[sonance]

OK.. so I don't know if I just don't get it, or if I'm over-analyzing things, but low-fidelity music just makes me sad. I don't mean crappy 3rd gen digitized copies of music recorded from the radio during the 90s on a walkman, I'm talking about the deliberate recording and mixing of music to make it sound low-fidelity right off the CD.
 
Not that this is completely new, but a combination of tweaking for poor audio systems by almost all popular music in recent years, and the indie lo-fi movement has caused an increasing number of songs that I paradoxically love very difficult for me to listen to, especially on a headphone rig. I could give any number of examples, but I started this thread when "Do you realize" by The Flaming Lips came up on shuffle, and made me cringe while I listened to the whole song anyways. I love the song, but the distortion and apparent clipping is so grating, I often skip the song when I'm listening over headphones (or at least I turn it down quite a bit). Even groups that have produced relatively well recorded albums in the past have released heavily clipped and over-amped, distorted and cringe inducing albums this last decade. I really hate when I unpack a fresh CD I just got from Amazon, and it sounds terrible on high-$ gear. In the end, the gear is just there in service of music, and when the music sounds bad, it makes you question what the artists, engineers, producers and the rest of the production team are thinking.
 
Differing opinions are welcome (since I know there is pretty deep support for the lo-fi movement) - what do you think?

 

[Skrying]

What I find most annoying is bands that ride the middle. I can live with the indie lo-fi movement sound. It's so far distorted and horrible sounding that it becomes almost natural. The Flaming Lips on the other hand ride this middle ground that sounds just bad. It gives this strong hint of how good the music could sound but constantly hits the back of your head with the clipping and distortion. I've always been a not-at-all or all-the-way type of person though.

 

[TheWuss]

Quote:

What I find most annoying is bands that ride the middle. I can live with the indie lo-fi movement sound. It's so far distorted and horrible sounding that it becomes almost natural. The Flaming Lips on the other hand ride this middle ground that sounds just bad. It gives this strong hint of how good the music could sound but constantly hits the back of your head with the clipping and distortion. I've always been a not-at-all or all-the-way type of person though.

i couldn't agree more.
same can be said of modest mouse.
once they had the budget and larger label backing, their sound just went badly wrong.
add in a sprinkling of loudness war, and voila, another band lost to the industry...
 
perhaps there are a few bands i can think of that went from low-fi to mid-fi with good results.  two of those were sebadoh (harmacy) and guided by voices (do the collapse).
 
but, those two albums happened to occur just before the loudness war reached its zenith...

 

[Uncle Erik]

Yep, I'm not a fan, either. Sure, there was great music recorded on a cheap four track in someone's garage waybackwhen, but it's totally unnecessary today. Good quality recording is available dead cheap and anyone who romanticizes bad sound is misguided. It's the equivalent of pre-torn jeans and "distressed" faux antiques. Stop it.

And don't get me started on the Loudness War.

 

[Paganini Alfredo]

Hmmm, I'm not so sure about all of this. You can record stuff on four track and have it not sound "lo-fi", whatever that is. Maybe what I'm thinking of and what you guys are thinking of is not the same as far as music is concerned, but I've always thought that the way a band records stuff and how it sounds is just part of their artistic makeup.

 

[salannelson]

AHHHH I can't stand lo-fi. Unless you're The Black Keys. For some reason, it just works with them.

 

[beaglepower]

I <3 this lo-fi album - Hospice

 

[Calexico]

I'm fine with lo-fi.  Sometimes it just sounds right.  I wouldn't dare ask for one of my lo-fi albums to be hi-fi, just in case it lost its appeal after the change.

 

[XaNE]

I love lo-fi when its done right, its bad mastering and compression is what i cant handle.

 

[sonance]

I agree that there is a soft-edged, "throwback" sound signature that doesn't sound grating or bad - but I do question with modern music if it actually sounds better than a well recorded version of the same performance. In a few instances - Metallica's infamous CD version of a song that was clearly messed up on the CD (because.. Metallica hates their fans), which was proven when the Guitar Hero version sounded a lot better (see here).
 
Of course this sort of thing falls clearly under the poor engineering bucket rather than artistic intent, but even in modern cases of the "artistic intent" area of lo-fi, i.e. a deliberate attempt to muddy the sound to achieve an effect, I find that if the song ever gets to the point where the poor quality or audio artifacts distracts from the ability to enjoy the music, then artistic intent aside, the artist has failed to engage the listener. I think that the artist should at least offer an clean version for those who would prefer to listen to that. Of course in most cases no such option is available, so we are just left to wonder whether the song would be better if it was well recorded. Can anyone think of a version of song, where both a clean and low-fi version exist, where they prefer the lo-fi version?