Hotel California sounds good on the radio.


Hotel California came on the  local classic hits station while Was driving the other day. It sounded better than the other "classic hits" they played that trip. I got to thinking, Dark Side of the Moon and Reelin' in the Years sound good on the radio too. So when they say an album sounds lousy because it was mixed to "sound good on the radio", is it an excuse for poor workmanship?

jsbail

Who can even stand to listen to that song anymore? It is so dated and boring.

Not necessarily because there dated and boring but we’ve heard them a million times, ya maybe boring.

I am not commenting on the music. I am observing that recordings known to be of high quality sound on our audiophile systems sound as good or better than recordings that sound terrible on revealing systems. It is often said the bad recordings sound that way because they are "mixed to sound good on the radio". 

In the early days of CD technology, some record companies (accidentally?) used master tapes that had the RIAA equalization curve (used to cut LPs) to make CDs.