Just General non band specific Music Chat Thread !

[HOF]

Every decade has bad music. The 80s had a ton of great music too though, and a broad range of popular artists and styles that co-existed (much moreso than in recent decades). It’s pretty hard to pigeon hole the whole decade, as it really was pretty rich and varied. For my money, some of the best produced albums ever came out of the decade. Stuff like Peter Gabriel’s So, Tears for Fears’ The Seeds of Love, or Kate Bush’s The Hounds of Love. You had some really creative stuff happening with the rebirth of King Crimson. Yes made an absolute masterpiece with 90125. Rush was all over the decade. You had a new wave of prog with Marillion, and the beginnings of prog metal with Fates Warning, Queensryche, and DT. You had Van Halen, Guns and Roses, and Metallica (if that’s your thing). Still some great stuff from 70s bands like Journey (their best stuff IMO). You had the beginnings of alternative rock with REM, The Cure, and others. U2 made some tremendous records in the decade. Could go on and on. Maybe for some people none of that is their style, but I’d say there was plenty to like and I miss a lot of the trademarks of 80s production personally.

[LithoJazzoSphere]

Still some great stuff from 70s bands like Journey (their best stuff IMO).

I like some of their 80s music, though having Schon and Smith it too often felt like trying to drive a Lamborghini through a school zone with the speed limit flashing.  Have you heard the first three albums though?  They're quite different and overall better at least to my tastes.  "Of a Lifetime" is a particular killer track. 

[HOF]

Still some great stuff from 70s bands like Journey (their best stuff IMO).

I like some of their 80s music, though having Schon and Smith it too often felt like trying to drive a Lamborghini through a school zone with the speed limit flashing.  Have you heard the first three albums though?  They're quite different and overall better at least to my tastes.  "Of a Lifetime" is a particular killer track.

Those first three are good too, but it’s kind of like a different band altogether. I enjoy them, but those aren’t really what I’m looking for when I want to hear Journey if that makes sense. The first album is my favorite of the three probably. Regarding Schon and Smith, I think what they did within the context of a more hits focused rock act is pretty remarkable. Sure, they are restrained a bit, but they brought a lot of musicality to even the fluffier stuff. Schon in particular rarely held back when it was time to solo. Kind of something for everyone on those Perry era albums.

[Kotowboy]

No decade had worse fashion and hairstyles than the 80s

[JediKnight1969]

The 80s had a lot of really bad everything.

Best pop and metal era.

70's were the best for (hard, progressive, symphonic) rock

90's sucks IMHO

Nothing new since then.

[HOF]

The 80s had a lot of really bad everything.

Best pop and metal era.

70's were the best for (hard, progressive, symphonic) rock

90's sucks IMHO

Nothing new since then.

90s were great too IMO, at least in the first half or so. I personally like a lot of grunge and alt rock type acts, but a number of metal, hair metal, and legacy acts put out great stuff in the 90s (even if a lot of it wasn’t very popular). The 90s also saw the rebirth of prog in a substantial new way (not just 70s acts, but newer acts like Spock’s Bears, The Flower Kings, Porcupine Tree, and of course DT). It did seem that by the end of the decade the big labels were really failing to produce meaningful new acts, and then you had the boy band and nu-metal explosion that made the last part of the 90s and first part of the 00s somewhat intolerable. Popular music really hasn’t been the same in the new millennium. There is still lots of good stuff, but it all sort of exists in subcultures outside of what could be considered mainstream.

[Kotowboy]

Just look at how many classic albums were all released in 1994

Manic Street Preachers - The Holy Bible
Green Day - Dookie
Oasis - Definitely Maybe
Blur - Parklife
Dream Theater - Awake
Offspring - Smash
Weezer - Blue
REM - Monster
Pearl Jam - Vitalogy
Portishead - Dummy
Therapy? - Troublegum
Soundgarden - Superunknown
Pink Floyd - Division Bell
The Prodigy - ...The Jilted Generation
Machine Head - Burn My Eyes
Korn
Nirvana - MTV Unplugged

[Anguyen92]

Nine Inch Nails' The Downward Spiral was also from 1994.  I know because I believe both that album and Superunknown came out on the same day.

[Ben_Jamin]

You know what I wonder?

Is if the new modern bands in all the subgenres of metal create albums in the future, if people will consider them by the numbers, sounds like (insert band) to me, it's the same old same old, too repetitive, they're not doing anything new. Just like how we are hearing with the older bands when they release a new album.

I say this because there are new albums from some older bands that are pretty great and I still listening to them from time to time. Actually, there are two bands who have released recent albums that are just as good as anything else they have done. Deep Purple and Kansas, sure the older and classic tones are not in the band anymore. But the way I see it. Nothing lasts forever and things change, things may thrive still but are in brand new clothes or remolded to adapt for the new. So I myself, will enjoy the fact that Deep Purple and Kansas are still recording albums and playing live, and I got to see both of them too.

I don't know. To me, I just find listening to music and how many different reasons and ways people listen to and rate music fascinating. Like, I feel it's sort of based on one's own perceptions of the why, how, and reasons for listening to the music that they do, and the music they enjoy enough to purchase the music and see a live show of the music being played.

I think this is why I find the terms to describe the music such as, Bad, Good, Horrible, Awful, Boring, Great, Amusing, to be like..."Okay that's cool and all, but that doesn't show me the why, how, and reason for the feeling that the music your listening to makes you feel."

Music is so fascinating for me. Like how listening to one song at a certain time you won't like it and view it as garbage, the shittiest piece of music you ever heard you wonder why it was even recorded and released. Then something drastic or life changing happens in your life, that song comes in that right moment, and you begin to sob like a baby without a bottle, to where you make a connection to where it now is your favorite song of all time.


I guess, It would be interesting to know the why, how, and reasons you guys listen to music? Is it for the music theory technicality, the emotion it gives off, the way the solo sounds, the high pitch of the vocals. Things like this.

[LithoJazzoSphere]

I could fill a book with answers to that, but I'll just adumbrate a few points for now.  One is that I think experience and context is key to "getting" a lot of music.  Everyone comes to each new artist they encounter with a very intricate network of music they've already heard, different than any other person.  A lot of music I think is hidden to various groups of people because they haven't heard the right combination of other artists that might put the artist's efforts in the proper perspective and unlock it for them.  This is especially true for more niche and arcane genres that don't have the instant gratificational appeal that more household name artists do.  I know there's music I've gotten into in the past decade that if I'd heard it in the prior decade I probably wouldn't have liked it.  But there are artists I checked out long ago and didn't care for at the time, that now I've revisited, and now with their music recontextualized in light of my broader experience, I actually quite cherish them. 

Often when I discover a new band that's been around for a little bit I wonder to myself why I didn't check them out earlier, because I probably would have loved them just as much back then, possibly more.  And there are tradeoffs to that.  You might not be able to see them live, or in their glory days, weren't able to live through the hype of album release cycles, didn't have them attached to other events in your life and such.  But on the other hand, I think there's also worth sometimes in coming to an artist who is already well-established, with a whole lore already prebuilt around them to dive into all at once.  Then you can pick the parts of their discography to check out first (or just run straight through it chronologically or reverse chronologically if you like), see opinions about their whole career and have that inform your experience of looking into them, etc. 

The "Seinfeld is unfunny" trope applies a lot to music as well.  I hear some people say they don't see anything special in certain older bands, and sometimes that's just because newer listeners have an experience divorced from the temporal matrix in which that music was created.  Sometimes you can still intuitively understand it anyway, other times you can listen to enough musical history to see why certain music arose the way it did, but still other times you probably just really needed to "be there" to grok it.  That effect will undoubtedly continue in the future.  Conversely, sometimes I think bands labeled as innovative, pioneering and such may not actually be so.  It could just be that most people haven't heard the particular combination of (likely obscure) artists that inspired them, but if they did, they might instead view them as a ripoff. 

As for why I like certain music, that's a multitude of different factors that are different for each band, really.  But what has been most interesting to me is that there are times I wish I could hear some music with the fresh naivete I had when I was younger, and everything sounded more mysterious and wondrous because I didn't understand much about it.  Decades later, now I've heard thousands and thousands of albums in many styles, gained competency on numerous instruments, read reams of music discussion, history, and trivia, and there is much less mystery than there was back then (though I'm also now far more cognizant of how much I still don't and likely will never know).  But this has given me a listening toolkit that lets me appreciate music in a different, at times more technical manner.  Sometimes it's tougher now to see the whole forest rather than being drawn to analyzing each piece of bark.  But there is value in that as well.  So the joy isn't really any less, it's just taken a different form. 

[soupytwist]

Just look at how many classic albums were all released in 1994

Manic Street Preachers - The Holy Bible
Green Day - Dookie
Oasis - Definitely Maybe
Blur - Parklife
Dream Theater - Awake
Offspring - Smash
Weezer - Blue
REM - Monster
Pearl Jam - Vitalogy
Portishead - Dummy
Therapy? - Troublegum
Soundgarden - Superunknown
Pink Floyd - Division Bell
The Prodigy - ...The Jilted Generation
Machine Head - Burn My Eyes
Korn
Nirvana - MTV Unplugged

Good list (aside from Oasis ).
I'll throw in...

Grace - Jeff Buckley

[Stadler]

I could fill a book with answers to that, but I'll just adumbrate a few points for now.  One is that I think experience and context is key to "getting" a lot of music.  Everyone comes to each new artist they encounter with a very intricate network of music they've already heard, different than any other person.  A lot of music I think is hidden to various groups of people because they haven't heard the right combination of other artists that might put the artist's efforts in the proper perspective and unlock it for them.  This is especially true for more niche and arcane genres that don't have the instant gratificational appeal that more household name artists do.  I know there's music I've gotten into in the past decade that if I'd heard it in the prior decade I probably wouldn't have liked it.  But there are artists I checked out long ago and didn't care for at the time, that now I've revisited, and now with their music recontextualized in light of my broader experience, I actually quite cherish them. 

Often when I discover a new band that's been around for a little bit I wonder to myself why I didn't check them out earlier, because I probably would have loved them just as much back then, possibly more.  And there are tradeoffs to that.  You might not be able to see them live, or in their glory days, weren't able to live through the hype of album release cycles, didn't have them attached to other events in your life and such.  But on the other hand, I think there's also worth sometimes in coming to an artist who is already well-established, with a whole lore already prebuilt around them to dive into all at once.  Then you can pick the parts of their discography to check out first (or just run straight through it chronologically or reverse chronologically if you like), see opinions about their whole career and have that inform your experience of looking into them, etc. 

The "Seinfeld is unfunny" trope applies a lot to music as well.  I hear some people say they don't see anything special in certain older bands, and sometimes that's just because newer listeners have an experience divorced from the temporal matrix in which that music was created.  Sometimes you can still intuitively understand it anyway, other times you can listen to enough musical history to see why certain music arose the way it did, but still other times you probably just really needed to "be there" to grok it.  That effect will undoubtedly continue in the future.  Conversely, sometimes I think bands labeled as innovative, pioneering and such may not actually be so.  It could just be that most people haven't heard the particular combination of (likely obscure) artists that inspired them, but if they did, they might instead view them as a ripoff. 

As for why I like certain music, that's a multitude of different factors that are different for each band, really.  But what has been most interesting to me is that there are times I wish I could hear some music with the fresh naivete I had when I was younger, and everything sounded more mysterious and wondrous because I didn't understand much about it.  Decades later, now I've heard thousands and thousands of albums in many styles, gained competency on numerous instruments, read reams of music discussion, history, and trivia, and there is much less mystery than there was back then (though I'm also now far more cognizant of how much I still don't and likely will never know).  But this has given me a listening toolkit that lets me appreciate music in a different, at times more technical manner.  Sometimes it's tougher now to see the whole forest rather than being drawn to analyzing each piece of bark.  But there is value in that as well.  So the joy isn't really any less, it's just taken a different form.

This is a good post, especially that third paragraph.

It's amazing to me how much music is of it's time.   I'm baffled at how someone can like Radiohead and not like Kraftwerk or Pink Floyd, two bands that basically did the same thing, first, and on shittier equipment.  The Beatles get a lot of snot here as "overrated", but there are probably ten bands in the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame - noted to signify bands of some accomplishment, nothing more - that are literally just modern incarnations/interpretations of what the Beatles were trying to achieve. 

I'm not saying you have to always go all the way back to sticks and hollow logs next to the campfire, but some level of context is important.  For me, Pearl Jam made a LOT more sense once I dug into The Who.  Oddly, I started to appreciate country music (outlaw country, not the current bro-pop-country) and the Dead at the same time, and it's not a coincidence.   

[hefdaddy42]

I could fill a book with answers to that, but I'll just adumbrate a few points for now.  One is that I think experience and context is key to "getting" a lot of music.  Everyone comes to each new artist they encounter with a very intricate network of music they've already heard, different than any other person.  A lot of music I think is hidden to various groups of people because they haven't heard the right combination of other artists that might put the artist's efforts in the proper perspective and unlock it for them.  This is especially true for more niche and arcane genres that don't have the instant gratificational appeal that more household name artists do.  I know there's music I've gotten into in the past decade that if I'd heard it in the prior decade I probably wouldn't have liked it.  But there are artists I checked out long ago and didn't care for at the time, that now I've revisited, and now with their music recontextualized in light of my broader experience, I actually quite cherish them. 

Often when I discover a new band that's been around for a little bit I wonder to myself why I didn't check them out earlier, because I probably would have loved them just as much back then, possibly more.  And there are tradeoffs to that.  You might not be able to see them live, or in their glory days, weren't able to live through the hype of album release cycles, didn't have them attached to other events in your life and such.  But on the other hand, I think there's also worth sometimes in coming to an artist who is already well-established, with a whole lore already prebuilt around them to dive into all at once.  Then you can pick the parts of their discography to check out first (or just run straight through it chronologically or reverse chronologically if you like), see opinions about their whole career and have that inform your experience of looking into them, etc. 

The "Seinfeld is unfunny" trope applies a lot to music as well.  I hear some people say they don't see anything special in certain older bands, and sometimes that's just because newer listeners have an experience divorced from the temporal matrix in which that music was created.  Sometimes you can still intuitively understand it anyway, other times you can listen to enough musical history to see why certain music arose the way it did, but still other times you probably just really needed to "be there" to grok it.  That effect will undoubtedly continue in the future.  Conversely, sometimes I think bands labeled as innovative, pioneering and such may not actually be so.  It could just be that most people haven't heard the particular combination of (likely obscure) artists that inspired them, but if they did, they might instead view them as a ripoff. 

As for why I like certain music, that's a multitude of different factors that are different for each band, really.  But what has been most interesting to me is that there are times I wish I could hear some music with the fresh naivete I had when I was younger, and everything sounded more mysterious and wondrous because I didn't understand much about it.  Decades later, now I've heard thousands and thousands of albums in many styles, gained competency on numerous instruments, read reams of music discussion, history, and trivia, and there is much less mystery than there was back then (though I'm also now far more cognizant of how much I still don't and likely will never know).  But this has given me a listening toolkit that lets me appreciate music in a different, at times more technical manner.  Sometimes it's tougher now to see the whole forest rather than being drawn to analyzing each piece of bark.  But there is value in that as well.  So the joy isn't really any less, it's just taken a different form.

Great post, and great to have you back around these parts.

[LithoJazzoSphere]

I'm baffled at how someone can like Radiohead and not like Kraftwerk or Pink Floyd, two bands that basically did the same thing, first, and on shittier equipment.

Some people just prefer the sounds of certain eras.  PF and KW are unmistakably 70s-sounding, whereas Radiohead had a very contemporary, even futuristic sound for their time.  From my understanding drawn from conversations with older generations they often disliked the music from decades prior to when they were born.  It's almost remarkable from that perspective that there are as many younger people as there are that enjoy older music. 

The "shitty equipment" is also sometimes a reason to prefer more modern bands, because recording technology has advanced and it's easier to make pristine-sounding albums than it used to be.  There are also refinements in playing and writing ability, "standing on the shoulders of giants", so to say.  Sometimes older albums have certain magical aesthetic charms that are hard to replicate though, so it's really all on a case-by-case basis.  But in the example of huge bands like PF, a lot of those albums were quite well-recorded with state of the art, expensive equipment.  Whereas in modern times, while more resources are available to capture high-quality recordings, it's also quite easy to screw them up if you don't know what you're doing.  The spectrum of quality of bedroom-produced albums is quite vast. 

[Ben_Jamin]

I'm baffled at how someone can like Radiohead and not like Kraftwerk or Pink Floyd, two bands that basically did the same thing, first, and on shittier equipment.

Some people just prefer the sounds of certain eras.  PF and KW are unmistakably 70s-sounding, whereas Radiohead had a very contemporary, even futuristic sound for their time.  From my understanding drawn from conversations with older generations they often disliked the music from decades prior to when they were born.  It's almost remarkable from that perspective that there are as many younger people as there are that enjoy older music. 

The "shitty equipment" is also sometimes a reason to prefer more modern bands, because recording technology has advanced and it's easier to make pristine-sounding albums than it used to be.  There are also refinements in playing and writing ability, "standing on the shoulders of giants", so to say.  Sometimes older albums have certain magical aesthetic charms that are hard to replicate though, so it's really all on a case-by-case basis.  But in the example of huge bands like PF, a lot of those albums were quite well-recorded with state of the art, expensive equipment.  Whereas in modern times, while more resources are available to capture high-quality recordings, it's also quite easy to screw them up if you don't know what you're doing.  The spectrum of quality of bedroom-produced albums is quite vast.

I never really thought much about recording techniques used in the past, compared to the pristine quality of now. That makes sense too, as we can now record and make sounds feel as if it's actually there in the room with you, like the sound of a Bee encircling around you. Unlike the boxed in, blanket, muffled sound of the older past albums. I find it also interesting this sort of sound has become a staple of the times, giving those older albums a certain charm to them, and dating them to that era, moment of time.

Black Sabbaths early albums do have that 60's sound to them in terms of recording technique and even style of the time. Only Black Sabbath brought that tone of the steel factories into the music by the use of Tony Iommi and his unique tone. His tone is unique due to his self-made fingers and the use of overdrive, or distortion of the amp. I'm thinking someone blew out an amp and liked the sound of it and began making music that ended up developing into, and giving off a certain style and feeling.

I myself, based on this, find it hilarious when people complain about the sound of Opeth - Heritage and Pain of Salvation - Road Salt albums. The sound and tone of those albums is exactly what they were striving for, to give those albums that 70's era charm, which I feel was a small trend with bands during those times.

I feel, like with any thing, people got used to hearing the pristine sound of music today, where if you weren't born from the past decades, you won't enjoy the music as much as those whom were alive and there at the time.

It's why I wish it would be awesome if we could hear exactly how those classical composers had their musicians play their songs. I feel, it could've been quite different in tone and style from what the musicians play today based on their written compositions. I always laugh and imagine if they were still alive in this era, they'd be incorporating a lot of the available new tones and sounds that are now allowed/discovered to use in composing music.

And would've made Power Metal .. 

[Stadler]

To me "the production sucks" is the most tired, trite criticism of a CD you can post.  I RARELY have ever said "wow, that's just so bad it's unlistenable", and even then, it's mostly mastering, not production.

Having said that, I love that late 60's, early 70's sound.   I love the sparseness of the Sabbath and Zeppelin records.  You could hear them breathe.  You can hear the space between the instruments.   A friend of mine at college rigged his turntable up so that if you sat on an "x" on his couch, you were almost perfectly placed spacially; he would put on Zeppelin's Physical Graffiti, and during songs like In The Light, if you closed your eyes, you can imagine the band in front of you, even to the point of picturing Plant and Page roaming the "stage". 

One thing I struggle with in the "new" music is that it just always seems so dense, especially the guitars.  It seems as if current production favors a guitar "wash" across songs, as opposed to say, the clear separation of guitars that you hear on the early AC/DC records, or the early Kiss records.   Listen to "Let Me Go, Rock 'n' Roll" off Hotter Than Hell; not the best "sounding" record in terms of tones, but that song is so... it's greasy and elastic in the best possible way.   As much as I love the notes being played and sung, the Alter Bridge albums just seem so... thick, solid, dense.  They don't seem to breathe.  I don't know if that's brickwalling, or mixing, or just the recording, but it doesn't seem to have pacing.

[HOF]

To me "the production sucks" is the most tired, trite criticism of a CD you can post.  I RARELY have ever said "wow, that's just so bad it's unlistenable", and even then, it's mostly mastering, not production.

Having said that, I love that late 60's, early 70's sound.   I love the sparseness of the Sabbath and Zeppelin records.  You could hear them breathe.  You can hear the space between the instruments.   A friend of mine at college rigged his turntable up so that if you sat on an "x" on his couch, you were almost perfectly placed spacially; he would put on Zeppelin's Physical Graffiti, and during songs like In The Light, if you closed your eyes, you can imagine the band in front of you, even to the point of picturing Plant and Page roaming the "stage". 

One thing I struggle with in the "new" music is that it just always seems so dense, especially the guitars.  It seems as if current production favors a guitar "wash" across songs, as opposed to say, the clear separation of guitars that you hear on the early AC/DC records, or the early Kiss records.   Listen to "Let Me Go, Rock 'n' Roll" off Hotter Than Hell; not the best "sounding" record in terms of tones, but that song is so... it's greasy and elastic in the best possible way.   As much as I love the notes being played and sung, the Alter Bridge albums just seem so... thick, solid, dense.  They don't seem to breathe.  I don't know if that's brickwalling, or mixing, or just the recording, but it doesn't seem to have pacing.

If anything, production has gotten worse* in the last 20 years on the whole. There just isn’t the attention to detail or concern for dynamics, and the need to quantize everything just takes so much life out of music. I do think technologically you can make albums that sound better these days just from a fidelity standpoint. But the overall craft of production and recorded performance just seems to be on the decline.

*a subjective value judgment, I know.

[Stadler]

That's a debate, though isn't it?  As to what's important and what's not?   I'm not saying you're wrong - I happen to agree with you - I'm just trying to figure out if this is a case of "Get off my lawn!" or if there is something quantifiable about it.  I do agree that quantizing everything does suck the life out of things. There was something magical about those bands like Zeppelin whose music breathed and ebbed and flowed.  I think Pearl Jam has that as well.   Iron Maiden does.  Don't want to start a debate but I thought Dream Theater pre-2010 had it.

I wonder if it's having all that available to you; I was watching one of the videos on Devin Townsend's Contain Us set and it showed the tracks on one song and he had like 50 tracks, and some of them were like car exhausts or some shit (I'm making that up) but all that sound takes up space, frequency, and band width.  There's something to be said for eight tracks:  one for each guitar, one for bass, two for drums (one for cymbals, one for the rest of the kit), two for vocals and one for effects/percussion.

[HOF]

That's a debate, though isn't it?  As to what's important and what's not?   I'm not saying you're wrong - I happen to agree with you - I'm just trying to figure out if this is a case of "Get off my lawn!" or if there is something quantifiable about it.  I do agree that quantizing everything does suck the life out of things. There was something magical about those bands like Zeppelin whose music breathed and ebbed and flowed.  I think Pearl Jam has that as well.   Iron Maiden does.  Don't want to start a debate but I thought Dream Theater pre-2010 had it.

I wonder if it's having all that available to you; I was watching one of the videos on Devin Townsend's Contain Us set and it showed the tracks on one song and he had like 50 tracks, and some of them were like car exhausts or some shit (I'm making that up) but all that sound takes up space, frequency, and band width.  There's something to be said for eight tracks:  one for each guitar, one for bass, two for drums (one for cymbals, one for the rest of the kit), two for vocals and one for effects/percussion.

I know that at the end of the day it’s still going to be about preference, but I do think there is an extent to which you can quantify the differences in production at least. It doesn’t all come down to new technology, or the ability to quantize things or lay down a million tracks or whatever. A lot of things can be used to good effect (and a lot of older albums used a ton of tracks too). But I’m sure it’s hard not to use what’s at your disposal. I imagine it’s a lot easier to have the band record separate parts to a click track, comp all the vocals together to get the right take, or just auto-tune anything that doesn’t sound perfectly pitched. And for some music that might be the best approach. But there is a degree of lost art that went into a lot of older recordings I think.

[hefdaddy42]

There is still art.  Adele's new single is phenomenal, and there is certainly no quantizing or autotune used.

[HOF]

There is still art.  Adele's new single is phenomenal, and there is certainly no quantizing or autotune used.

Yeah, I mean there are definitely great sounding modern recordings. I think you can make a better sounding recording overall today than you could in 1975 (whether you use some of those modern techniques or not). I just think there is a tendency for a lot of artists to not make a good sounding one.

[LithoJazzoSphere]

Yeah, that's a whole topic on its own, the loudness war, with brickwalled mastering infesting many styles.  It works for some of them, but after awhile it makes you long for dynamics.  I'm always leery when I see "remastered 20xx" in the title or description of an album or song, because sometimes all that is going to happen is that the mix is going to be squashed flat and it'll be ear-fatiguing.  Excessive quantization, auto-tune and the like can make some music rather anodyne.  I like lush, layered, polished productions more than some people, but I have my limits.  There's definitely been a tendency for a more wall of sound approach in some genres, constantly riding crash cymbals, double, triple, and quadruple-tracked rhythm guitars, sometimes strumming full distorted chords, though all of that is as much if not more a musical choice as it is one of engineering.  Sometimes it's apropos, sometimes it isn't.  In the case of Alter Bridge (and Tremonti's solo work) they're definitely going for that sort of approach quite often.  It works for them to my ears, but I wouldn't want every band to sound that way. 

I never really thought much about recording techniques used in the past, compared to the pristine quality of now. That makes sense too, as we can now record and make sounds feel as if it's actually there in the room with you, like the sound of a Bee encircling around you. Unlike the boxed in, blanket, muffled sound of the older past albums. I find it also interesting this sort of sound has become a staple of the times, giving those older albums a certain charm to them, and dating them to that era, moment of time.

Black Sabbaths early albums do have that 60's sound to them in terms of recording technique and even style of the time. Only Black Sabbath brought that tone of the steel factories into the music by the use of Tony Iommi and his unique tone. His tone is unique due to his self-made fingers and the use of overdrive, or distortion of the amp. I'm thinking someone blew out an amp and liked the sound of it and began making music that ended up developing into, and giving off a certain style and feeling.

I myself, based on this, find it hilarious when people complain about the sound of Opeth - Heritage and Pain of Salvation - Road Salt albums. The sound and tone of those albums is exactly what they were striving for, to give those albums that 70's era charm, which I feel was a small trend with bands during those times.

One of my favorite examples is what is known as the RVG (Rudy Van Gelder) sound, for the way he captured a lot of mid-late century jazz recordings.  Once you've heard a few examples of it it's pretty unmistakable, and ties so many classic recordings of that era together quite cohesively. 

Amplifier distortion for guitars did start out quite accidentally, with a tear in a speaker causing a "malfunctioning" sound, but it quickly became quite popular as a serendipitous discovery.  Iommi was far from the first to use it, but was one of the first to downtune his guitars to make playing easier, in the process giving it a thicker, darker, "heavier" tone, which took a lot longer to catch on than you'd think it would have. 

The retro recording trend hasn't really gone anywhere.  There have been whole movements tied to it like the new wave of traditional heavy metal (NWOTHM) or occult rock, both of which are still ongoing.  One of my favorite albums last year was Wytch Hazel's III: Pentecost, and it almost sounds like it could have been recorded in the 70s, and it works for them since they're sonically akin to a Thin Lizzy, Wishbone Ash, Blue Oyster Cult and such. 

[romdrums]

To me "the production sucks" is the most tired, trite criticism of a CD you can post.  I RARELY have ever said "wow, that's just so bad it's unlistenable", and even then, it's mostly mastering, not production.

Having said that, I love that late 60's, early 70's sound.   I love the sparseness of the Sabbath and Zeppelin records.  You could hear them breathe.  You can hear the space between the instruments.   A friend of mine at college rigged his turntable up so that if you sat on an "x" on his couch, you were almost perfectly placed spacially; he would put on Zeppelin's Physical Graffiti, and during songs like In The Light, if you closed your eyes, you can imagine the band in front of you, even to the point of picturing Plant and Page roaming the "stage". 

One thing I struggle with in the "new" music is that it just always seems so dense, especially the guitars.  It seems as if current production favors a guitar "wash" across songs, as opposed to say, the clear separation of guitars that you hear on the early AC/DC records, or the early Kiss records.   Listen to "Let Me Go, Rock 'n' Roll" off Hotter Than Hell; not the best "sounding" record in terms of tones, but that song is so... it's greasy and elastic in the best possible way.   As much as I love the notes being played and sung, the Alter Bridge albums just seem so... thick, solid, dense.  They don't seem to breathe.  I don't know if that's brickwalling, or mixing, or just the recording, but it doesn't seem to have pacing.

I can only imagine John Bonham's reaction to being quantized.  I know there are stories of him threatening assistant engineers trying to put more than 4 mics on his kit.  I don't know if it was a discussion here or at my work where someone posted a video of Van Halen's Running With the Devil being 100% time aligned, quantized and snapped to a grid, and it took everything that made it a Van Halen song away.  I think someone did it with a Led Zeppelin tune as well, though the song escapes me at the moment.

[LithoJazzoSphere]

Rick Beato discusses that very topic of Bonham and quantization. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hT4fFolyZYU

[Ben_Jamin]

One thing I struggle with in the "new" music is that it just always seems so dense, especially the guitars.  It seems as if current production favors a guitar "wash" across songs, as opposed to say, the clear separation of guitars that you hear on the early AC/DC records, or the early Kiss records.   Listen to "Let Me Go, Rock 'n' Roll" off Hotter Than Hell; not the best "sounding" record in terms of tones, but that song is so... it's greasy and elastic in the best possible way.   As much as I love the notes being played and sung, the Alter Bridge albums just seem so... thick, solid, dense.  They don't seem to breathe.  I don't know if that's brickwalling, or mixing, or just the recording, but it doesn't seem to have pacing.

I think this has to do with artists having a lot of layers in the DAW. Each one of these layers takes space in the overall sound spectrum. Just look at Devin Townsend and his "wall of sound", this is one flaw I have with the Devin Townsend and his music. There are so many layers that his records end up sounding like a muddled mess. Especially his live releases. I don't even think there is a live album I like the sound too, something is either too quiet, too loud, or buried in the mix.

[Ben_Jamin]

I never really thought much about recording techniques used in the past, compared to the pristine quality of now. That makes sense too, as we can now record and make sounds feel as if it's actually there in the room with you, like the sound of a Bee encircling around you. Unlike the boxed in, blanket, muffled sound of the older past albums. I find it also interesting this sort of sound has become a staple of the times, giving those older albums a certain charm to them, and dating them to that era, moment of time.

Black Sabbaths early albums do have that 60's sound to them in terms of recording technique and even style of the time. Only Black Sabbath brought that tone of the steel factories into the music by the use of Tony Iommi and his unique tone. His tone is unique due to his self-made fingers and the use of overdrive, or distortion of the amp. I'm thinking someone blew out an amp and liked the sound of it and began making music that ended up developing into, and giving off a certain style and feeling.

I myself, based on this, find it hilarious when people complain about the sound of Opeth - Heritage and Pain of Salvation - Road Salt albums. The sound and tone of those albums is exactly what they were striving for, to give those albums that 70's era charm, which I feel was a small trend with bands during those times.

One of my favorite examples is what is known as the RVG (Rudy Van Gelder) sound, for the way he captured a lot of mid-late century jazz recordings.  Once you've heard a few examples of it it's pretty unmistakable, and ties so many classic recordings of that era together quite cohesively. 

Amplifier distortion for guitars did start out quite accidentally, with a tear in a speaker causing a "malfunctioning" sound, but it quickly became quite popular as a serendipitous discovery.  Iommi was far from the first to use it, but was one of the first to downtune his guitars to make playing easier, in the process giving it a thicker, darker, "heavier" tone, which took a lot longer to catch on than you'd think it would have. 

The retro recording trend hasn't really gone anywhere.  There have been whole movements tied to it like the new wave of traditional heavy metal (NWOTHM) or occult rock, both of which are still ongoing.  One of my favorite albums last year was Wytch Hazel's III: Pentecost, and it almost sounds like it could have been recorded in the 70s, and it works for them since they're sonically akin to a Thin Lizzy, Wishbone Ash, Blue Oyster Cult and such. 

The trend was just something I noticed happening with those two bands specifically, I do not know if there are other Swedish bands who had this same production and recording technique during that time as well.

I also notice the use of a certain recording technique and production such as Grindcore and most Death Metal.

[Kotowboy]

Rick Beato discusses that very topic of Bonham and quantization. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hT4fFolyZYU

Exactly. Part of the reason Load and Reload sound so thick is that Kirk played rhythm guitar on them and them being slightly off from each other makes the rhythm tracks sound massive.

When Hetfield plays all the rhythm it's tight as fuck but somehow smaller.

You can get a similar effect if you record two rhythm tracks yourself but use two different guitars.

[LithoJazzoSphere]

Part of the reason Load and Reload sound so thick is that Kirk played rhythm guitar on them and them being slightly off from each other makes the rhythm tracks sound massive.

When Hetfield plays all the rhythm it's tight as fuck but somehow smaller.

You can get a similar effect if you record two rhythm tracks yourself but use two different guitars.

Yes, and they're panned in opposite ears in the sweet spot for a more multidimensional sound image.  They're also using different amps than in the earlier albums, so the tone is looser and chunkier rather than tight and cutting. 

[Cool Chris]

I have seen the word 'quantization' more times in this thread than I have previously my entire life, which, prior to reading this thread, was zero.

[LithoJazzoSphere]

I think this has to do with artists having a lot of layers in the DAW. Each one of these layers takes space in the overall sound spectrum. Just look at Devin Townsend and his "wall of sound", this is one flaw I have with the Devin Townsend and his music. There are so many layers that his records end up sounding like a muddled mess. Especially his live releases. I don't even think there is a live album I like the sound too, something is either too quiet, too loud, or buried in the mix.

I think it suits his approach though, his brand is basically of ambient metal, where it's focused on atmospheric ambiance and swirling layers of sound where you notice new details every new listen.  Now it would probably be horrible if someone tried to mix Slayer like that. 

[DoctorAction]

This seems like the right place to carry on talking about recording and playing to a click. (Apologies if it's too ranty. Do let me know if so. I'm happy to take criticism of that sort on the chin.)

As others have mentioned, a list of hugely successful tunes that weren't recorded to a click could include Led Zeppelin, Iron Maiden, Van Halen, Metallica, Slayer, AC/DC. By using only those examples you are talking about some of the most revered rhythm sections in rock and metal. Almost universally adored as some of the best grooves and feelings you can experience in music.

And, as others have mentioned, you can find examples of classic songs reprocessed to be snapped to a grid on YouTube. The results are, of course, inferior.

The magic in music is the people. You want to hear how humans play their instruments, right? If not, why are you a fan of these guys?

Aside from deliberately imparting a machine-like vibe (eg: associated with electronic dance music), and the convenience of easy recording (punching in, cutting and pasting sections around), I can see no advantage to recording to a click and the end product suffers as a result. Why the fuck would anyone prefer Bonham or Lombardo snapped to a grid?

Going back to DT, who I love of course, I would say their weakness is their perceived "sterility", for want of a better term. They play very, very technical music, and they exaggerate that by locking it down to a grid, and having extremely clean production. How could they fail to be improved by a groovier recording?

MM is the target of much critique in the vein of "not enough feeling", "too machine-like". I'm not sure about that. He does stuff I find very exciting. He's obviously an AMAZING drummer and, guess what - IT'S THE DRUMMER'S JOB TO KEEP TIME.

As you see in the making of documentary JP says something like "When you're in the same room as Mangini playing, the energy is off the charts! It's not the same through headphones..." Well, record him free of any constraints, then. Do we really think MM can't keep time well enough to record without a click? Of course not, it's just done for convenience, and the end product suffers as a result.

I would LOVE to hear what groove these amazing, human musicians have without it being smothered and ironed out by rigid, computerized time control.

[Stadler]

That's a good point about time; Bruford famously said he WASN'T there to keep time, if the musicians were good enough they didn't need him.

But even Bonham, if you watch that Beato clip, even the passage he selects, that is fluid, if you listen to the cymbal work, he's still giving the other band members something to play to.  It's not like he can't keep time.   And it has to do with the rest of the band; if the band is moving with the drummer, it's a different vibe than if they are out of synch.

I saw Temple Of The Dog - basically Pearl Jam with Chris Cornell on vocals - and they did Achilles Last Stand, and it was AMAZING because Matt Cameron was able to play the ebbs and flows, and both Stone and Mike McCready were right there with him.  Same with the cover of War Pigs they did.   Very fluid and very moving. 

[DoctorAction]

Wow, that sounds amazing. Achilles is such a monster drum track. Matt really doesn't get chances to play like that in Pearl Jam at the moment. 

DT really opened my eyes to a lot of other types of music. Jazz, specifically, and it frustrates me that they don't strip it down more. They of all bands are more than capable.

Maybe the trend will swing more to a natural vibe in general.

@LithoJazzoSphere - checked out Wytch Hazel and will be digging deeper. Cheers.

[LithoJazzoSphere]

So today I "completed" a project I've done versions of over the years.  It started out as trying to trace the development of my musical taste over time, with a song per year representing what I was listening to heavily and the various shifts along the way.  Many years it was just too agonizing to pick a single song, so I bumped it up to two per year, then three, and some years I was even having to go over that.  But what I figured out wound up making sense mathematically turned out to essentially be "My Musical Taste in 100 Songs".  Basically chronologically, though there was a lot of hand-wringing over whether to slot them in the first time I was exposed to them vs. when I was most heavily listening to them.  Also a lot of aggravation over absolute favorites (particularly in retrospect) vs. what was actually most significant at the time in terms of shifts and turns.  That makes more recent years quite tricky as well, since I don't know where everything will lead to down the road.  And then some more finessing as I found that certain songs weren't in Spotify and I noticed with the prototype in front of me some obvious gaps and over-duplication.  It's tricky when each song is essentially an iceberg, representing sometimes countless others, and whether each additional song is unique enough to add something to the collection, sometimes overvaluing variety over sheer fondness for certain well worn in styles.  But overall it was one of the most enjoyable musical projects I've taken on in awhile. 

[MrBoom_shack-a-lack]

Harking back to a previous point on here, I watched the Earth Shot Awards on TV and Ed Sheeran did a number. Fantastic live vocal performance. Really professional.

Man I just saw his Tiny Desk concert and that was so good. Of course it helps alot having a killer band supporting you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MsoqUv5gv4&ab_channel=NPRMusic