# A Little Too Perfect?
- Site: Analog Industries
- Author: Chris Randall
- Date: 2006-06-12
- URL: https://analogindustries.com/2006/06/a-little-too-perfect/
My wife and I took a break from computers yesterday in search of a source of vitamin D _besides_ the glow of LCD monitors and drove to the Oregon coast for the day. When we go on road trips of any length, we tune our XM radio to Fred (XM44), which is the one station we can both (mostly) agree on. If you're not an XM user, Fred is a station that plays "the history of alternative music." While you are pretty much guaranteed a heavy dose of shitty 80s synth pop, they also play a lot of shit we really like, including a generous slice of deep cuts which you'll not normally hear anywhere. (When was the last time you heard the Eno version of "Third Uncle," followed by Thomas Dolby's cover of the Dan Hicks classic "I Scare Myself" on the radio? I'm gonna guess "never" is the answer to that.)
Anyways, during the course of one power play of late 70s post-punk, we got to talking about why we like some of this music now (e.g. Joy Division) when we didn't particularly care for it when we were younger and it was new. After some discussion, we agreed that we like the fact that it is so raw. The timing drifts, and the recording methods are a long, long ways from state of the art, even for the time, never mind today.
So, my question is thus: is today's music too perfect to be pleasant? Is the relentless use of audio quantization and AutoTune not only removing the need for playing skill, but actually making music unlistenable? I never liked the Who; I generally avoid classic rock like the plague that it is, having toured far too much to like any rock from the 70s any more. But now, when I hear something like "Who Are You" it's such a fucking relief, especially when placed against the ProTooled Perfection of what passes for rock in today's market.
## Comments (26)
**penzoil washington** (2006-06-12):
Overperfection in recordings is just one symptom of the shit-eating desire to please, when one's only vision is that of a lucrative career. In the old days the musicians led the industry more than the other way around. Maybe that's why even crap like the Who can sound decent today.
**RexRhino** (2006-06-12):
I agree... the music nowadays is a bit too overproduced sometimes. I wish that people who do something along the lines of live improvised jazz, but with electronic instruments and not nessicarily following all those (now) jazz cliches... something a bit more experimental. Thats what I would like to do, but personally my skills are just not good enough to perform everything without some sort of sequencing, or recording and then looping, or "cheating" somehow.
A question about XM... have you used it in Canada? I am interested in getting XM, but I want to get the U.S. version for use here in Canada (because I don't need half my stations being francophone, and the other 25% being the CBC). I am just wondering if there is any sort of way geography effects content, or if it is all the same signal and if you have the U.S. decoder and therefore you get U.S. content.
**Chris Randall** (2006-06-12):
I dunno 'bout all that. What I _do_ know is that if you're North of the 45th Parallel, you're gonna have trouble receiving the US stations. Even here in Oregon (which is a long ways from being the most Northerly portion of the lower 48) we lose the signal when there's a lot of trees on the South side of the road.
Quite frankly, I think you're unlikely to be able to receive the US signal very well, unless you live somewhere with no trees or hills. I think the US XM signal is largely designed for the Southern US, where it works incredibly well, even in tunnels and shit.
-CR
**robbmonn** (2006-06-12):
My band Ohler records improvised, electronic and non-jazz cliche recordings. Our SO is that we prep for a session by putting together some sounds and samples, but nothing too elaborate and then we record. We both use powerbooks running live and some outboard grear and then we record into a desktop also running live. The whole thing is tempo syncronized so that we can cleanly cut the resulting session any way that we want.
We typically try to record an idea for 20-40 minutes with the intention of making a 5-10 minute track from the best bit.
But it is all improvised with no editing in post save to make the crop for the song lenth. We *do* play around a lot with eq, comp fx and all that, however... which is a lot of fun.
Anyway. Most of our stuff (almost 5 years work) is free to download here: http://leemonn.com/ohler
**frugalpole** (2006-06-12):
that is my EXACT problem w/ electronic music. and why i have been stuck in this damn vortex of a sordid moral obligation for a live performance to be more than merely clicking the (again) damn space bar. or play CD's. perfection is a PITA. the fusing of the electronic and organic (human) is just _AH!
anyhow.
**neilium** (2006-06-12):
The best rock shows I've ever seen were far from perfect performances, more like crisis management. I'll never forget watching the Pixies teeter on the edge of imploding through an entire set.
For something to go really well, there has to be the potential for things to go really bad.
**Chris Randall** (2006-06-12):
I fully agree with you there.
I've seen live electronic acts that could pull it off. Mouse On Mars comes to mind. I can't stand the Flaming Lips, like _really_ can't stand them. Like, I want to punch that smarmy motherfucker right in his adam's apple. However, I've seen them several times (and had to clean all that fucking confetti out of my lights) and, at least in their early days, they pulled it off, too.
So, it's possible. I find the whole "bending over a laptop playing Live" schtick to be quite boring, though.
-CR
**Muller** (2006-06-12):
I'd have to say that it's no so much the fact that AutoTune and Beat Detective exist as tools as much as it's the engineer/musician that chooses to use these tools in excess when they don't NEED it. I'll be the first to admit that I use Pro Tools, have fixed drums with Beat Detective, and own a copy of Antares AutoTune. I use them in the most sparing way and only if it's DIRE need.
Say I recorded a drummer that missed a pause or a fill or sped up to much on one section and he's now out of the country and can't re-track the part. I will use the tools at hand to get the job done, but some people use AutoTune always even when it's not needed. I think it's as much of a problem on the judgement of the producer or engineer or the lack of musicianship on the players part. I like that I can turn a first take into the take with the use of pitching half a dozen notes throughout an entire 7 minute song. The performance of the vocal is just as important as the pitch and timing of that vocal and when it sounds perfect it looses the humanistic vibe that it once had.
**Angstrom** (2006-06-12):
I think the problem, in the case of timing, is "acurate to what?"
a grid of 16ths is hardly ever what you want to hear, so lets apply a "groove map" which is taken from our perfect logical idea of what the song requires in terms od 'swing' and apply it instead of straight 16ths.
but the problem is:
this relies on someone's logical decision to apply 8th note swing or "stubblefield preset"
How that decision is made is not the same way that musical timing decisions are made. Musical timing decisions are made intuitively, DAW timing decisions are made logically and laboriously. Our logical side is not historically where our musical juju resides.
I propose a midi seat, which affects groove and tempo by how hard and fast the engineers chair rocks.
or not.
**joe** (2006-06-12):
three words hombres,
the bad plus.
**antix2** (2006-06-12):
The Emperors new rock track has too many bits for the human ear...
(I've had McDonalds in Japan and the burger you get actually looks just like the one in the picture on the wall.)
Why are you trying to explain why shit stinks?
**DaveAA** (2006-06-12):
I don't think being in time and in tune is going to ruin a song.
I think the difference nowadays is that it's so easy easy to give weak, unoriginal songwriting such a slick veneer that radio programmers and teenagers can mistake it for good music.
**Chris Randall** (2006-06-12):
Radio programmers have been mistaking slick veneer for good music for decades. Nothing new there. The only thing that changes is the definition of "slick veneer." One of the best selling albums of all time is the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack, for fuck's sake.
-CR
**valis** (2006-06-12):
Much like the glut of Special Effects laden movies in the late 90s and early 00's, it's very easy to go beyond adding a tweak here and a bit of surrealism there to the point where the whole experience is artificial and exists mostly as a collection of effects with little content from the performers. I don't think this makes surrealism & electronica suck.
Slick veneer comes from the intention of the producers & marketing guys.
**antix2** (2006-06-12):
Conjecture.
I have worked with "artists" whom are made of 'slick veneer' through and through and I know professionals that specialise in 'slick veneer' and love what they do.
Agreeing with valis, I add, suckage is a point of view. Educating the masses doesn't help, people love crap.
**RexRhino** (2006-06-12):
Educating the masses doesn't help, people love crap.
Not really... most people have decent enough taste in music. It is just that the line blurs between music that changed my life, and music as disposable pop-culture.
While I don't like pop music, I can definitly enjoy some disposable Hollywood blockbuster crap movies. I fully know the difference between crap movies and good movies, but I have a taste for both. Good cinema and bad cinema each fufill a different need. I assume that for fans of pop music, it is the same as blockbuster movies are for me.
Personally, have a certain tolerance for blatently pop music that I don't have for other music. I can stomach listening to Brittany Spears or "Light Rock FM" at the dentist office a lot easier than I can stomach some god-aweful Paul Oakenfold or any Goa-Trance track.
**Chris Randall** (2006-06-13):
I find myself in the uncomfortable position of absolutely agreeing 100%. I have nothing to add except that you could swap "RexRhino" for "Chris Randall" in that post.
Of coure, being my web page, I wouldn't be so retarded as to think anyone but me could use HTML in my posts. Obviously, allowing HTML in the comments is asking for all kinds of trouble. Plus, it makes me feel better about being me.
But otherwise, you're on the mark.
-CR
**antix2** (2006-06-13):
Oooh. I stand corrected.
People love _what I define as_ crap.
However, that dentist scenario is the opposite for me.
I find paying $ to be force fed muzak I can't control pretty hard.
Let's not even bring up the Supermarket...
**Downpressor** (2006-06-13):
where I live we get "hardcore rap" in the supermarkets. "Nxxx Nxxx this and Bxxx Fxxx that" as the old couples load their carts full of rice and daikon. Once the context is removed, all thats left is the polish.
**inteliko** (2006-06-13):
Dont laugh..my wife was bumpin a new madonna tune ,i caught myself noddin my head to it,and my wife asked do u like this tune?I said its good but sounds too fuckin clean!Alll her new stuff got loads of good filter sweeps(who dont love filter sweeps)but its too damm clean soundin.Some areas drums sounded overcompressed.
**PBXorcist** (2006-06-13):
Back in the late 90's I used to do improv Techno with a group of friends back in Dallas. We were lucky enough to get to do some live shows as well, and its still some of my fondest memories of music making.
There were three of us and we would just pile on the gear, each bringing what ever they had, and each of us handling the sequencing for our own goods. From there we would just all synch to the master and go. Much like imporv jazz it was a little noisy from time to time, but there were the times where some how we would all fall in synch together and get the perfect blend of sound the "bad jam" as we refered to it that made it all worthwhile.
I'd love to do that sort of thing again, but trance, alas, has killed electronic music, and the retards out there only want perfect tracks with 512 measure buildups and breakdowns.
Time to break out the old session DAT tapes
-PBX
**D' MacKinnon** (2006-06-14):
--most people have decent enough taste in music.--
I think you give "most people" too much credit. Look at how many people bought an album from Ashlee Simpson, someone who's entire career was founded not on talent but because she was the sister of someone who became famous from a reality TV show. She can't sing for shit without getting AutoTuned and she has a staff of producers and songwriters crafting her songs. The state of the music industry these days just cultivates this atmosphere because it's controlled by corporations who are interested in selling music like other companies sell toilet paper instead of investing in actual artistic expression. It's safe and they know people will buy it.
Music is like food. Some people appreciate a good filet mignion. But many more people are just content eating Big Macs even through they are crap.
**antix2** (2006-06-15):
Yes.
The creepy part is that some pretty talented people (probably) worked on that Simpson record, people given a chance might very well do some creative shit. But it's all 'sheen' and the masses gobbles it up.
Extending on the 'meat' analogy I say $ = effort. Some (most) can't spring for filet with frequency but with a little bit of work we can all find good music.
Funny how the shit procucers are eating the steak...
**antix2** (2006-06-15):
(damnit, shit _producers_ that is.)
**Black-Man** (2006-06-19):
Back in the day only the over-produced, record company funded bands sounded like shit. Now, anyone can sound over-produced and hence... like shit.
Just put the fucking laptop down.
**Xmuzik** (2006-09-15):
alot of music is overproduced , just like movies but i think that people's desire to rather be famous than come up with cool good ideas is the real problem.
to some up my rant....
fame is the real artform people are trying to perfect in early 21st century america