Neil Young Angered By The Way Today's Music Sounds

[gcczep]

I knew this thread will spark a debate amongst us. Young's complaint is that record companies don't put in the requisite care in their products anymore. Most of the music today is driven by the bottom end whereas the mids and highs are faded back. Just the sign of the times... It's odd though but I have read that some artists like John Mellencamp for example records everything in analog then puts them out in the same vein as so. The Foo Fighters were doing it too. Not everyone is totally digital... I reckon there are others just as well.

Personally, I enjoy all the popular formats we have available. I still play LPs and regale it for all it's analog quality that I enjoy immensely. There is nothing cold, clinical or sterile about it which a digital recording puts out. CDs? Love the medium only if it is properly remastered not just boosted up in certain aspects. My iPod? Sure the quality is tinny but it is not something I will use for critical listening or enjoyment for that matter. It is great to have on at the gym or when I am doing yardwork. You can't beat its portability. As far as choices for a sitdown, it is dead LAST on on the totem pole. I would pick a cassette tape run on a great deck over it.

 

[Khor1255]

Neil Young, along with John Peel, was among the first people to criticise CDs (for their lack of depth) in the eighties. Although I agree, didn't he ever buy, and have to return, vinyl albums with scratches, surface noise and warping? He's a fair bit older than me, so I find it hard to believe that he can hear as much difference as he claims. Also, MP3s contain 5 percent of the original data - where did he get that from? What bitrate is he using?

When CDs first appeared I loved them for all their faults. There was no more static clicks & pops, jumps, scratches or wow & flutter (unless you failed to clean the disc or it was mastered from vinyl). If the record companies could guarantee the quality of vinyl pressings, I would still be buying them, but they can't, so I don't!

Perhaps you already know this but I'll say it here anyway because it prefaces my next point. Digital recordings are only sampled parts of the actual sound wave where an analog signal features the whole wave.

I had no idea about this when I first heard cds so I wondered why they sounded so tinny compared to anything else I had heard. I was even more surprised that everyone was raving about recordings that had worse quality than my cassette tapes and cost even more.

Well, sample rate has grown to such an extent where I buy a lot of cds these days and appreciate their convienence and durability. But is it so hard to imagine that a lifelong musician might hear a difference?

I can't say I really do anymore unless it is a really great album on a decent turntable but I can definately believe my friends when they say they can. After all, it wasn't that many years ago I was mortified by the recordings I was hearing of my favorite stuff. The more nuanced the original recording the worse the digital version always sounded. Sometimes it was utterly unlistenable and I am someone who likes condenser mike recordings.

 

[Big Ears]

But is it so hard to imagine that a lifelong musician might hear a difference?

I agree with everything you say, but my hearing has definitely deteriorated over the years and Neil Young is now in his mid/late sixties. He has also spent many more nights in front of ear-splitting PA systems than I have.

 

[Khor1255]

That would seem likely but I'm hardly going to accuse him of lying about this especially when some of my own friends still hear the difference and they are 40+ years old like me.

 

[Riff Raff]

This has actually spurred me to get a much needed upgrade on the speakers. Good thing actually, might go check out what shops nearby have.

 

[Mr. Bob Dobolina]

The thing is, we keep trading quality for convinience. When CDs came out, the sound was not as good as vinyl, but you could put twice the music on a CD and, because record companies wanted everyone to convert to CD, they started reissuing albums that had been long out of print. Now, with the switch from CDs to MP3s it's the same type of trade off. I'll admit that the sound on MP3s isn't as good as a CD (and nowhere near as good as vinyl), but how great is it to have literally thousands of songs at your fingertips? Whether you're sitting at your computer on itunes or driving around with your whole music collection plugged into your car, the ease is incredible.

 

[Khor1255]

It's a bad trade for some of us.

 

[Powerage]

I can walk to the pub with my entire music collection in my pocket. From AC/DC to ZZ Top it's all there. I think that's genius.

I can fully understand LG's point, but I can't imagine myself ever earning enough money to spend serious dough on a home set-up haha.

 

[gcczep]

I can walk to the pub with my entire music collection in my pocket. From AC/DC to ZZ Top it's all there. I think that's genius.

I can fully understand LG's point, but I can't imagine myself ever earning enough money to spend serious dough on a home set-up haha.

Here's hoping that you do someday since I like your taste in music.

As far as the iPod it is genius. Pocket music went from the Walkman to carry on CD players to an iPod. Quite the progression...

 

[TheSound]

My hearing is very accute, and I have literally no problems or issues with MP3, but then like I said I'm not all that interested really as long as it sounds good, I put way more weight on the song and the performance than I do on how it's recorded, same reason I don't need a 60" plasma High-Def TV screen to appreciate and enjoy watching a great actor acting, or watch Tim Lincecum pitching! Ironically the production on many of Neil Young's albums for about the past 20 years, or since after Rust Never Sleeps actually, sound to me at least like an over-amplified cement mixer, and to me it's mostly a deafening assault on my ears no matter what format I hear it in, and I haven't a clue what he's trying to prove musically sometimes, so it's a bit like the producers of 'Beauty and the Geek' and 'The Desperate Housewives of Orange County' or whatever it's called complaining that the quality of TV isn't what it used to be, so whatever turns you one I suppose...