What’s Up with Modern Audio Releases?

[Robin L]

Seems like another thread where people try to analyse why they don't like a particular genre or era of music. And rather than recognise the subjective nature of musical taste, we try to find some kind of objective fault with it. Badly recorded. Harsh or whatever.
Rather than simply recognise that it is not what we like stylistically. Subjectively.

To me, "modern music" is not harsh, bright or tiring. Like most eras: Some is... Some isn't.
There's some massive generalisations going on here.
The term "modern music" for one. Covers a lot surely.

Speaking as a troglodyte, "Modern Music" means "Get off my lawn!"

 

[mhardy6647]

Serious question: did troglodytes have lawns?

Archaeological research clearly suggests: yes.

 

[Multicore]

Jarrett did go through a phase that many rejected, but I believe you might enjoy this more recent offering if you give it a listen.

I listened to it.

I hate it.

Which in itself is actually very interesting. These are the situations in which I have to to face the question: what exactly is so displeasing? I loath this music. But why? The answer to that question might be the most interesting view into my soul available.

I would be easy to simplify this as the circular serpent eating it's tail: the pandering of an acknowledged but exiled "jazz" master to its loving adoptive but foreign audience. But it's not so simple. It's personal. Jarrett always pissed me off. He has, unusally, the capacity to express hiself in how how plays, and I hate it.

Please, I want to assure you, I have no hostility to you or anyone else who likes this music. Absent reasons to the contrary, I truly love you all.

 

[Robin L]

I listened to it.

I hate it.

Which in itself is actually very interesting. These are the situations in which I have to to face the question: what exactly is so displeasing? I loath this music. But why? The answer to that question might be the most interesting view into my soul available.

I would be easy to simplify this as the circular serpent eating it's tail: the pandering of an acknowledged but exiled "jazz" master to its loving adoptive but foreign audience. But it's not so simple. It's personal. Jarrett always pissed me off. He has, unusally, the capacity to express hiself in how how plays, and I hate it.

Please, I want to assure you, I have no hostility to you or anyone else who likes this music. Absent reasons to the contrary, I truly love you all.

1975-ish.

I'm behind the cash register at a Wherehouse Records in Eagle Rock. Kareem Abdul Jabbar approaches the register, LPs in hand. I suppose I spent too much time in looking up at him in order to see his face. His scowl indicates intense displeasure. He's buying, among other discs, a Keith Jarrett set of discs. This leads me to think that maybe I don't like the pianist's recordings all that much. I stopped tolerating Jarrett's grunts and other vocal mannerisms about that time.

 

[EJ3]

How did this pretty straightforward question lead to such meandering lol.

The question is not very specific and covers a lot of ground (and some people take that to be more ground than others do).
To me: the meandering: is quite interesting.

 

[Mart68]

1975-ish.

I'm behind the cash register at a Wherehouse Records in Eagle Rock. Kareem Abdul Jabbar approaches the register, LPs in hand. I suppose I spent too much time in looking up at him in order to see his face. His scowl indicates intense displeasure. He's buying, among other discs, a Keith Jarrett set of discs. This leads me to think that maybe I don't like the pianist's recordings all that much. I stopped tolerating Jarrett's grunts and other vocal mannerisms about that time.

On the plus side he was in 'Airplane!'

'I'm sorry son, you must have me confused with someone else'

 

[Chr1]

1975-ish.

I'm behind the cash register at a Wherehouse Records in Eagle Rock. Kareem Abdul Jabbar approaches the register, LPs in hand. I suppose I spent too much time in looking up at him in order to see his face. His scowl indicates intense displeasure. He's buying, among other discs, a Keith Jarrett set of discs. This leads me to think that maybe I don't like the pianist's recordings all that much. I stopped tolerating Jarrett's grunts and other vocal mannerisms about that time.

Sounds like you got off lightly.

Lucky he wasn't really pissed off, as he's got proper Bruce Lee chops...

Watch out, Keith Jarrett!

Game of Death (1978)

 

[Sal1950]

Speaking as a troglodyte, "Modern Music" means "Get off my lawn!"

You could be a lover of Classical music, listening to the same group of 200-300 year old songs, replayed by 1,000 different bands, over and over. Yawn.

 

[levimax]

Sounds like you got off lightly.

Lucky he wasn't really pissed off, as he's got proper Bruce Lee chops...

Watch out, Keith Jarrett!

Game of Death (1978)
View attachment 481840

Kareem is one of the most dominating basketball players of all time. My parents had season tickets to the Milwaukee Bucks which were an expansion team at the time and the worst team in the league so they got the first pick to draft Kareem in 1969. In the Kareem's (Lew Alcindor was his name at the time) second year with the Bucks they won the World Championship. My memories of him a quite favorable and positive

 

[Robin L]

You could be a lover of Classical music, listening to the same group of 200-300 year old songs, replayed by 1,000 different bands, over and over. Yawn.

"Modern Music" means something written/performed within the last ten years or so. The OP was speaking of Jazz productions from 50/60 years ago as some sort of ideal. These recordings, clearly are not "modern". Neither are the pop/rock productions of the same era. I'm seventy, I know "classic rock" isn't "Modern Music". And I am fairly certain that people raised on the sort of rock and roll produced 50 years ago would have a high probability of disliking music of our era. One of the reasons would be just how different the overall production of those recordings is from what they enjoyed during the years that music meant the most to them, generally music of the time their hormones were percolating. That is more or less inevitable and pretty much ubiquitous.

"Classical Music Lovers" can be stuck in the groove just as much as fans of classic rock, desiring the same tunes endlessly recycled by the same performers. But the reality is that "classical music" is not "the same group of 200-300 year old songs, replayed by 1,000 different bands, over and over." Bach has over 1,200 compositions cataloged in the 20th century. More have been discovered in the 21st century. Schubert has a catalog of 960 works, though there are actually 1500 separate compositions. 600 of those are songs. All this in spite of the fact that he died at the age of 31. There are over 750 items in Haydn's Hoboken catalog, including 108 symphonies, 83 string quartets and 126 trios for Baryton, Violin and Cello. Though only (!) 138 of Beethoven's works have opus numbers, his total number of compositions is 722. The absurdly productive George Phillip Telemann is responsible for over 3600 works.

I could go on; these are not the only composers to be found under the general heading of "Classical music". Rightfully, there are many more genres under that heading—Baroque, Renaissance, Medieval, Romantic, 20th century, 21st century. And this covers a timespan of over 1,000 years. If it seems as though there are only "the same group of 200-300 year old songs, replayed by 1,000 different bands, over and over", it's for the same reason that we can't escape mid-70's Fleetwood Mac or Pink Floyd. This is what the market demands. But, seriously, the music that goes under the heading of "Classical Music" is impossibly vast in a way that Rock 'n' Roll can never hope to attain. And there are plenty of people who would just as soon hear Marin Marais, Antoine Forqueray and Sainte Colombe than any "standard repertoire". Similarly, there are those who would just as soon listen to Pere Ubu, Public Enemy and Bad Bunny than "Classic Rock".

I would find a steady diet of "Classic Rock" intensely boring.

 

[Matt S]

At least for the music I listen to, I find the L-W a very minor, near non-issue.
When I've done my homework I can most always find a digital mix that hasn't been crushed.
Of course if you listen to Rap, Hip-Hop, and Taylor Swift pop type styles, in many if not most cases it's unavoidable,, that is what the artists want you to hear. I think I've mentioned before how Mark Waldrep of AIX records has been piss-off by artists-labels returning his mixes 2 and 3 times with instructions to "Make It Louder".
If you go to the DR DB site and click on the first DR column to sort them that way, this is what you get., Such is life.
View attachment 480823

Thanks Sal. I am aware of this database and have used and combination of it, and discogs etc, to find the most dynamic version of a few albums. Useful tool isn't it.

 

[EJ3]

At least for the music I listen to, I find the L-W a very minor, near non-issue.
When I've done my homework I can most always find a digital mix that hasn't been crushed.
Of course if you listen to Rap, Hip-Hop, and Taylor Swift pop type styles, in many if not most cases it's unavoidable,, that is what the artists want you to hear. I think I've mentioned before how Mark Waldrep of AIX records has been piss-off by artists-labels returning his mixes 2 and 3 times with instructions to "Make It Louder".
If you go to the DR DB site and click on the first DR column to sort them that way, this is what you get., Such is life.
View attachment 480823

I actually did not realize that there were any that had DR that bad. Nothing that I have ever played is that bad (and I thought that I had played some really bad ones at one point or another).

 

[Robin L]

For those who requested examples of what sound to me like good and bad releases, I have numerous examples of both, but I just played these two and consider them prime candidates in the jazz category:

Excellent, well-balanced, and natural-sounding production:

Sonny Rollins, Saxophone Colossus, Original Jazz Classics # 0JCCD-291-2, Prestige label # P7079, originally recorded in 1956, remastered - smooth, clear, natural sounding mids & highs; clean, crisp transients; tight bass; balanced overall tonality - I'm listening to an actual performance with acoustic instruments when I play this disc.

Super-hot, artificial sounding production:

Eric Darius, Goin' All Out, Blue Note Label Group # 0946-3-87848-2-1, released 2008 - undefined, over-blown bass; brittle, harsh-sounding (clipped?) highs - I'm listening to a disjointed, almost surrealistic interpretation of a jazz performance with overly exaggerated top and bottom ends when I play this disc.

I enjoy the Rollins album immensely, and can listen to it over and over again without having any audible flaws jump out at me. I spend a lot of time trying to ignore the edgy, shrill highs and tubby bass of the Darius album, so I don't really enjoy playing it as much as I should. That's a shame, because Darius is an accomplished horn player who sounds great live, and the tunes are fine, but the production sucks.

I did sample the Eric Darius album via Tidal. The problem isn't so much that it is a "modern" production. The problem is that it is just plain bad. I've got no problem with jazz players utilizing modern production techniques, but this has as nasty a sound as you describe. It's easy to find modern Jazz recordings with good sound, but the Eric Darius recording is something of an anomaly with so much hash on top.

The Sonny Rollins recording comes from another—monaural—planet. It has a better production but it's better in part because it's kept simple. The same could be said of many ECM productions. If "Saxophone Colossus" were to be recorded today it would have even better sound. By the very nature of the instrumentation the various instruments can be heard clearly. Unless the producers and engineers were deaf it would be hard to screw up. In fact, I knew a producer/engineer of classical music recordings who copped to being mostly deaf. But he knew what microphones to use and where to place them, so his recordings were uniformly of high quality.

This makes me think of early Norman Granz productions in the early fifties that came out fine in spite of the limitations of the equipment: