In A Word, Dynamics. In Three Hundred Seventy-Six…
by John J. Madonna
During an audition with my band The Pinheads, as we were tearing it up with a cover of “The Power of Love,” Huey Lewis cut us off and said, “I’m sorry, you’re just too darn loud.” …Wait. Was that me or… Marty McFly? Not important; those words stuck. I thought of them at the concert last night, asking who, by Zeus, miked the drums? They overpowered the vocals. Why did the guitars blend innocuously into the background, and why bother, John Linnell, bringing a keyboard when no one could hear it? I loved the concert (save for the atrocious opening act,) but TMBG fell into the current rock trend of loudness.
When I checked out Beethoven’s Third and designated it for my tundra Focus’s CD player. I soon realized my car’s sound system ill suits classical music (for the record, I doubt Baroque or Romantic would fare any better.) Classical is such poor driving music for the same reason why rock is such good driving music. Dynamics. Yes, sir, the ability to go from loud to soft separates us from the animals, and classical recordings strive for dynamic range, pianissimo to fortississississimo. Rock music, though, stays stagnant, a huge advantage on the radio. Given that most radio listening is relegated to the car, when listeners are flipping through stations, I wager they’ll not stop on a quiet or dynamic song with engine noise and air conditioners drowning it out.
I heard Jet’s “Look What You’ve Done,” and quickly checked out Get Born, a fine record with songs switching betwixt Rutlesque pop and straight-ahead rock and roll. But it was just too darn loud. That might seem irrelevant with working knowledge of the volume knob, but when I say loud, I mean every instrument has been mixed at the same level. The chaos of it all, drums and vocals at equal volumes as if they have equal importance! Ballads, like “Look What You’ve Done,” are no quieter or gentler than the heavier songs. At the TMBG concert last night, I despised the opening act so because whatever lyrics, hooks, instruments they had boiled down to a wash of noise and really loud drummer.
Musicians out there, have the courage to buck the current trends. In the loudness war, a figurative arms race, each studio is trying to out loud each other. When will the madness end? Fight back. Add nuance, dynamics. Sometimes I like loud songs, but if a song is supposed to be quiet, play it that way. I use to wonder what classical records would be like if they were recorded with pop sensibilities, isolating instruments in different channels. But now I wonder what if pop records used classical ideas of using real dynamics. Just listen to Björk’s “It’s Oh So Quiet” for an idea of how that would sound.
P.S. The question which this blog answers, “When people say they don’t record music like they used to, what do they mean?
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