A very good interview with Neil Young about the digitalization of music and the impact on the quality. In quite many things he is right. The new technology is ruining the musical experience and also limits the possibility to develope music and on the other hand supports the simple boom boom music.

[allthingsd.com]

The quality of recording has changed, true. But it doens't dampen creativity. It doesn't prohibit music 'developing'. That still requires people to play instruments together. His point about MP3s is true. The truth of the matter is people, a seeming majority, DON'T CARE. They get to hear the words and that's enough.

It's a lost experience.

there's no lack of quality music. neil's just a grumpy old man...

i agree with neil but also. today's tech is wonderful for the unsinged band for the fact with a laptop and the right software they can record a demo and use the internet to let the public hear their music

He might be right about recorded sound quality. My ears are too old to care, these days, and I feel sorry for those sensitive audiophiles who can tell the difference. However, music quality is something else - there's plenty out there worth hearing. I grew up discovering my Beatles and Stones on a tinny transistor radio, and good music will shine through even that.

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mtaylor
The new technology is ruining the musical experience and also limits the possibility to develope music and on the other hand supports the simple boom boom music.

Don't you mean Boom Boom Pow music?
(Has to be the worst song written in the past 20 years.)

Neil has been bellyaching about digital since CD's came out in the 80s. God bless him.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2012-02-10 21:24 by 71Tele.

Surely "My Humps" is worse. But yeah, there should be a "two strikes you're out" law in pop music. The Black-Eyed Peas would be banned from entering a recording studio ever again.

My two cents: the quality of all aspects of popular music (recording, composing, playing) has fallen off a cliff. When you compare it to all the talented people producing great music in the 60's and 70's, it's just sad [and I was too young for both eras so this is not just the mutterings of an old coot - I'm a middle-aged coot].

He's hard to take seriously.
He's hard to take

The sonic soundscape has been covered more or less since the 1970's

There's nothing sonically new any more.

Guitar, bass, drum, keyboard, singer.

It's all been covered.

There is no room left for great sonic leaps because they have been made.

Most modern bands try and sound like a band from the 70's.

There's rap of course.

Obviously he's right to a large extent. How else do you explain the popularity of Adele and Amy Winehouse who sound just like the girl singers from the 60's?? And why would such great voices TRY to emulate those old singers like Dusty Springfield and all of the Motown voices if they weren't considered GREAT?

Listen to a simple I-tunes quality song and hi-res song and you will hear the difference. The range of a low-res song is much smaller, you don't hear the details. The range is cut off. A high-res song has a debt that an I-tunes doesn't have.

That's also what I meant with diminishing creativity - why should musicians work on smaller details when they are cut off in a low-res song!!!

Singer-Songwriters need to make a comeback with real songs about real people and the carp we have to deal with today.

Where's Billy Brag?

By the way - compare buying a 3 hours classical music piece in 1 CD or in 4 CD's / Deutsche Grammophon or Naxos makes a world of difference.....

Why in the hell would you need super-duper-high-res-flac-sacd-DVD audio to listen to Neil Young songs? It ain't Pink Floyd. Dylan didn't worry about creating a great aural landscape and yet his very rawness cuts right through.

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24FPS
Why in the hell would you need super-duper-high-res-flac-sacd-DVD audio to listen to Neil Young songs? It ain't Pink Floyd. Dylan didn't worry about creating a great aural landscape and yet his very rawness cuts right through.

It is not only about Neil Young, it is all other music. The same if you by a crap audio system or top quality system - the cable for the speakers if they are 5 mm or 15 mm - those things make a hell of difference to the music quality

Neil Young has been half deaf for a long time; just read old interviews with the man.I don´t think he´s able to hear the difference between anything anymore. It´s the production and mastering that´s been going down in the cellar, not the technology.

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GravityBoy
Singer-Songwriters need to make a comeback with real songs about real people and the carp we have to deal with today.

Where's Billy Brag?

joe henry. got a brand new one, too.

People who think that there's no good music being made today have only themselves to blame for their laziness, their surrender to nostalgic insulation preventing from the joys of discovery.

Green Lady nailed it with her comment about tinny transistor radios. I remember my Superman telephone booth radio I had as a child listening to J. Geils pumping from it - I still remember that moment.

Let the audiophiles whine if a format doesn't give them a boner. It's about songwriting first - period.

[thepowergoats.com]

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jamesfdouglas
People who think that there's no good music being made today have only themselves to blame for their laziness, their surrender to nostalgic insulation preventing from the joys of discovery.

hear here!!

well-said!

these people suck out loud!!!

lazy bastids.....

I remember listening to Start Me Up through a radio that was in a plush bunny rabbit and it, the song, was still good.

He's talking strictly about the quality of the post-production - the mastering and format, the delivery, not if bands suck.

He's talking strictly about the quality of the post-production - the mastering and format, the delivery, not if bands suck.

.....exactly



ROCKMAN

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jamesfdouglas
People who think that there's no good music being made today have only themselves to blame for their laziness, their surrender to nostalgic insulation preventing from the joys of discovery.

enough said

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Rockman
He's talking strictly about the quality of the post-production - the mastering and format, the delivery, not if bands suck.

.....exactly

exactly

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Rockman
He's talking strictly about the quality of the post-production - the mastering and format, the delivery, not if bands suck.

.....exactly

Thank you.

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StonesTod

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jamesfdouglas
People who think that there's no good music being made today have only themselves to blame for their laziness, their surrender to nostalgic insulation preventing from the joys of discovery.

hear here!!

well-said!

these people suck out loud!!!

lazy bastids.....

STONESTOD!!! you fell into a trap...Jamie's going to send you his band's CD next!

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GravityBoy
Singer-Songwriters need to make a comeback with real songs about real people and the carp we have to deal with today.

Where's Billy Brag?

I haven't dealt with any carp today. But there were a few incidents with cod and salmon.

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Rockman
He's talking strictly about the quality of the post-production - the mastering and format, the delivery, not if bands suck.

Yeah, but he also says "Where are our geniuses?" which is a good question. I'm not saying there aren't any good bands around anymore, but you also certainly don't have a Brian Wilson, Marvin Gaye, Aretha, Jimmy Page, Glimmer Twins, Beatles, etc. cavalcade of brilliance.

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Claire_M

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Rockman
He's talking strictly about the quality of the post-production - the mastering and format, the delivery, not if bands suck.

Yeah, but he also says "Where are our geniuses?" which is a good question. I'm not saying there aren't any good bands around anymore, but you also certainly don't have a Brian Wilson, Marvin Gaye, Aretha, Jimmy Page, Glimmer Twins, Beatles, etc. cavalcade of brilliance.

They are there, but harder to find. There is so much music, and so many varieties, it becomes harder for the geniuses to 'dominate' the way they used to be able to.

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GravityBoy
Singer-Songwriters need to make a comeback with real songs about real people and the carp we have to deal with today.

Where's Billy Brag?

Right on! I listen to a lot of music with my 14 year-old daughter & most music on the radio sounds awful. I don't know if I'm just getting old OR is really that bad?? God - are we turning into our parents? Get that crap off the radio! I grew up in the 70s - and yes there as SOME bad music, think "Midnight at the Oasis" & ANYTHING by KC & The Sunshine band, and so on. Perhaps music is always evolving. There might always be dry spells - think about the stuff in the 60s before the Stones & Beatles (and the entire British Invasion) took place. A lot was just bubble gum snappin' songs. Not bad by today's standards but still not great. Is there a "golden age" for various types of music? Did we just happen to live through the best time for rock n' roll? Is it all downhill from here (or there?). Is music like film - did we have our 1939 already?