MOLI VIEW™

Although it's not romantic to say so, technology has always shaped the sound of music. Before record players were common, most people heard music on the radio – often live. The limits of 45 rpm records – those are the small ones, kids – helped establish pop as short-form entertainment, while the expanded canvas of the LP gave groups like the Beatles the opportunity to stretch out artistically. The cassette may not be fondly remembered, but it made possible the Walkman, which in turn made possible the kind of private listening experience now identified with the iPod. CDs encouraged artists to fill them with 75 minutes worth of music, which many listeners seem to believe is about 72 minutes too much.

With music sales down about another 15 percent this year, it's obvious that the format of the future will be a digital one. So far, however, the aesthetic outlook isn't pretty. Over the course of several months this year, I wrote a story for Rolling Stone called "The Death of High Fidelity," which covers the decline in the sound quality of today's pop music. As I reported the story, I was shocked by how different music really sounds.

Lest my opinions be dismissed as the ravings of an old man, I'll get specific: Music is louder than it used to be. I don't mean that it's played at a higher volume. At any volume, music has different sounds, from a whispered vocal to a kick drum, and the difference between the loudest and the softest sounds is called the dynamic range. Engineers can boost the levels to make different sounds appear louder, which is why television commercials always seem to be louder than shows. And they now boost many sounds on most pop music songs as high as they can go. (Some examples of just how much they do so can be found here.) As various musicians, producers, and engineers told me, this has a variety of ill effects, including ear fatigue and a loss of emotional power.

Previous Page  1  2  Next Page