"so dated now"

Hm it may also be quite subjective, don't you think? Ie these traits remind me of what I liked (or at least heard a lot of) way back when I was someone I'm quite content with not being anymore?

That works! In fact, it's a far better phrasing of the "vivid not-so-great memory" idea above.

I would never just flat-out call these traits "dated" today... I love early Art Of Noise, and there's no mistaking and pinning them as an early to mid 80s phenomenon. But I just state AON as just that, and I try to avoid the "dated" term completely now.

But i can't completely ignore it, since so many people still use it today -- I just wanted to get an idea HOW the term is used RIGHT NOW just because I get into more misunderstandings when discussing music of the past with kids today, that's all.

The thing is, for me, that there's little mistaking any phenomenon of being of its time.

I don't think I've ever really used this term. Few old things don't sound dated, I guess.

xpost

http://www.shockingbird.com/5/upload/capt.fwd107b20040630jpg.jpg

Um, crosspost?

depressing post-punk ('78-'81) sounds dated to me, as I think I'm way too jaded to relate to such emotions

There'll be just as much hand-wringing about Auto-Tune, Pro Tools, and brickwall limiting in the years to come - even more than there is now!

I'm not convinced that one can self-consciously fashion a "timeless" recording - all you can really do is make the best album you can, using the tools you have available to you at the time, and hope that your musical content still holds up a decade later.

*raises hand*

I think a lot of it has to do with the context. For instance, gated drums don't necessarily sound dated, they just sounded dated with a certain guitar and vocal tone surrounding them, and especially if they're being used on snares on the two or tom rolls. But my pet peeve of datedness, chorus pedals, totally don't sound dated in a Sonic Youth song.

I think the problem is when the production aspect seems fundamental, rather than simply incidental, to the song's identity. And of course when a song made heavy use of a production technique that proved to be a passing fad. Double-tracked vocals, for example, don't sound dated because they're part of the rock production canon and they've never gone away. I don't think She Loves You, or a good deal of The Beatles catalogue, sounds very dated for some of these reasons. I mean, some of it certainly "sounds like the 60s," but some people have been making records that "sound like the 60s" ever since then, so it's not as strong a claim.

-- latebloomer, I totally agree with that! That probably why I like it so much, how it transports you.

What about Alanis Morissette, Jagged Little Pill?

Anyone else agree?

almost everything i like, actually. including stuff that is just coming out now that will probably sound dated very soon (like robyn, the knife, ugk, crazy titch, superpitcher, kardinal offishall).

as for why, i'll borrow jed_'s defense of architectural styles that are "of their time" - if they don't reflect their time then they seem inherently less connected and engaged with the world around them, as it is right now.

what complicates this is when things are "retro" - there are certain kinds of retro that reflect THIS moment rather than moments to come - certain things about the past suddenly, or gradually, seem relevant once again, so we make use of them and re-examine them.

Are certain musical traits more "dated" than others? What are they? Why?

i don't think so. maybe i don't know what you mean by traits. specific production techniques, i.e. gated toms, or sawtooth synth sounds, or whatever? perhaps through overuse some techniques stick out more sharply later, become representative of a certain era through sheer ubiquity. so maybe yes?

I have no idea what music sounding "dated" means. if it sucked, it still sucks.)
-- xhuxk (xedd...), May 29th, 2005.

(I.E. most '80s hardcore sucked in the first place. And the stuff that didn't still sounds good, and doesn't sound dated at all.)

I don't at all undertand the fundamental vs. incidental production techniques/Human League vs. "She Loves You" dichotomy, either. The production is part of the music; why pretend it's something added on to the music? And what does some sound "proving to be a passing fad" have to do with it being good or not? Just because certain sounds went by the wayside doesn't mean they deserved to do so. If they did deserve to do so, they're not dated; they were just lousy in the first place, just like plenty of sounds that didn't go by the wayside, and are still popular today.

No, it's certainly not always a problem. I should've said that it's simply riskier.

The production is part of the music; why pretend it's something added on to the music?

Sometimes it is! Not all songwriters are producers. Some people conceive of a piece of music as a recorded entity and then create it according to that plan, while other people conceive of music as something live and then hand it over to someone else who makes it a recording in a way that may not have been part of the original idea.

And what does some sound "proving to be a passing fad" have to do with it being good or not?

We're talking about what makes things sound dated, not what makes them good.

And since when does "original idea behind the music" = "the music"?

And since when does "original idea behind the music" = "the music"?

I don't know what point you're trying to make here. I think it's pretty clear that sometimes the recording-specific elements of a piece are fundamental to the music and sometimes they are in fact just "added on." One can't always tell conclusively by listening which one is which, but that doesn't change the fact.

Also: I guess it seems more and more weird for me to look at any sound as being inherently lame in and of itself.

This means that most synth based music from 1988 sounds more dated today than most synth based music from 1982. Simply because today's synths sound more like the ones used in 1982 than the ones used in 1988.

So, Robert Johnson's Hellhound on My Trail sounds less archaic than A-Ha's The Sun Always Shines on TV ?

How do you like the weather down in that rabbit hole, buddy?

i think Tim's right that this doesn't make sense. styles of singing and styles of songwriting change just as much as production tech does. i.e. kurtis blow vs. snoop dogg. i.e. joan baez vs. i dunno, beck. jimmie dale gilmore's voice to me isn't "dated" or even "of its time" it's "retro". if that makes any sense. but then when he puts out an album with mudhoney, what does that do? who knows. haha that is a pretty "dated" collab but i still love it! so i probably wouldn't use that word, because it makes it sound like i don't like it, when i do. and even if i didn't like it, it wouldn't be because it sounds like it's old or something.

And then I explained that what I meant was: when a piece of studio technology is featured at the forefront of a piece of music, the artist runs a bigger risk of having that piece get called "dated" at some point down the road.

speaking for myself, "the production aspect" is ALWAYS fundamental to a song's identity, just as the choice of collaboration is, just as the singing style or songwriting style or melody or what have you is.

Well, I disagree. What if an artist works with an outside producer, or has a limited budget, and is unsatisfied with the sound of a recording? What if a song gets performed or recorded many times over an artist's career and undergoes changes in things like arrangement and delivery? Which version is the true one? And if none or all of them are true, how can those things be really fundamental to a song's identity? Do you really not believe that some elements of a recorded piece of music are more superficial than others? Is the reverb used on the vocal just as integral a part of a song as the melody?

Look, I'm familiar with the processes of writing, performing, engineering, mixing, and mastering. I didn't say that the production was irrelevant or unnecessary. I said that some elements of a recording are more superficial than others. Superficial, as in: "Of, affecting, or being on or near the surface." As in, in many cases, you could change the reverb on the vocal and lots of listeners wouldn't even notice the difference. They certainly wouldn't think it was a different song. Man you guys can be difficult.

Look, I'm familiar with the processes of writing, performing, engineering, mixing, and mastering. I didn't say that the production was irrelevant or unnecessary. I said that some elements of a recording are more superficial than others. Superficial, as in: "Of, affecting, or being on or near the surface." As in, in many cases, you could change the reverb on the vocal and lots of listeners wouldn't even notice the difference. They certainly wouldn't think it was a different song.

Expanded to music whose allure rests more firmly in the instrumental sound, I think it's extremely important that the right sound is chosen. Played on acoustic guitar, a simple drum-kit, double-bass and piano, my music collection would suddenly become pretty worthless.

I didn't "admit" this; it's what I've been saying all along. It depends on the song.

Written as simple poetry they lose a large part of their appeal because they aren't being delivered in performance with quite the same brilliance.

So let me see if I follow: because Bob Dylan's songs would lose some of their brilliance if performed as spoken word pieces, the reverb is always as important as the melody? Or have I got you wrong?

Played on acoustic guitar, a simple drum-kit, double-bass and piano, my music collection would suddenly become pretty worthless.

Yes, changing the music makes it different! The point I've been trying to make here is that for any given song, some elements, when altered, have a greater overall impact on the music than others. Therefore, some elements of recording/composition/arrangement are more superficial/integral than others. Which elements these are and what kind of impact they have varies greatly with the type of music and the process of its creation.

tracerhand, I agree with most of your last post, even though I think that ground was covered way upthread. Except:

even if you just go for the cleanest guitar tone possible and sing really "plainly", something's going to stick out.

Well, on a long enough timeline, probably. But I think there are recordings from decades past that sound like they could've been made today, and recordings made today that sound like they could've been from decades past, so I don't think that's always the case. But yes, fashion changes.

Two separate contentions - 1) those are not the things that truly define the music, in many cases, but 2) those "superficial" elements are what tend to prompt people to label something dated. Agree?

By "the music," here, you're talking about the composition, though. The thing is, we're talking about recordings, which are sound art and everything that goes into them is a part of the overall picture. (I don't mean to be pedantic; this is just part of the point I'm making.) You seem to be saying that the construction of the composition is more of a key element in the creation of this piece of art than the use of particular equipment in the performing or recording process, but I would question how often this is true. It is perhaps only more important if more time or energy is spent on the composition, yes? How often, though, is this the case with pop music? What if the composition itself is fairly simple? Is the melody of a tune or the structure of the song more important than the equipment that produced the sounds and the recordings techniques used on old Sun or Chess records? Motown records? Phil Spector records?

Not that those are special examples, I don't think. I actually LIKE to think of all elements of recordings as being fundamental given, of course that it's SOUND that we are dealing with! And there are always aesthetic implications with every choice that is made and nothing in the compositional, performance, or recording process is *neutral*.

Several of Elvis Presley's biggest 60s hits were with songs that had been written at the very beginning of the 20th century. They were already more than 50 years old at the time, but worked perfectly as 60s pop songs, and I see no reason why "Are You Lonesome Tonight" - given the right kind of arrangement - wouldn't have worked as a hit if released today either.

Again Tim, the amount to which this is true varies with the type of composition in question. If we're talking about a completely electronic composition, or a sound collage, for example - true musique concrete - there is nothing but the recording. The recording is the music. But in the case of other types of music, the music exists independently of any given recording. The music is performed in different settings and conditions, and it may mutate over time. It might be recorded more than once. It might get played with different backing musicians, different arrangements, different approaches. But obviously for it to be recognizable as the same song, something is remaining constant. In a case like that, I don't think it makes sense to pick one bit of recording technology utilized for one given recording and say that it's as integral a part of the song's identity as everything else.

I've certainly argued from (what might seem like) the opposite perspective in the past - someone was deriding MBV's Loveless because (paraphrasing) 'If you strip away all of the studio trickery, the songs aren't that special.' I argued that it doesn't make sense to judge some hypothetical non-album versions of the songs, that everything you hear on the record is an inseperable part of the whole. But that's Loveless, and I don't think that argument applies equally to every piece of music. I think it depends on the type of music, how it was made, the creator's intentions, etc. I realize that may not be a very well-defined position, but I don't think one can make hard and fast generalizations about music in general because of the wide variations in recording approaches/philosophy etc.

Take Shirley Temple's hit recording of "The Good Ship Lollipop," for example. Its lyrics are dated, the tune itself (as a composition) is dated, and the arrangement/recording are dated. In fact, the whole underlying, organizing sensibility and spirit of the thing is dated.

No matter how the song were re-recorded, so long as it retained any substantial portion of its original identity it would seem profoundly old-fashioned. The best you could do would be to use that old-fashioned-ness as an ironic weapon against itself, or to discard everything but the skeleton of the melody, which could be reconfigured into a new song that might seem more "contemporary."

****

As for the debate of the moment, you're just talking about the difference between a specific recording and an idealized composition.

Of course, a given recording cannot be separated from its production/arrangement/performances and still be "the same."

But a song-as-composed retains its identiy no matter what happens to it in the studio or on stage. While the Beatles' "A Day In the Life" depends on a specific moment/sound for its identity, Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" is simply a set of mechanical instructions.

On the other hand, "A Day In the Life" becomes something new and endlessly mutable when reduced to sheet music, just as every specific recording of the "Ode to Joy" has a specific identity-as-recording/performance from which it cannot be separated.

Again are we not talking about the identity of recordings, though, rather than compositions?

Well, I'm arguing that some compositions are more separable from recordings than others. Some compositions are simply equal to a specific recording; that's the idea of musique concrete. These pieces can be referenced or described with some kind of notation, but ultimately the recording is the piece. Other compositions are more abstract, existing fundamentally as a set of instructions, and a recording or a performance is simply one possible manifestation. So I think there's a spectrum here, and I don't see why both extremes and everything in between can't all exist simultaneously.

What do you mean? How does it inform your listening experience? Probably not at all. I think it should inform one's formation of a critical opinion in some cases, though; like my example about Loveless. I think it's invalid to criticize the songs on Loveless as though the production is some kind of extraneous layer waiting to be peeled away just like it would be invalid to criticize a Phillip Glass piece for not changing quickly enough or to criticize The Mountain Goats for not having enough guitar solos or something.

I'm not trying to diminish the art of recording - I work in a recording studio and I take this stuff seriously. I'm just saying that the role of the recording studio and the engineers and the tools and all of that stuff is different for different pieces of music.

I'm certainly not saying I consider every EQ and what have you when listening to something - and yes, it's impossible to know what all a particular recording entailed in these areas - but I'm saying that those factors are THERE; they are present factors in the sound that is hitting my ears.

I would agree that, probably in most cases with pop music, the composition is fundamental. But I think that rarely means that the recording process is more "incidental," particularly with pop records where a lot of time and money is spent on this process and where a lot of factors related to the electronic equipment being used are significant and where a lot of decision-making takes place.

They're THERE, but if they aren't detectable you can't really evaluate them, can you? I mean, you don't decide whether or not a person is good-looking based on the imperceptible microbes living on the surface of their skin.

Steve, the medium is the message and I call on the good professor here to help me out:

http://www.colostate.edu/Depts/Speech/rccs/theory31c.gif

Of course there's nothing wrong with focusing on the production aspect if that's the discussion taking place, but if you're talking about whether something is a good song, the physical sound plays a role but is less integral to the creation of the music's unique identity than other things. Like I said earlier, you could change the EQ or reverb or compression a lot more than you could change the melody, lyrics, or structure of a song without most listeners noticing the difference.

xpost

you also say that it's these very elements that are the most apparent indicators of a song's relationship with its era, its place in music history, when heard from a later vantage point.

you don't find these positions contradictory?

My point is that we ARE engaging with it as a technological creation regardless - that this is the primary experience in listening to a recording.

And as far as the "studio being used for the most part to capture a live sound" - again, that no piece of equipment is *neutral*.

But some are more neutral than others.

Re. Beethoven scenario: my position is that the experience of engaging with it as a technological artifact is fundamental - as fundamental as engaging with the message within the medium (which is the composition itself).

All microphones and speakers have a certain frequency response which can be plotted on a graph; some of those graphs are flatter than others, meaning they impart less coloration onto the sound.