Poll: The most atrocious-sounding music
The worst sounding recording of 2007, so far.
Iffy sound quality isn't a new problem. Bad sound can't directly be blamed on digital, analog, vinyl, CD, or even MP3. Those are release formats; the quality of the recording itself is what I'm talking about.
Granted, personal taste plays a big part in defining good or bad sound. For every person who says the sound is clear and detailed, there's another who thinks it's ragged and harsh.
That said, the trend of late is toward spitty distortion, the kind that obscures the sound of the vocals and instruments, and buries them in grunge. I'm not opposed to grit that adds an edge to music, but I can't stand recordings made by people who either don't know what they're doing or are too deaf to notice the error of their ways.
Bob Dylan, of all people, agrees with me.
"You listen to these modern records--they're atrocious, they have sound all over them. There's no definition of nothing, no vocal, no nothing, just like--static," Dylan said in a Rolling Stone interview with Jonathan Lethem in September 2006.
He's not just referring to other people's records; he included his own record, "Modern Times," in his rant: "Even these songs probably sounded 10 times better in the studio when we recorded 'em." I believe Dylan. That album was a blurry wall of sound. You can hardly hear individual instruments.
The worst recording of 2009 so far--it's still early--is the Heartless Bastards' "The Mountain" CD. It's too bad because I really like the music. It rocks hard, and I love Erika Wennerstrom's strange voice, but there's severe distortion whenever she sings loud.
The distortion was so incredibly annoying that my speakers' tweeters sounded broken. If the distortion just appeared on the hard-edged, bluesier numbers, I might have thought that it was intentional, but the sound was just as ragged on "So Quiet," in which Wennerstrom is accompanied by violin.
The vocal distortion varies from tune to tune. It's worst on "Could Be So Happy," another acoustic tune. Besides the distortion, the sound is dynamically compressed to the hilt, so despite the music's undeniable passion, it sounds lifeless.
I'm frustrated, I like the music, but I can't listen to it without wincing. For what it's worth, "The Mountain" was mastered by Howie Weinberg. Nice job!
Runner up for worst sound of the year: Bruce Springsteen's "Working on a Dream." What a mess! That's true for most of the Boss' albums, but the sound of "Dream" may be the worst in any Springsteen album to date.
Tell us about your picks for worst sound of the year, or all time worst sound.
Steve Guttenberg is a frequent contributor to magazines and Web sites including Home Entertainment, Playback, and Ultimate AV. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network, and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure. 
Its obvious that people are just clicking on a button to transfer the final finished product from its working state into CD audio format, without checking on the final product. And from what I understand, the algorithms are generally designed to peg the total sound energy on the CD at maximum, as studies have shown that people rank loud-sounding music as better-sounding. So they crank the levels to the max, or use software that does it for them.
You want another bad example? Try Rush Vapor Trails. Unlistenable. Good music ruined by bad engineering and or bad QA.
I'n many, many cases mastering engineers know exactly what they're doing and they go home hating themselves for it.
I also agree with this article in general about being disappointed in a lot of the new music coming out these days. I here countless new artists that just muddy up their sound to the point where it sounds like it was recorded on a 4-track by a bunch of amateurs. I realize this was probably done intentionally most of the time but it bothers me to no end because I can tell that the music itself is great but they're trying so hard to be edgy and hip that they cover it up with distortion.
This kind of casually automated and rough production treatment probably reflects a different way of "using" or "consuming" music.
Music may be background for running or working out. Some of the music may be temporary, low-value, trendy "hits" loaded on a player in a lossy format, heard passively a few times and forgotten.
"Using" or "consuming" music is nothing at all like active listening to a piece of music for the sake of getting inside it and really hearing its musical language.
Case in point: Listen to Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here" on a CD. and if you are so lucky, find an audiophile with that same song on the original album. There's no contest! The hiss and hum on that record is incomparable. In the digital arena, our music is losing its analog flavor, and its killing the passion that goes into a recording. Music has a life, and how its recorded and presented is crucial to its existence.
The retort I would like to give to nijay's comment is this: Now that our music is digital, there is no generational loss from recording to recording. That's the complaint. A copy is just as good as the original. That's the crux of the RIAA's whole argument. (Not that the original is that good, however...)
What bothers me about that, (since Metallica is specifically mentioned here) is that they themselves have been one of the biggest beneficiaries of the underground tape trade. Had that not happened, would Metallica the machine that it did? I would guess not.
Either way, if you are going to master any recording, take the time to learn your equipment, understand how it works and WHY it works. When you press a master, let a few folks take a listen, and take the comments as constructive criticism. I personally like a thick, deep bass in my tunes, to drive them... But is that necessary on a 100 piece orchestra?
Recording is an art. It's part understanding what the artist is trying to achieve, and helping them to reach that end. They have an idea of what the painting is going to look like, its up to that engineer to make sure he is using the right brushes and colors. Every artist and every recording is different.
I would also encourage folks to venture out to a local place to see some good live music. I've always felt that some of the best musicians the world over are people who will never be widely known. I watched a show once by this guy from Columbus, OH, and his technical mastery of his gear was just as impressive as his music and stage presence. Great show, and he'll never be famous because he knows more about what he's doing than most engineers that a label would pair him with.
With modern equipment, when you get overload, it's HARD.
The other sad thing is, that's IT. When it's on tape/disc/final audio file and out to the public, figure that's the only way you're going to hear it for a long, long time.
On the flip side, I'd nominate Peter Gabriel's UP as the BEST sounding modern-day CD I've heard in a long time. The dynamic range and bass extension is remarkable.
Industrial
Powernoize
EBM
Hard Style
Drum and Bass
These genres will sound atrocious to the the narrow-minded. But, to each his/her own.
Despite the deliberate distortion, you can hear how cleverly the engineer/mixer has made the noise into an instrument.
Remixers and DJs will create edits that sound like digital errors.
This is why you blog for cnet and not Pitchfork or Rolling Stone. I, like you, love the band and to a certain extent agree with you on your point, but not really. I love the sound of old LP's. Practically all music that is now produced has to go through a computer. I believe you skewed Mr. Dylan's comments on that as well, he goes on in the interview to discuss how he prefers the imperfections, the subtle nuances that computers tend to filter out. He was talking about the raw sound in the studio that gets lost when it goes into format. I believe the Heartless Bastards wanted just that; an album of raw sound not cleansed by some computer. This is art Steve. That's like looking at the 'Mona Lisa" and saying it's not a great painting because it's painted and doesnt look like a photograph clean and vivid allowing the viewer to see all possible detail. So no this is not the "most atrocious-sounding music" of the year so far. What it is Steve, is the most atrocious blog post for an album review. You may think it's not a review but that's exactly what you did. If you want to be an art critic or teacher go work for MoMa or the Smithsonian. Stick to what you know Steve. Just because something doesn't sound good doesn't mean it isn't. And Steve, I do like your posts, I'm just busting your chops a little because that label doesn't seem fair at all.
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Neon Bible is a great album, but I have to admit that it sounds like it was recorded under a thick blanket.
formats are pretty much dead. That is unless you enjoy classical music.
It's funny, It was engineered by the famous engineer/producer. Jimmy lovine too. I could never figure it out.
So on the one hand, I value the art of recording music way more than I value the engineering so if the artist wants their record to sound grungy or murky than so be it. The engineer is there to support the artist and the producer not the other way around. It's best when the too mesh of course but I find a lot of the complaints about the "loudness wars" seem to be coming from disgruntled engineers or audiophiles in love with stats and figures more than artistic license. Daniel Lanois is an an artist and producer (who also happens to have a deep knowledge of engineering) that drives some people mad with his swampy sounding highly atmospheric recordings (Neville Brothers, Emmylou Harris, U2 and his own work) but I love his stuff because the sound is always in the service of the art and not the other way around.
On the other hand sometimes I am baffled at the decisions some bands make. Take MGMT's 2008 release "Oracular Spectacular". It's distortion doesn't sound intentional at all. Its almost unlistenable on good headphones because the distortion is constant and thick, like a fog that never clears. And yet its one of the best pop albums of last year in my mind. The most bizarre things is that Dave Fridman produced it and he normally makes great sounding recordings (Mercury Rev, The Flaming Lips, etc). Turns out the band thought the recording sounded too clean so thery got him to run the whole thing through some crappy digital distortion pedal. Very, very weird indeed.
In the end I trust the artist more than I trust the engineer to make the right decisions though.
Most artists, without the help of the sound engineer, will sound like crap both in a live or studio setting. But that's only the tip of the iceberg. The fact is most engineers today are also clueless.
You seem to be defending the "bad sounding" recordings in the name of art. Sorry, but if the "art" is unlistenable that just makes it "bad art". I really don't think the artists want their music to be unlistenable....
George Lucas is a technician. This is why all the Star Wars prequels pretty much suck and the dialog is so painfully bad. He mistakenly thinks that visual mastery and cutting edge effects can compensate for bad story telling. Notice that his best movies are the ones where he gets out of the way and lets other people direct and write the scripts (Empire Strikes back and Return of the Jedi).
Badly recorded art is still art. because art is about something larger than technical mastery. Perfectly (whatever that means) recorded crap is still crap.
I know you're drawing a distinction between the musician being recorded (it isn't their job to know the recording technology) and the recordist. It is the engineer's job to not only know the technology, but to use it specifically with a deep and full understanding of the music. 95% of music engineers are also musicians themselves - as it should be (and many are more talented, knowledgeable, and have more soul than you might ever suspect, since part of the gig is having ego in balance.)
- by stbrown9 April 2, 2009 9:37 PM PDT
- This has been happening for a long time. Listen to Oasis - What's the Story Morning Glory. It is so terribly compressed you can't pick out a single instrument. It's a smashed mess of sound that has no shape or dynamic. A great album that is nearly unlistenable because of the sound quality, and that's from back in 1995.
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