Time Travel
Feb 1, 2008 12:00 PM, Kylee Swenson, Remix Editor
Courtesy Warner Bros. Records
I listen to a ton of new music — all day, every day. I listen to the stuff that's on the runaway hype train, the stuff that no one knows about yet (but will) and the stuff that may just slip through the cracks. There are reasons why some bands blow up and some don't. And sometimes, because music is so subjective, and because success is based on so many factors (including luck), there doesn't seem to be any plausible reason at all.
I'm surprised by how varied people's opinions are about music. A friend and I went to see Kenna at the Fillmore in San Francisco, and we were blown away by the show. I was also blown away by the album, but my friend wasn't. I don't really get why. On the other hand, sometimes I listen to a band that everyone is flipping out about, and I don't get it.
Sometimes I need to cleanse the palate and go back to music that's tried and true — songs I know I can hear without a wavering opinion. Not to get all dad-rock on you, but one of those bands is Fleetwood Mac — the post Peter Green incarnation with Stevie Nicks, Lindsey Buckingham and Christine McVie. I recently listened to Rumours again. Nicks is my favorite songwriter, lyrically, in the band. But I love Buckingham as a guitarist, and although I don't love McVie's lyrics all that much, she's a great songwriter, musically. And how often does a band have three really great singers? But what hit me listening this time was the production quality. How did they get the mix to sound so…perfect? How did they get all those layers of background vocals to sound so lush?
Digital recording has come a really long way. These days, if you do a taste test between tape and the highest-quality digital recording, well — without opening the floodgates for debate here — let's just say some highly trained ears have been deceived.
Still, sometimes I wish I could have made an album in 1977 when everything was analog. I made a demo on a reel-to-reel once, but I was too green as a musician/songwriter for it to be worth listening to. I was just born into an era where I would be forced to go with the flow of the big digital takeover. Not everyone is giving in. Bands like Beach House, in this issue, still record on 4-tracks, but even they are forced to work with software at some point during the process.
I'm not jealous about the old days of editing. No amount of old-school tape splicing could replicate some of the plastic surgery — enhanced albums released in the past few years. Software is truly amazing. But it is pretty sad that as long as you're a good songwriter or are working with one, you don't necessarily have to be a great singer or musician.
I don't hear many songs like “Dreams” anymore. Why does it seem like, although we have every advantage of technology, it's almost harder to create great music now? Are we just given too much of a handicap these days? We don't have to play three memorable drum fills anymore because we're too busy doing microscopic editing to think about the genuine, organic flow of a song. I might sound like an old codger going, “Back in my day…,” but I was in diapers in the '70s when some of these albums came out. I just think it's important that, before we create music for the future, we remember how great music was made in the past.
| Want to use this article? Click here for options! |  |
