Steve Vai, Joe Satriani and Yngwie Malmsteen pushed technical guitar work way past EVH. As far as Renbourn goes, Eric Roche redefined what you can do with an acoustic guitar, and I've been lucky enough to see Thomas Leeb, a friend of ER's, who takes it even further.

As far as Dylan's bullshit statement goes, perhaps he should check out pop records in the charts from his "Golden Age". I don't think "Sugar baby love", "Runaway" or other saccharine pop of the era are exactly recommendations for the old way of doing things. And if he doesn't like how the recordings come out, he should hire better sound engineers instead of recording something badly and then bitching about it once it's too late.

Michael, the technology definitely *is* better. What you think of as the "character" of a Little Richard or Jerry Lee Lewis recording comes down to having crappy microphones and bad recording equipment that combined to cut off the high and low ends and impose significant distortion across the board. It's the same way that the "character" of a honky-tonk piano came from having a cheap crappy piano that had never been tuned.

Anahata and Richard are dead right that to get a good result, you need to find a recording engineer and a producer who can record you properly and mix the results to how you want your music to sound. But this is a failing of who you hire to do the job - pay peanuts and you get monkeys. So it was, and so it shall ever be, until the end of the world, amen... ;-)

Graham.

Subject: RE: Dylan says modern records 'atrocious'
From: Little Hawk
Date: 23 Aug 06 - 08:26 AM

I think people are talking at cross purposes here, and missing each other's point.

The actual equipment now is wonderful...and that goes for all of it. It's beautifully made, relatively inexpensive, and way beyond the stuff we had back in the 50's or 60's. That goes for both instruments and recording equipment. Hell, it goes for just about any manufactured product you could mention.

What isn't so great is HOW that wonderful equipment is being used. The "compressing" that Anahata has referred to is one problem. The overuse of bass in popular music is another. The way music is being marketed is another. The attitudes being marketed through the music are another. And so on...

We are suffering not from a decline in the quality of manufactured things we are suffering from a decline in the quality of cuture itself...a collapse of philosophical ideals. A culture which lacks coherent ideals cannot produce much beauty or truth. A decadent culture that has lost its moral and philosophical compass tends to produce decadent or trivial art, does it not? This culture is based mostly on lies, cheap thrills, brief sensation, and gross illusions.

As for the musicians themselves, well, there will always be wonderful young musicians coming along. Society can't stop that from happening, it can only do its best to obfuscate, smother, and misdirect that youthful brilliance. (kind of like what public school does to fresh, young minds who started out once, eager to learn)

Subject: RE: Dylan says modern records 'atrocious'
From: GUEST
Date: 23 Aug 06 - 08:35 AM

I don't dobut the comments others have made about people thinking they are sound engineers, doing things on the cheap etc. but I find it pretty near impossible to believe Dylan (particulary if he is picky) went about it that way for his own recording which he complains about.

I also find it hard to believe he couldn't possibly have got an analogue recording done if he is so set against the newer technology. It's sounding more like an "I don't sound so good now, who shall I blame?" thing to me.

Subject: RE: Dylan says modern records 'atrocious'
From: treewind
Date: 23 Aug 06 - 08:40 AM

"we are suffering from a decline in the quality of culture itself"
Spot on as usual, LH.

That's exactly why I like traditional folk music - real people playing real instruments without any hint of the commerical world telling us what we should or shouldn't buy - the whole "music industry" thing. How I hate that expression, even though I have to confess to being a (very) small part of it.

Also I'm one of those crass amateurs I referred to, playing with modern recording technology at home, though I don't have any pretentions to producing professional results - it's a hobby and an education for me.

Anahata

Subject: RE: Dylan says modern records 'atrocious'
From: Al
Date: 23 Aug 06 - 09:01 AM

Get out some of your old vinyl and play it. I have recently. What a difference. The old recordings sound real compared to most of the processed stuff today. I'm for live recording. No separate tracks, no overdubbing, no punching in and out. Good mastering is needed, though, to turn out a good final product. But a light touch is required.
Al

Subject: RE: Dylan says modern records 'atrocious'
From: GUEST,Russ
Date: 23 Aug 06 - 09:05 AM

I am having trouble parsing his complaints.

IMHO he has at times been a brilliant songwriter and/or poet, but when he simply talks he is often disappointingly inarticulate.

Anyway, if he likes what he hears in the studio better than what he hears on the product, I interpret that to mean that his problem is with the mixing.

Call me naive but I am surprised to hear that an artist of his stature does not have control over the final mix. If I didn't like what the engineer was giving me, my first impulse would be to get a different engineer.

Subject: RE: Dylan says modern records 'atrocious'
From: GUEST,Russ
Date: 23 Aug 06 - 09:15 AM

With all due respect to the esteemed contributors to this thread, it sounds like feeding time at the Nursing Home.

I think that Bob is simply doing what he is required by law to do.

He is a geezer complaining about "current" "popular" music.

And getting a chorus of "amens".

His complaints about the quality of the mix is probably just a smoke screen.

I realized that I had become a "true" geezer the day I honestly admitted to myselt that as far as current popular music is concerned I didn't like it, I didn't get it, I didn't want to get it.

I had become my father.

Russ (Permanent GUEST)

Subject: RE: Dylan says modern records 'atrocious'
From: Little Hawk
Date: 23 Aug 06 - 09:21 AM

Bob Dylan has been complaining bitterly about the state of both popular music and the recording process since at least the early 90's, if not before. Check out the liner notes on the album "World Gone Wrong", where he compares what's happening then in popular music with the traditional songs he played on that album...very eloquent comments. He mourns the loss of what went before, and despairs of what has replaced it.

The best Dylan material, by the way, has been in live performances...and that's the case with most experienced performers. You are quite unlikely to hear their best stuff on a studio recording. Nothing beats live, when a performer is really on.

And as I'm sure someone will feel compelled to jump in and say now....some of his worst performances have been live too...

But who really cares about that? ;-)

Subject: RE: Dylan says modern records 'atrocious'
From: Little Hawk
Date: 23 Aug 06 - 09:32 AM

The process you are describing happens to everyone, Russ, and has been happening since at least the time of the Han Dynasty of ancient China, if not long before that.

Why would someone go for the popular music of kids who are 30 or 40 years younger? What would be the chances? Things change, but most people remain most attached to the things they experienced in their formative years when they had the greatest hunger for life. That's natural. You can even see it in animals, although they are pretty much free of what we would term culture.

You say it like it's a bad thing...

Subject: RE: Dylan says modern records 'atrocious'
From: Scoville
Date: 23 Aug 06 - 09:40 AM

Okay, I'm no friend to the Top 40, but have we all forgotten the glut of teen idols in the 1950's? What percentage of them do you think would have sounded even human if they hadn't been studio-manipulated beyond recognition? Doesn't every single generation complain about the "racket" that the young people call music? My grandmother said the same thing about most of the musicians cited in this thread as examples of "good music"--that they were crap and music was going down the tubes. (I grew up in the era of the Beastie Boys--I shudder to think what I'll be bitching about when my grand-nieces and -nephews hit high school.)

I repeat myself--there are loads of very, very, talented young musicians out there who care a great deal about the finished product. However, in order to make sure they can continue to do this, they stay with small labels. Please don't make blanket assumptions about the musical tastes and/or abilities of a given generation based on what is most visible.

And I'm sorry, I don't agree that CD's sound like shit. If the stuff you record in the first place is flat, the CD is going to sound flat because there wasn't any resonance to record. (This is why nobody will ever convince me that the electric bass was an improvement over the acoustic stand-up bass.) If it's played by someone who knows what they're doing, using decent instruments, and is recorded properly, it sounds great. Thank God they're not singing into cones any more like Ma Rainey, et. al.--imagine what she would have sounded like with good modern equipment. Yes, it sucks that remastering older recordings can make them sound odd, but a lot of this has to do with the limitations of the original recording.

Subject: RE: Dylan says modern records 'atrocious'
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 23 Aug 06 - 10:15 AM

Oh, there's quite a lot of good-ish modern music outside folk and contemp/acoust...... and I'd agree that there are probably more better guitar widdlers than there used to be (perhaps 10 Years After and/or Hendrix excepted) - but where are this small band of supermusicians in the commercial firmament?

I like System of Adowne, and the couple of tracks I've heard of Elfpower, and although Girls Aloud were largely rubbish Sounds of the Underground was a damn good bit of pop.   The Chemical Brothers were good at the last Glastonbury, too, but a few swallows do not a summer make.

I have not heard Knight live (except broadcast live on Jools Holland) but to me she fails to deliver. Power, yes, rasp, yes, but not up to the Motown greats (or the Staple Singers). Of course the Jools Holland Rythm'n'Blues Orchestra is not the Muscle Shoals session men either...

I also belong to the "No such thing as too much bass" school of thought, and have done since the 60s (Missa Luba sounds great on modern subwoofers). Shock value and revolution have their place, because that is where we used to and kids today still do break out of the cocoon, but if appearance has replaced ability, there is something wrong.

But I'm sure there is more crap today than there used to be, and there is definitely something odd about the presence on recordings. Listen to a microgroove vinyl '78 and compare it to a CD - ignore the hiss and crackle - and under it all there is more presence delivered more smoothly.

Subject: RE: Dylan says modern records 'atrocious'
From: Little Hawk
Date: 23 Aug 06 - 10:21 AM

No such thing as too much bass? Heh! Well, are you one of those guys who drives by in a car that is going THOOOOMP!.......THOOOOMP!.....THOOOOOMP!.....THOOOOMP!.....as small animals cringe and plants shrivel up and die within a radius of 3 blocks...?

Subject: RE: Dylan says modern records 'atrocious'
From: bobad
Date: 23 Aug 06 - 10:32 AM

It'll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin'.

Subject: RE: Dylan says modern records 'atrocious'
From: Bill D
Date: 23 Aug 06 - 10:46 AM

I have a CD of bagpipe music that I can play when one of those **THOOMP** cars comes up beside me....turned up, it can compete. I use it sparingly, mostly when I won't offend other suffering motorists.

(I first tried this many years ago when a guy across the street was playing LOUD rock out his front door...I put my speaker in the door and turned UP the bagpipes....he got the point.)

Subject: RE: Dylan says modern records 'atrocious'
From: leeneia
Date: 23 Aug 06 - 10:50 AM

Re: "With all due respect to the esteemed contributors to this thread, it sounds like feeding time at the Nursing Home."

Have you ever noticed that when someone starts a sentence with "With all due respect.." a disrespectful (and usually inaccurate) aspersion is sure to follow?

Guest Russ, if you think you're so brilliant, find something to say that's not a cliche.

Subject: RE: Dylan says modern records 'atrocious'
From: mack/misophist
Date: 23 Aug 06 - 11:00 AM

The ideal in high end recording has always been to produce a copy that is indistinguishable from the real thing; one where you can sit in front of the speakers and point directly to each performer, then describe the room it was performed in. One in which an expert can tell which Stradavarius is being played. This has always been vanishingly rare. We should also remember that the sampling rate for cd's was chosen to be 'good enough', not just good.

And then there's the fact that, when the music itself is mostly artificial (amplified, synthecized, digitized, and equalized), there is no way the recording itself can sound 'natural'.

Subject: RE: Dylan says modern records 'atrocious'
From: Al
Date: 23 Aug 06 - 11:19 AM

I think the "ideal" Mack describes, which I share, does not exist much any more. Most recordings are virtual reality, with the performers never really sitting around in a room in close proximity playing and singing with each other. The result is an illusion. It never really happened. There is no "real thing" from which the recording can appear indistinguishable. It is a hypothetical construct. And it lacks something essential.

Let us also remember that it is the job of each generation to create a music which is totally offensive to its parents. I think they have done a really good job.

Subject: RE: Dylan says modern records 'atrocious'
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 23 Aug 06 - 11:29 AM

Thoomp is not real bass, it's low mid. Kick drum (or marching big bass drum) is bass. The initial pulse is very nearly DC!

Subject: RE: Dylan says modern records 'atrocious'
From: Little Hawk
Date: 23 Aug 06 - 11:30 AM

Damn right. ;-) Or the business itself has.

Subject: RE: Dylan says modern records 'atrocious'
From: GUEST,Russ
Date: 23 Aug 06 - 11:33 AM

Little Hawk,
Good point.
I am not at all disturbed that I don't get it.

leeneia,

mea culpa
my intent was to be disrespectful and cast asperions.
But I only intended to dis the geezers. We know who we are.

If my remarks offended you, I apologize.

Subject: RE: Dylan says modern records 'atrocious'
From: Little Hawk
Date: 23 Aug 06 - 11:42 AM

Yeah... (grin) I'm not at all disturbed that I don't get most of the latest stuff either. It wasn't made with me in mind, was it?

Subject: RE: Dylan says modern records 'atrocious'
From: GUEST,Michael Morris
Date: 23 Aug 06 - 12:54 PM

'Better' of course is subjective. Recording equipment is much more sophisticated nowadays, no doubt about that. But my ears tell me that recordings from decades past sound better. Part of the problem is recording and mastering techniques, part of the problem is the music itself.

Moss and bandages aside, a singer or a musician who knows his craft will make a better record than someone who relies on cut and paste multitracking to 'assemble' a recording. No reason it has to be so, but contemporary recording techniques do make it easier to take the easy way out. CD mastering is indeed a problem. Because contemporary music is often all about volume, everyone wants to have the loudest CD on the block. And the closer you get to digital zero, the more compressed the recording and the more limited the dynamics. It just sounds fake to me.

Grab, if Steve Vai, Joe Satriani and Yngwie Malmsteen make your list of great guitar players, then you and I probably are not going to agree on anything musically. And that saturated distortion of Little Richard recordings and the slightly off-key sound of plunky old pianos are part of listening experience for me, I wouldn't give it up for all the digital precision in the world.

I do love CDs as a format for reissues, though. That Charlie Poole box-set is great, the only way I would have heard a lot of that stuff.

Subject: RE: Dylan says modern records 'atrocious'
From: Peace
Date: 23 Aug 06 - 01:06 PM

Some things happen in the studio that do not happen in live performance. To see that in action, watch people when they are getting their picture taken. "Look natural!" Then most of us look like people who are looking antural and that makes it all very unnatural.

Live performance is where the rubber hits the road between the performer and the audience. As was noted above, if yer on the audience/performer dynamic is increased exponentially. The songs are natural because both know it's a one-time thing. Studios are costly. Sit and do a take and be very extra-careful not to make a mistake, because the flaws and all approach doesn't work for everyone. Take seven: can we do it ONE more time and try not to breathe at the end of the third stanza, second line. Etc.

We have all heard performers breathe into a microphone. In live performance, who cares? On tape, it's there until it's edited out.

Music is still as good as it ever was. So are the people who create it: the composers, songwriters, interpreters. As was also noted above, the marketing side of the industry has changed its focus from the presentation of art to the production of product.

There was a time . . . . Recall the Elektra days or the Columbia days when people like Holzman or Hammond would take chances on people they thought might 'take off'. That doesn't happen too much anymore. I think kids today are as creative as they were at any time in the past. Maybe more so. But the moguls who run the business have a different focus, a different agenda. And the stations that play it have their advertisers to please, and stock holders. Just as in the past. But now, musicians are smartening up and the Motown days when singers got bugger all for their efforts--ripped off for their work and mostly were unable to do anything about it are maybe coming to an end. Hell, look at the pirated mp3 shit that's out there. Some writer somewhere ain't getting his nickle, and some singer ain't getting his. Honestly, how many folks have pirated stuff from the 'net? No one here I'm sure, but look at your friend's collection of stuff and then wonder why music has become hard-up.

On a thread a few days back (maybe yesterday) someone posed the question "Why do folk clubs have a cover charge?" Keriste, do we have it built into our culture that it's OK to pay a plumber $70 an hour, a lawyer the same, but a folksinger a cuppa coffee and a donut? Until there is a strong union of writers, singers, composers, there will be ripoffs. And as long as scabs will undercut a fellow performer, there will be ripoffs. If the industry sucks, it's partly the fault of musicians. We enable people to get away with it.

Anyway, that's my rant for today. Y'all take care. And to quote Mark Ross (who quotes someone else), "Take it easy, but take it."

Subject: RE: Dylan says modern records 'atrocious'
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 23 Aug 06 - 02:32 PM

Maeanwhile there are people making good music, and good records, and singing in clubs and festivals and sellingthe records to the ounters after the gig.

Why bother with the music industry and its meagre offerings?

Subject: RE: Dylan says modern records 'atrocious'
From: Peace
Date: 23 Aug 06 - 02:37 PM

Or, create an alternate industry. An organized alternate industry.

Subject: RE: Dylan says modern records 'atrocious'
From: mikefromdorch
Date: 23 Aug 06 - 05:27 PM

Moss? You were lucky! Spiders' cobwebs were the traditional bandages - there's a reference to this in Midsummer Night's Dream if you don't believe me.

I much prefer live recordings to over-produced studio 'sonic landscapes'. I'm listening to Show of Hands Cold Cuts album at this moment, which is all concert recordings and is much better than any of their studio albums.

Subject: RE: Dylan says modern records 'atrocious'
From: greg stephens
Date: 23 Aug 06 - 05:44 PM

The crucial bit of Dylan's staement is the bit about CDs being small. That is the true basis of the complaint, and I'm 100% with him. They are physically small, and culturally small, and emotionally small, I kkep buying CD versions of musicI used to like, and in some ways they sound better, on better equipment, and cleaned up and stuff. But if I want to really hear the music, and I;'ve still got the old LP, I get it out and put it on a 60's portable player(the only vinyl player in he house). Then I hear the music scratchy, thin, and as honest as the day is long. Not a lot of CDs do that for me, I'm afraid. It's not easy, getting honest music onto a CD. Every extra technological step between the performer and the listener is an extra hurdle to be jumped. Recording is easier now. Making music is harder.

Subject: RE: Dylan says modern records 'atrocious'
From: shepherdlass
Date: 23 Aug 06 - 07:11 PM

Mike Morris said:- "Thirty of Forty years ago, you had to know how to sing and play to make a record. Now, you need a producer and a marketing theme." But thirty or forty years ago you could buy recordings by such (unmarketed????) artists as Johnny Ray, Guy Mitchell, Mike Sarne, Cilla Black ... the list is endless. We remember only the good stuff because it's what survives. And I don't think it's to do with production - "Revolver" was pretty heavily produced and sounds great. What about Joan Armatrading's "Love and Affection", orchestra and all? Still a wonderfully warm recording.

As for analogue v digital ... Greg, I agree. It's eternally perplexing that digital SHOULD be so much better, but my old vinyl LPs seem to just jump out of the speakers and grab me round the throat whereas digitized music is ... clean. I know nothing of the science bit but perhaps someone could enlighten us as to why this happens?

But digital has one BIG advantage - it's pretty darn democratizing. Anyone with a computer and a mic and a bit of know-how can do an at least decent recording these days, and so can effectively bypass the big A&R sharks.

Subject: RE: Dylan says modern records 'atrocious'
From: Al
Date: 23 Aug 06 - 10:22 PM

Very true about making decent recording affordable. Especially with good quality mics. I wonder, is anybody putting out vinyl LPs any more? Or 45s?
Al

Subject: RE: Dylan says modern records 'atrocious'
From: pdq
Date: 23 Aug 06 - 10:51 PM

There are many small record lables offering vinyl LPs. Some are of very high quality with re-mastered music and selected quality vinyl. Here is one example:

                                    Sundazed

You may want to subscribe to an 'audiophile' magazine, as those who are willing to spend the time and money setting-up turntables and looking for well-recorded music are often called 'audiophiles'.

Subject: RE: Dylan says modern records 'atrocious'
From: Little Hawk
Date: 24 Aug 06 - 01:31 AM

There was a lot of atrocious stuff back then too, no doubt about that. But the business wasn't so controlled and devoid of real imagination as it mostly is these days. Anything that sells now just gets imitated over and over again until selling begins to wane. And by that time they are finding something else to imitate over and over again, and the something else is usually just a slight variation on a well-established theme.

Kind of the same as most Hollywood movie franchises. I hear that another Rocky film is on the way, for example... ;-)

And then there's politics. We've had Ronald Reagan as a governor and president, Clint Eastwood as a mayor, and Arnold Schwarzenneger as a governnor. When will Schwarzenegger get to run for president? I give him a 50/50 chance he'll get a shot at it, and if he runs I bet he'll win!

It's downright horrifying. Mass marketing has taken over everything, it seems, and is prepared to inflict travesties upon us that would not have been dreamt of a few decades ago.

Aha! More geezeritis on my part, right? LOL!

Subject: RE: Dylan says modern records 'atrocious'
From: Grab
Date: 24 Aug 06 - 07:46 AM

But the business wasn't so controlled and devoid of real imagination as it mostly is these days. Anything that sells now just gets imitated over and over again until selling begins to wane.

Sugar Baby Love. Runaway. Everley Brothers. Matt Monroe. Nelson Eddy. Phil Spektor. Nuff said, I think. For as long as there's *been* a music recording business, people have been making money by selling bland imitations of music when they can get away with it. Remember that American pop was right in the toilet until the Beatles and others brought rock back across the Atlantic.

Grab, if Steve Vai, Joe Satriani and Yngwie Malmsteen make your list of great guitar players, then you and I probably are not going to agree on anything musically.

Fair enough Michael, you might not like what they play, but you can't deny their technical ability. I don't particularly like John Coltrane's music, but I can recognise he was excellent at what he did and that he pushed the boundaries of what was thought possible for his instrument.

And that saturated distortion of Little Richard recordings and the slightly off-key sound of plunky old pianos are part of listening experience for me, I wouldn't give it up for all the digital precision in the world.

Now that I *do* disagree with. If the distortion or the plunky piano is *chosen* to provide a particular effect (as it often is with guitar), then fine. But if the distortion is just an artifact of crap equipment, we're confusing "old" with "good". Maybe you like the way it sounds - fine. But I can guarantee you that if Little Richard and his sound techs had had the option of recording his voice without distortion, they would have done so in a heartbeat.

It's the same reason that I don't object to people saying they think vinyl sounds better - that's fine by me, and there's even technical reasons why it may be the case. But to say "I like the sound of vinyl because of the hisses and crackles and the way the record jumps on the scratches" would be simply incomprehensible.

As far as opinions on live records go, recording from an arena brings a whole lot of reverberation effects which you can't easily duplicate in a recording. You also get the sound of the crowd, which adds to the atmosphere too (for the same reason sitcoms use a laughter track). And the third element is lots more high frequencies, which are usually filtered out of commercial recordings because they damage headphones and hi-fi speakers (or at least drive them out of their normal operating region and make them rattle, which sounds horrible), but are left in live recordings to provide that feature. Together, those three add to the "immediacy" of the recording, which is why live recordings have that particular "feel".

But even here, live recording these days is so vastly improved as to be unrecognisable against what Dylan and co would have been used to. Check out all those live recordings from the 60s and 70s, and see how many of them are absolutely ruined by the microphones and recording gear saturating and distorting, to the extent you can't hear what's being played (live recordings of Hendrix are particularly bad for this). These days, technology allows live CDs like SoH's "Cold Cuts" to be made relatively easily and cheaply. So if the sound of live recordings is your thing, then slating the technology that allows it to be done well today is really biting the hand that feeds you.

Graham.

Subject: RE: Dylan says modern records 'atrocious'
From: Strollin' Johnny
Date: 24 Aug 06 - 08:57 AM

Listen to Gene Vincent's 'Be-Bop-a-Lula'. 1958(ish!) - not a crackle, not a hiss, not a pop. Just atmosphere, recorded perfectly. Still makes my spine tingle.

Subject: RE: Dylan says modern records 'atrocious'
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 24 Aug 06 - 10:33 AM

This thread is little more than a passle of old, cranky, sucky-baby guys....   Just like Dylan...

Only without the talent

Or the good looks...

Subject: RE: Dylan says modern records 'atrocious'
From: Peace
Date: 24 Aug 06 - 10:33 AM

Welcome to the club, Clinton.

Subject: RE: Dylan says modern records 'atrocious'
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 24 Aug 06 - 10:59 AM

If you're so smart, CH, why have you no current top 10 single?

Subject: RE: Dylan says modern records 'atrocious'
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 24 Aug 06 - 11:11 AM

Cause one can be smart without being a song-writer....

One can also be a song-writer without being very smart....

Subject: RE: Dylan says modern records 'atrocious'
From: Goose Gander
Date: 24 Aug 06 - 11:33 AM

Without getting into a pointless debate about matters of taste, analogue distortion has a warmth and a harmonic quality not present in digital distortion (example - a CD burned at too high a level). A 'hot' analogue recording may be entirely intentional, as I suspect those Little Richards recordings were. Plenty of recordings contemporary to 'Long Tall Sally' et al were quite clean-sounding in comparision. The distortion was achieved by volume, recording level, and microphone placement. So I'm not sure Little Richard would have recorded without distortion if given the chance.

Back to Dylan, I'm sure someone in his position could make any kind of recording he wanted. If the problem is the CD format, Time Out of Mind and Love and Theft were both released in (limited) vinyl editions, I'm sure Modern Times will be as well - maybe Bob is just grousing.

Subject: RE: Dylan says modern records 'atrocious'
From: Arkie
Date: 24 Aug 06 - 12:00 PM

If modern music is put in categories the discussion becomes a little more clear.   There is music created for mass consumption with the hope that it will get radio or video air play and music created by independent labels and the artist themselves.   I share the opinion of Dylan and many others that the music produced for mass consumption is atrocious.   Again, it is helpful to me to think in categories. Modern music consists of songs or tunes and arrangements.   Since the arrangements are so unbearable to my ear, I cannot evaluate the songs.   The bass is way too loud and some potentially good recordings have been ruined, for me, by the bass.   But also the vocals are so often buried in the musical arrangement. So I no longer listen to radio and usually leave the room after a few minutes of award shows. The thing that bothers me most about this is that what now passes for commercial music is the model for the the writers and performers of the next generation.

On the other hand, there is some wonderful music being performed and recorded on independent labels and produced by the artists themselves.   And though this music is unlikely to get radio airplay it sometimes shows up in films and is often available via the internet as well as being sold at live performances.   Another redeeming factor is that so much of the great music of past generations is still available on recordings.

Subject: RE: Dylan says modern records 'atrocious'
From: Little Hawk
Date: 24 Aug 06 - 02:34 PM

You're just a disagreeable shithead with a bad attitude problem, Clinton, but at least you're good at it. ;-D

Subject: RE: Dylan says modern records 'atrocious'
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 24 Aug 06 - 02:43 PM

Fuck off LH

and take your passive-aggressive baiting and general head-up-your-ass'dness with you

Cause you're not even very good at either

Subject: RE: Dylan says modern records 'atrocious'
From: Little Hawk
Date: 24 Aug 06 - 03:11 PM

What I know about passive-aggressive behaviour, Clinton, can't even put a scratch in what you have accomplished in that regard on this forum. I've never seen anyone else on here so defensive and reactive as you. You're like a mean dog on a very short chain. I think you're seriously fucked up, and I bet a lot of other people do too.

Subject: RE: Dylan says modern records 'atrocious'
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 24 Aug 06 - 03:13 PM

Like what you think is worth a tinkers spit

Go post it up your mothers backside LH.... It'll do you some good to get back to from where you came from.

Subject: RE: Dylan says modern records 'atrocious'
From: bobad
Date: 24 Aug 06 - 03:26 PM

Now now gentlemen, please don't sully this thread - start one down below and go at it logo a logo as it were - might prove to be quite entertaining.

Subject: RE: Dylan says modern records 'atrocious'
From: GUEST,Val
Date: 24 Aug 06 - 05:46 PM

Expanding a bit on what Arkie said, and the general theme of "it ain't the technology so much as what you do with it" -

D'ya think maybe a lot of what is marketed as popular music these days is intended to be played on iPods or similar portable units? Or the "digital media hub" concept - your desktop computer with a couple of tiny speakers and maybe a subwoofer is your entire Entertainment Center.

You mix a recording to sound good on a particular type of sound system. If your target audience mostly has audiophile hi-fidelity playback equipment, you mix with a lot more dynamic range & subtlety. If your target audience is going to listen through those silly white "ear buds" that have pitiful bass response and only handle dynamics with the subtlety of a chainsaw, then you boost the bejeezus on the bass, run it all thorugh a compressor/limiter, and push the gain as high as you can.

So yes, most currently popular recordings DO sound like cr@p.

That, and the "democratization" of the recording industry (as mentioned above several times) which leads music distributors to stop paying the overhead of maintaining a quality recording studio. They let the "artists" crank out whatever they want in their computer rooms and focus their money on finding ways to convince The Market to consume whatever it is they're peddling. Music is a product, and the only true good is to maximize profit on that product.

Subject: RE: Dylan says modern records 'atrocious'
From: Little Hawk
Date: 24 Aug 06 - 06:26 PM

What'll you pay me if I give you the last word this time, Clinton?

Subject: RE: Dylan says modern records 'atrocious'
From: Arkie
Date: 24 Aug 06 - 07:17 PM

Folk who listen on portable devices while their minds or bodies are otherwise occupied would probably not be as critical of music product as someone who actually listens. Other factors that drive the commercial music industry are (One) the video and what works on the TV screen may not be as good without the pictures and even more importantly when recording artists are recruited for how they will look in a video they may need a lot of production and sound to cover their voices. (Two) far too many studios depend upon the name of the artist or one song to sell the CDs and load the recording with tripe by the producer or other staff so they can pick up a few bucks in royalties.   This also requires a lot of production to cover the lack of quality songs.

Subject: RE: Dylan says modern records 'atrocious'
From: chucky
Date: 25 Aug 06 - 07:47 AM

Geez, calm down guys, it's only old Zimmerman. It's not like he's relevant any more even.

Subject: RE: Dylan says modern records 'atrocious'
From: GUEST,johnmc
Date: 25 Aug 06 - 09:59 AM

I've just read Joe Boyd's excellent "White Bicycles" and in it he makes an interesting point. He noticed that when people walked into a restaurant with the Buena Vista Social Club playing on the cd player, they looked around to see where the band was. This he attributes to the fact they use older methods of recording.

Subject: RE: Dylan says modern records 'atrocious'
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 25 Aug 06 - 10:54 AM

"Other factors that drive the commercial music industry are (One) the video and what works on the TV screen may not be as good without the pictures and even more importantly when recording artists are recruited for how they will look in a video they may need a lot of production and sound to cover their voices."

That just isn't true anymore. Since MTV stopped playing videos (except for their secondary channel), the need for videos has diminished. Music videos simply do not play as important a role in the music business as they did 10 years ago.

Even if it were still true, the music video was an artform unto itself. There is no shame to "casting" a video that targets a certain market. Does this affect the "sound" of the music we were forced to listen to? Of course, but the needs of the audience was different.

No one stopped making good music, but the consumer now has more choices and fewer outlets for sampling those choices. When the major labels changed their focus to concentrate on a handful of saleable artists, other artists needed to find another way to get their music out. In the past twenty years we have seen a rise in independent recordings.

Naturally, there are a lot of awful recordings in that mix. When I started doing my radio show 26 years ago, I would receive a handful of LP's each month.   I usually receive 2 or 3 CD's each day.

Frankly, when we had fewer choices of what to listen to, most of it sounded pretty good. I sincerely think that the quality of songwriters in 2006 is far better than what it was in that supposedly fertile period of the early 1960's when Dylan made his mark.   You may not get to hear the music as often as you did "Blowin in the Wind", but it is out there.

Songwriters like Antje Duvekot, Ellis Paul, Terence Martin, Tom Prasada-Rao, Danny Schmidt, Anais Mitchell are just a few names that come to mind. I feel their material can be more compelling then the many of the artists we now consider to be "legends". All it takes is a mind that has not made up its mind about current recordings and an opportunity to get to hear these people.

Subject: RE: Dylan says modern records 'atrocious'
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 25 Aug 06 - 11:59 AM

I think a lot of this anti technology comes from the punters rather than those of us at the sharp end - actually trying to create some music.

Its okay if you're Paul simon, Martin Carthy or Bob - these guys have always got people believing in them and willing to fund them on the best technology available.

From interviews published though, I know that Roy Harper and Spider John Koerner spent all the little money that their fathers left them trying to stay in the game - buying recording equipment. And these are considerable artists in my book. To be frank I'd rather see either of them play than the aforementioned.

Twenty years ago I did the same - spent all the money a freak hit record provided on a recording set up - tape multi track, Revox mastering, mixing desk, drawmer compressorers and noise gates, digital reverb, etc.

Now you can get better quality for £500 in one little box - cd mastering - which is damn sight cheaper reels of tape. Ithink its good that kids don't have to make the sort of sacrifices we made.

less bloody wires too!

Subject: RE: Dylan says modern records 'atrocious'
From: Goose Gander
Date: 25 Aug 06 - 12:27 PM

It is isn't anti-technology, it's a question of which technology is most appropriate for particular kinds of music. And for all the convenience of digital, there are still artists who prefer the analogue format. A few years back, there was only one manufacture making 2-inch tape and they went out of business - now there are three companies making tape, so someone is buying it.

Subject: RE: Dylan says modern records 'atrocious'
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 25 Aug 06 - 02:57 PM

To me the most apropriate technology for acoustic music was DAT mastering - a large beautiful airy sound.

However that lasted all of ten minutes. the machines weren't very good for editing. and minidisc became the industry standard despite its compressed and 'smaller' sound, it was a doddle to edit. Now most people store the their stuff on hard disc. In the middle of that was DCC - I've still got one those and a dat machine somewhere.

I was never a fan of analogue stuff. I know its got its fans, and theres a certain romance about those old studer machines - like sailing ships, and steam engines.

However all kinds of people are making quite creditable recordings with the new little machines. And good luck to them!

Subject: RE: Dylan says modern records 'atrocious'
From: Goose Gander
Date: 25 Aug 06 - 03:14 PM

Absolutely, good luck to anyone attempting to create good music.

Subject: RE: Dylan says modern records 'atrocious'
From: woodsie
Date: 25 Aug 06 - 03:20 PM

His last few releases have been pretty attrocious too. Including the new "Modern Times" which I have just got. Mediocre stuff at best!

Subject: RE: Dylan says modern records 'atrocious'
From: Little Hawk
Date: 25 Aug 06 - 04:15 PM

You oughta go and complain to him personally about it...give him a piece of your mind. ;-)