Jan
27
Loudness War
January 27, 2018 | Leave a Comment
In class we discussed the loudness war. Previous to reading the article I never noticed or realized that the trend of increasing audio levels in music was an movement. Music trends change over generations because the trends depend on how invested people are in the music of the time. Our music preferences are also influenced by the elders in our lives that share and pass down the music they listened to when they were growing up. In any art there is always a push for innovation and modernization. Compression was used to make music more modern and to allow musicians to set themselves apart from the music in the past and get noticed by producers and record labels. As time passed more and more artist started to compress their music because it became the formula for success. Just as architecture styles prevail during certain times, the same can be said for music. I do agree that dynamic range is important. The dynamic range of older music makes it much more interesting than some of the music today. I can say that when I listen to older music the lyrics and dynamic range is what captures my attention. When I listen to music of today, the musical ingenuity of the song anchors my attention moreso than the lyrics. Music back in the day was entertainment which is why dynamic range was so important. A musician would not be able to maintain audience attention if they were not dynamic. Today, music is more of a filler. It is in the background which is why my generation doesn’t find extreme fault in the over- compression of music. It’s hard to believe that less compressed music will be produced in future because children of today haven’t had access to less compressed music. They most likely won’t be willing to create a change in the music that is popular now. Even contemporary gospel music is becoming compressed. I find myself listening to traditional gospel music to truly be moved. An interesting topic that was also brought up was the idea of French bread vs. wonder bread. French bread and wonder bread is analogous to our society’s blatant acceptance of mediocrity. We continue to perpetuate this mediocrity in not only our music but our food, leadership and sometimes our lives.
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