Just think 2011.....

[Cosmic Harmony]

There are always good bands releasing albums in every decade, some are better than others to be sure, but music is cyclical, and I for one cannot wait for the day when "Mechanical prepackaged Pop" and Hip-Hop/Rap are on the way out.

I think you mean cynical LG.

 

[LG]

^^That fits as well, at least in that particular sentence Cosmic...

 

[LXA]

Zz top!

 

[AboutAGirl]

I wish everything was lo-fi. Sounds much better to me. What I can't stand is that streamlined shit, makes a rock band sound digital. That's not what music in the 50s, 60s, 70s, or even 80s and 90s sounded like. Messing with the EQ doesn't turn something lo-fi anymore so than playing an audience-recording bootleg on a high-class stereo will make it soundboard quality.

 

[OzzyVanHalen]

i am very excited to hear what Van Halen can put together. It will sound alot different without Michael Anthonys harmonies which is a HUGE part of Van Halen. But hearing Dave and Eddie back together again will be just as good (Hopefully).

Sonic Boom was a great KISS album. I cant wait to hear new KISS material also. What would be really nice is if they got the original KISS lineup back together. Then you would have a epic and great kickass KISS album.

 

[LG]

I wish everything was lo-fi. Sounds much better to me. What I can't stand is that streamlined shit, makes a rock band sound digital. That's not what music in the 50s, 60s, 70s, or even 80s and 90s sounded like. Messing with the EQ doesn't turn something lo-fi anymore so than playing an audience-recording bootleg on a high-class stereo will make it soundboard quality.

I can list dozens of old 70's albums that put to shame many of the modern recordings which is inexcusable to me.

Lo-fi is terrible as far as quality goes, and I stand by what I said, give us the Proper well produced original and let all you Lo-Fi fans downgrade the sound to whatever you want. I can manipulate and create any kind of playback I want on my system, it is designed to allow you to customize the sound to suit you and it sounds excellent.

I have collected electronics for over 30 years and it shocks me that kids today are going Backwards when it comes the actual quality of the recording. The Indie phase, the Retro Garage sound, good lord we spent decades improving the technology to get as close as possible to the great studio quality sound and we are throwing it all away in one decade.

By the way AAG, what do you listen to your music on?

Here's an old album I had on vinyl when it was released, and the AAD CD version is stunning as well. That is what I am talking about, if they can take a perfectly done analog master tape from 1973 and make a fantastic sounding CD then there is No excuse for sloppy studio production period.

 

[AboutAGirl]

I can list dozens of old 70's albums that put to shame many of the modern recordings which is inexcusable to me.

I'm right with you there 100%. If you mean all modern recordings and not only the lo-fi ones, that is. To me, lo-fi is an attempt at capturing but a sliver of the organic, living feel that music had in various times past. In the 00s even the things which used to be raw and ragged became more digitalized and streamlined than the glitziest pop records of the 70s. When you turn on Leviathan and it sounds like The Backstreet Boys' production team should have their name on it, you know something's changed.

Lo-fi is terrible as far as quality goes, and I stand by what I said, give us the Proper well produced original and let all you Lo-Fi fans downgrade the sound to whatever you want.

Who's to say that the desires of those who like glitzy music deserve to outweigh the desires of those who enjoy raw music? One could just as easily say something like: every album should have the vocals as the highest in the mix so that people who like vocals will be happy, it's ridiculous. The artist decides what sound they want their record to have. Lo-fi vs sanitized production is an aesthetic preference no different than rock vs rap or guitar vs mandolin. There's no reason for either of us to dictate our own little preference over the artists and fans of the world. There are fans of both, there are performers who believe in both, and there is content out there utilizing both. All I want is for the overall vogue to move closer to lo-fi for a while because it's been closer to the sanitary clean room since the late 90s.

I can manipulate and create any kind of playback I want on my system, it is designed to allow you to customize the sound to suit you and it sounds excellent.

Sounds awesome. Let me say right here, though, that I think the bands that go about recording music cleanly and then adding a uniform effect on top to make it seem lo-fi are using a cheap parlor trick. It usually is completely obvious and sounds like a hack job. What I like most is music that is genuinely recorded with lo-fi equipment. Unless your sound system possesses astonishing technology I've yet to hear of, there's no way it could replicate the sound of a true lo-fi record. It can't go and change the contents of the drum track, and change the way the guitar interacts with the medium it was recorded on, and it can't add the ghosts that appear when rerecording on analog equipment. I'm sure it can add a uniform effect, and I'm sure it's really awesome. But if it could turn something into genuine lo-fi music, I figure it'd also have the power to turn something that's already lo-fi into pristine hi-fi music.

I have collected electronics for over 30 years and it shocks me that kids today are going Backwards when it comes the actual quality of the recording. The Indie phase, the Retro Garage sound, good lord we spent decades improving the technology to get as close as possible to the great studio quality sound and we are throwing it all away in one decade.

It's... really not that popular, you know. Lo-fi is a minuscule subset of the overall music world and it was popular in the 80s and 90s as well. That's where most of the lo-fi I like comes from.

But is the idea that people would do lo-fi any more surprising than the idea that people today might want to do surf pop, or jamband music, or write new classical pieces? So much great recorded music before the mid 60s, and most of it was what we today would label as "lo-fi." Many people enjoy that music despite its production, but others such as myself deeply enjoy the aesthetic, feel, and nuances of that recording style. We consider rougher or more terse recording to be just as much a beauty and an art-form as high-fidelity affairs.

You don't get a Mozart symphony just by sitting at a piano, and you don't get a Pink Floyd song just by sitting at a synthesizer. -- I heard them say that in Live at Pompeii. It works just the same here. You don't get a pristine record just by turning on pro-tools, and you don't get a lo-fi record just by turning on a 4-track. There's an art and a craft required of both if the final product is to sound beautiful to its respective audience. You can record any old shit into a 4-track but it's not going to have that seedy lo-fi sound unless you put some craft into it.

By the way AAG, what do you listen to your music on?

My walkman, my stereo, my handheld cassette player, my computer, my boombox. Nothing remotely fancy. That's not my bag.

Here's an old album I had on vinyl when it was released, and the AAD CD version is stunning as well. That is what I am talking about, if they can take a perfectly done analog master tape from 1973 and make a fantastic sounding CD then there is No excuse for sloppy studio production period.

It's not an issue of being sloppy. It's an issue of intentionally seeking to attain a particular sound because the artist believes that it sounds good and creates a powerful mood and is right for the songs or whatever reasons he, she, or they have.

Furthermore, a great many practitioners of lo-fi are people who do not have the financial means to utilize the kind of high-tech equipment that would result in a pristine work. Noone can fault them for that.

 

[Groovy Man]

* Rolling Stones - Stones haven't put out a good album in about 20 years, so this one doesn't do much for me, but I'm sure the die-hard fans will be looking forward to it. I assume that means another farewell tour?

* KISS - Of course, anything that Kiss puts out, I'll be right there to buy. The last album wasn't too bad. Not great, but definitely not bad. If they tour, I'll be happy as hell. I saw them in Sept of this year and it was one hell of a show!

Yeah, and Kiss hasn't put out a good album in 30 years.

 

[LG]

AAG I have nothing against any artists who's recordings are done on a bare bones budget. I am more irritated by established bands releasing albums that are no where near as good as they should be as far as sound quality.(Metallica being one of the worst.)

I am old school and have said it many times, I want the "Best" production values possible when it comes to my music collection. And that is not going to change.

As for your equipment, glad to see you are not just using your PC or an i-pod, but I take a lot of pride in my gear. I have collected it for years and many of my components are over 30 years old and still sound great.

The better the job the producer/engineers/artists do in the studio the happier I am with the end result.

 

[snakes&ladders]

Sure thing