mikeford

This thread popped up on a unrelated search, but maybe I can clarify a few issues so I will give it a bump.

Hoffman forums have a bunch of people, some knowledgeable, some nuts, some both, but they are people who actually buy and listen to and compare all the remasters etc and IMHO with minor sifting identify which releases are the best, good, bad etc.

Everything Steve Hoffman has remastered isn't gold, but its close, and he has done a good 2/3 of the best sounding CD's that I own. The Nat King Cole series on the Audio Fidelity label is amazing, as are many of his earlier DCC and other works.

Regarding the before and after 1980 focus, DCC only existed when the early stuff was available, and the music business changed so its harder to remaster a newer release targeting the audiophile vs iPod market. Much easier once the artist is dead and records aren't still in the bins of stores, plus some artists put out a good sounding album to start with.

OTOH I only read the forum since I was banned for denying capacitor magic.

wendersfan

This explains so very much.
You may not have noticed, but CRM's favorite album of last year (IIRC) was the same as mine - Foxygen's We Are the 21st Century Ambassadors of Peace & Magic, not exactly FM pop radio fare.

printerati

irons80

This thread is hilarious in its similarity to what is posted at SHM Forums. I only read there these days having been proudly banned in 2004 for questioning some of the hocus pocus (anyone remember Grover Interconnects that were being peddled there?).

Now, I'm not a music snob but I am 49 years old. I try to like newer music but I think for many people (not all) the brain reaches a saturation point for ingesting newer music and one ends up going back to their favourites. However, out of curiousity, I went to Wikipedia (having never heard of Foxygen). Two interesting things jumped out at me: a positive review from Entertainment Weekly ("We just can't stop playing the scruffy psych-rock duo's Rolling Stones-obsessed album with the appropriately exuberant title We Are the 21st Century Ambassadors of Peace & Magic.", and their participation in a Stone Roses tribute album (for their 1989 debut album).

I think the best remark I read early in this thread was about not being able to "connect" with older music. Though many us "can't possibly understand" how people don't like classic rock or any music pre-1985. It's simply a personal, subjective issue. My friend's 14-year old son wants to know everything about The Beatles, Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd. He's probably more of a classic rock music snob than anyone I know!

bunkaroo

I've been observing this phenomenon in metal for a while too - at least the last 10 years. People still go back to the earlier Maiden, Priest and Metallica. I think in a way it's because these bands, like the ones you mentioned, were and/or are juggernauts, and we just don't see new bands like that in rock and metal today.

Those bands were given a chance to grow and were given label support to hone their craft over several releases. That is unheard of now and has been for a while. You must have a hit NOW or you're done.

The advent of the internet coupled with increasingly cheaper and better home recording tools has made it possible to create your own music on your own terms which is good. The problem is there is just so much out there now, you still need some kind of gimmick to catch people's attention. There don't seem to be any larger marketing campaigns for up and coming rock bands like their used to be. So ultimately, newer bands do it for the love of the music, because you certainly can't make a living from it. The downside is you can't devote 100% of your life and time to it because you have to work a day job or gig in cover bands 5 nights a week to earn a living.

kstublen

I can't think of many musicians who have "created their sound out of thin air." I think it's fair to say that everyone is influenced by those who came before them. Maybe the sound is new and different, but they were influenced and developed something based on what they heard and learned themselves. In fact, I'd even say that extends to movies, paintings, architecture, science, etc. I don't think anyone in the groups you've cited would make the bold claim that they were created in a vacuum.

Roxy Music certainly had a unique sound, but their sound was hardly born out of thin air. Not only was the group influenced by other rock acts that preceded them (Pink Floyd, David Bowie, and The Velvet Underground to name a few), but Ferry was influenced by Richard Hamilton (one of his professors) and Eno was influenced by Pete Townshend (of the Who), Cornelius Cardew (founder of Scratch Orchestra), and Tom Phillips (one of his professors). And so we're clear, I looked up the specific influences for Ferry and Eno since I didn't know them off the top of my head, but knew they'd be fairly easy to find, which they were. Pretty interesting reads, actually.

There's a neat site called Music Bloodline where you can see musical influences. From the searches I've done and what I already know about music it appears to be pretty accurate. Starting with Roxy Music I went back to The Velvet Underground to Chuck Berry to Muddy Waters to Big Joe Williams to Jelly Roll Morton to Scott Joplin. And that site certainly isn't comprehensive from perusing the Wikipedia articles and was only one of the paths I could have taken in tracing the musical "bloodline."

I'm not trying to start an argument or say one type or generation of music is better than another. All I'm saying is that music is something that evolves over time.

Supermallet

Yeah, it's silly to say that after X point in time, everything is just expanding on previous innovations. All music (all culture, really) is expanding on previous innovations, with a few genuine innovations thrown in once or twice a century or so (obviously I'm generalizing heavily).

Take, for example, Sonic Youth's Daydream Nation from 1988. A landmark album by any measure. Now, you could say that Lou Reed "did it first" with Metal Machine Music, but he didn't really. He made an album of pure noise. Sonic Youth used noise to create music. Lou Reed employed no structure, no lyrical content, no themes. Just straight up pure noise. Sonic Youth did include those things, and there's a reason why Daydream Nation is considered a watershed album in the rock avant garde while Metal Machine Music is relegated to being a curiosity at best, or outright reviled at worst. It's pretty clear that Sonic Youth were influenced by Lou Reed, but that doesn't mean that Lou Reed is responsible for Daydream Nation any more than Chuck Berry is responsible for White Light/White Heat.

Good music is good music. I don't care who did it first, second, third, or whenever. If I like the music, I listen to it. If I dislike the music, I don't.

kstublen

Well said

Rocketdog2000

Seconded.

wendersfan

Well, there's always Glenn Branca.

covenant

Don't comment on sound quality unless you have your equipment listed in your profile!

http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/thread...rofile.489114/

hdnmickey

Maybe people should submit their hearing tests for the last few years as well.

Hokeyboy

The issue of listing your equipment profile is a perennial topic of debate there. At one point, Hoffman absolutely INSISTED everyone had to if they wanted to debate sound quality... under penalty of TORTURE!!! Or banning. To some over there, both are quite the same.

Anyway that never happened, but that doesn't start the Dinobots from pooping out their dismay... But don't be too hard on them. The Beatles catalog is now available on Spotify, and their prized record collections immediately devalued overnight, and disappeared in a poof of quantum poofery without notice.

BearFan

Do they even listen to music over there or just read the wave graphs?