The Decline of the Music Industry

I’d agree with Zapp.

The entire world is now facing a creative death by algorithm.

Only numbers count, and mavericks are no longer welcome.

Freedom is undesirable and free speech intolerable.

The consumers are divided, discombobulated and programmed to willingly get injected with processed garbage. This is the age of the earbud.

The music industry did not help things by the way it huriedly sought to discard one of digital audio’s few advantages over analogue.

Just whilst driving today I was listening to The Jam’s 1997 compilation Direction Reaction Creation. This 5 disc box is highly regarded by some over on SHF but after a couple of hours I began to feel a little sick listening to the sound.

I don’t know exactly what terrible thing they had done to the sound. It seemed ok on a casual listen but then I noticed that on the harder tracks such as Modern World, Down in the Tube Station at Midnight, Start, Going Underground etc there was a horrible sensation of flattened dynamics.

It was as if the edges had been toned down in favour of a little more smoothness.

Smoothness (via compression?) that the originals never had! 

So now I’m going to have to find some earlier CD pressings that sound halfway decent. That don't sound as if the music is being sat on by a large record company executive.

Anyway we shall never give up, we’re still human beings, not numbers.

@richopp,

A nice and clear explanation.

But how do we get out of this nightmare scenario?

Just how do we regain some space to breathe, to create and to express?

And most importantly, to enjoy?

It was bad enough that revenue from music sales went south years ago, leaving us back in the pre-Beatles era where artists made their money by touring.

Unless they were Elvis who could walk straight into Hollywood.

However, right now there's next to no opportunity for artists to tour and play live.

Now that creepy/sleepy (take your pick) Joe has been installed safely behind a wall of MSM and Big Tech (and some 7000 troops) we might just see some of the restrictions lifted shortly. 

Or we might not. 

I guess we're all getting a good taste of what it might have felt like being a teenager living in the pre Rock and Roll era.

Then out of nowhere came Bill Haley, Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Fats Domino, Buddy Holly, and Elvis. Not to mention Brando, Dean, Hopper etc.

Many Brits have a similar affinity for those heady days of loosely regulated pirate radio in the early 1960s. Both Radio Luxemburg and Caroline are still especially fondly remembered by some.