Krukowski has had / is having a really cool career. I saw his & Naomi's band w/ Dean Wareham Galaxie 500 and bought a few of His & Naomi's publishing company's books of other authors. I don't totally agree that noise is the enemy in digital recordings. Does he cover thoughts about the state(s) and evolution of remastering? I'd be curious of his thoughts on that. I frequently hear recordings of music that's 50 years and older and marvel how good it sounds, and then I realize, it 100% probably sounds better than it did when it was recorded. Then I land on "better?". I think there is a limitation on how much noise/hiss/analog soul can be removed from an original recording but it's astonishing and also a little troubling. Listening to a ton of indie music most of my life I've heard plenty of bands that had amazing cassette or small studio demos (recorded themselves or with a talented engineer) and those same songs re-recorded in a more advanced studio once they got a label deal, and theoretically become at least a little better at performance and those songs sound completely lifeless by comparison even though the sonic quality was "cleaner", "better" produced etc. This happens all the time. You DO have to define what you're trying to say with the SOUND every bit as much with the SONG/PIECE/TRACK/COMPOSITION. Recordings can be too clean. I think Albini's philosophy centered on what your band sounds like live, together, without using the studio as a crutch. Some "studio as an instrument" producers can go either way. Bob Rock is way too clean for me, for example. No subtlety whatsoever but he will get you the biggest sound possible and those drums will fill any stadium. Then there might be Kevin Shields, who nearly bankrupted a label trying to (and ultimately succeeding) creating a sound so loud and "noisy" with so much subtly within all that sound he nearly simultaneously defined a then-newly marketed genre (Shoegaze) and possibly completely broke the mold (so many imitators and those influenced by his & Bilinda's sound, so exceedingly few even remotely able to take it further or even in a different direction). Also, Adult Contemporary is all comfort, pacification, clean fantasy utopia masking dystopia as in Huxley's Brave New World. It's the country club. Only a few can afford it. Everyone else is trying to work there for the scraps. (Actually, this description makes it sound way more potentially interesting than it ever was. I'll have to redefine)
Great reply here and one that really furthers my original post. And yes, I also agree that there are no shortage of examples of bands or artists whose work is not improved by cleaner or higher fi production. Albini is an interesting example because I think of much of his work as very clear sounding, where the distortion has less to do with noisy equipment on the recording side and more to do with whatever distortion etc the musicians were generating. He was so great at capturing the source in that way. Your riffing on the definition of Adult Contemp is inspired.
Krukowski has had / is having a really cool career. I saw his & Naomi's band w/ Dean Wareham Galaxie 500 and bought a few of His & Naomi's publishing company's books of other authors. I don't totally agree that noise is the enemy in digital recordings. Does he cover thoughts about the state(s) and evolution of remastering? I'd be curious of his thoughts on that. I frequently hear recordings of music that's 50 years and older and marvel how good it sounds, and then I realize, it 100% probably sounds better than it did when it was recorded. Then I land on "better?". I think there is a limitation on how much noise/hiss/analog soul can be removed from an original recording but it's astonishing and also a little troubling. Listening to a ton of indie music most of my life I've heard plenty of bands that had amazing cassette or small studio demos (recorded themselves or with a talented engineer) and those same songs re-recorded in a more advanced studio once they got a label deal, and theoretically become at least a little better at performance and those songs sound completely lifeless by comparison even though the sonic quality was "cleaner", "better" produced etc. This happens all the time. You DO have to define what you're trying to say with the SOUND every bit as much with the SONG/PIECE/TRACK/COMPOSITION. Recordings can be too clean. I think Albini's philosophy centered on what your band sounds like live, together, without using the studio as a crutch. Some "studio as an instrument" producers can go either way. Bob Rock is way too clean for me, for example. No subtlety whatsoever but he will get you the biggest sound possible and those drums will fill any stadium. Then there might be Kevin Shields, who nearly bankrupted a label trying to (and ultimately succeeding) creating a sound so loud and "noisy" with so much subtly within all that sound he nearly simultaneously defined a then-newly marketed genre (Shoegaze) and possibly completely broke the mold (so many imitators and those influenced by his & Bilinda's sound, so exceedingly few even remotely able to take it further or even in a different direction). Also, Adult Contemporary is all comfort, pacification, clean fantasy utopia masking dystopia as in Huxley's Brave New World. It's the country club. Only a few can afford it. Everyone else is trying to work there for the scraps. (Actually, this description makes it sound way more potentially interesting than it ever was. I'll have to redefine)
Great reply here and one that really furthers my original post. And yes, I also agree that there are no shortage of examples of bands or artists whose work is not improved by cleaner or higher fi production. Albini is an interesting example because I think of much of his work as very clear sounding, where the distortion has less to do with noisy equipment on the recording side and more to do with whatever distortion etc the musicians were generating. He was so great at capturing the source in that way. Your riffing on the definition of Adult Contemp is inspired.