Business Can You Like Sound, But Not Music?
posted by on January 8 at 0:10 AM
Clive Thompson, whose Collision Detection blog is a must-feed for mostly non-musical reasons, read the recent Rolling Stone article on the declining sound quality of modern music, which stated that “the age of the audiophile is over,” and said:
Thank god.
To elaborate:
Speaking as someone who loves music, who has actually played and recorded pop music for 20 years, and who still plays six different instruments, I think music is crucial to the human spirit.But audiophiles? Audiophiles are jackasses. You know who I’m talking about: The guys — and they’re almost always guys — who own $54,000 stereo systems and have their entire apartments dominated by thousands of vinyl albums of rare imports that are boring beyond description but which they force you to listen to, when you make the ghastly mistake of actually visiting their sonic sanctuaries.
There’s a lot more in the post that’s worth reading, mainly to do with the notion that if it takes a fuckton or two of high-end gear to appreciate the music, maybe the music ain’t that good.
He’s probably right about that, and I suppose we could argue for days about it. But here’s something different: I wonder whether he’s being fair to the extreme audiophiles by assuming that in addition to being really into speakers, they’re also into music. Perhaps audiophilia and musicophilia are two different things that are sometimes, but not always, present in the same brain.
So there’s music and then there’s sound. A lot of people like both, but maybe some who like sound don’t much care for music — they might be happy just listening to test tones or Boston* records or whatever, as long as it sounds great on their system.
I’m probably 5dB short of being an audiophile. Before I bought my first record, I was really into listening to the vacuum cleaner. Today, I can sometimes get into hearing awesomely produced music on a high-end system that costs more than my house, but I think the part of my brain that gets off on such things is separate from the part that actually likes music. In the same way that I enjoy making sushi for entirely different reasons than I enjoy eating it.
What we need to do, for the second time this week, is ask science. Dear Science, sorry to bug you again, but could you please direct us to any studies that involve doing fMRI scans of high-end stereo geeks to see whether the parts of their brains that light up when they hear music are the same as those of the average fan? Is there music that activates our lizard-brain bits for fucking, fighting and food, and sound that taps into some higher-level ability to identify prey at a distance? Do hard-core audiophiles have unusually large gazelle-locating cortices? I need to know.
* I kind of like Boston, actually.
Dude, Boston sounds good coming out of a tin can!
Can you enjoy food that looks good but doesn't taste so inspiring? Can you be put off of food that looks not so great but tastes amazing?
Me thinks the answer is yes on both accounts. Why else do we garnish shit brown stews and braises? Some fresh green color really helps the eyes overcome a reluctance to put that sort of thing in our mouths.
Music is no different. It can be good at the level of composition but not sound so great at the level of timbre. Or it can sound great at the level of timbre, but not work so well at the compositional level.
As in cooking, these two things are kind of intertwined. A good recipe probably doesn't just consider the blending of the flavors. It also pays attention to how the dish will look when it's finished.
The same goes for music. A good composer/arranger appreciates how timbre (sound as sound) interrelates with melodic and harmonic development (sound organized as something we have come, as a culture, to call music).
Music/Sound is a drug. Different people experience the same drug differently. That's probably why there are a lot of different kinds of drugs, and lots of lore surrounding just about every single one of them (i.e., what's the best way to make it? what's the best way to take it?)
I enjoy the sugary melody of power pop? While I can certainly consume and enjoy really loud dark hard rock, it doesn't generally do as much for me, because it seems to be more about getting enveloped in a sound, rather than taking the listener on a linear, melodic journey. And that's not really a place I enjoy as much.
That's why I like "Superunknown" and "Nevermind" better than earlier Soundgarden and Nirvana. These discs have more of those attributes. It's like someone balanced out a really assertive almost butter spiciness with some acidic and sweet elements.
I like how nonchalantly you talk about making sushi for entirely different reasons than you enjoy eating it. Most of us know what it means to eat sushi. The question is, what will it take to get you out here to Brooklyn to make it?
HOW IS THIS ESOTERICISM PROMOTING DANCE CLUBS IN SEATTLE?!
YOUR SALARY IS BASED ON THE ADVERTISING!!
NOW BACK TO WORK AND GET ME MORE GOSSIP!!
So am I to believe that audiophiles are the ones ruining music for the rest of us?
although i agree with most of the linked blog post, it falls apart due to the notion that all music listeners listen for one thing - like there is one unified goal for music listening. i'm sure most of the pop listeners of the world don't give a shit about nuance or over-compression. i would say that most people listen to the lyrics to speak to their own emotion, though personally lyrics don't mean much (if anything) to me. i would venture to say that i'm not the only one. in my opinion, no one would listen to noise music if there weren't interest in sound over the quality of music in a pop sense - i mean who the fuck would really listen to merzbow if pop music is the goal?
saying audiophiles are stupid for paying a lot of money to listen to music is like saying car enthusiasts are stupid for paying a lot of money to get from point a to point b. sometimes there is more than the travel alone.
audiophiles are a fucking joke though. car enthusiasts too.
the best audio experience I EVER had was a stack of beat to shit Wailers 45s being played, wide open, on a '50s TUBE hi-fi...ONE 15" speaker with a mono, ceramic cart! The reproduction was as if the band was playing LIVE. You don't need a "room" or $54K...just new tubes.
Not that it really matters at this point, but that should read "bitter spiciness" in @2 above.
Nipper Rules!
I seem to read this same article every couple of years -- "The goddamned COMPRESSION! It's killing everything!" (Doulgas Wolk's a few years ago was the most astute piece, actually, but then it was one of the first.) So the RS article was simply boring to me.
I think a lot of this has to do with memory, individual and collective. (1.) I hated the sound of CDs in the early 90s probably as much due to their digital mastering (which had been around a long time before CDs anyways -- starting with Ry Cooder's-of-all-people "Bop Till You Drop") as to the fact that most of the original music I heard then sucked and just got worse; (2.) I now listen to pre-digital mastering Steely Dan on vinyl (to the sheer horror of my post-riot grrrl punk rock wife) because of the depth and texture of the SOUND, yes, but also because of Bernard Purdie -- AND because it reminds me of making out with Jamie Cooney in a sleeping bag in her backyard in 1978.
Thanks for broadening my horizons with this. I'm off to compose an olfactory symphony. See you in hell.
I just picked up/stole Oliver Sacks' newish book Musicophilia off Megan's desk (you'll get it back, Megan), and, even though I'm only a few chapters into it, I would wager that, yes, you can like sound but not music.
Come off it Grandy you know thats not true. You can be both. I'm sure that precious dance music you like so much can be seen as a combination of both sound and music. Musicophilia by Oliver Stack sounds pretentious as fuck. I will now have to check it out from the library and get back to you.
xoxo
I'll second Grandy's recommendation of Sacks' book Musicophilia. I think he covers some of the rare people who can hear and enjoy sound, but simply don't get music.
So yeah, a lot of what makes songs catchy--rhythm, repetition and certain frequency patterns, to be overly reductionist--is different from what makes sounds interesting.
Hearing is my favorite of the five senses. The cochlea? The best sensory organ ever--vastly more elegant than the eye, more comprehensive than smell, taste or touch.
The big problem? As we age, the delicate hair cells in the cochlea, that detect sound, are slowly killed off. (A reason to envy a chicken: hearing in birds can regenerate. People and other mammals? Not so much.) So, we steadily destroy our best sense simply by using it.
Here's my question back to you, the greater music community: why the fuck is live music so loud? I'm left with the choice of destroying my hearing or putting in earplugs and messing up the balance.
To me, one of the best things about classical music--in a great concert hall like Detroit's, Boston's or New York's--is the ability to enjoy subtle beautiful sounds, like a woodwind solo, in the context of engaging music.
Um, read #11 again, Biggie. Nowhere do I say you must like one or the other, only that I think it's possible to like one but not the other. Dig?
Here's my question back to you, the greater music community: why the fuck is live music so loud?
To blot out thoughts of mortality.
Re-reading my response, I sound like a crank. ;p I wrote it after a long aggravating day at work. Now after a few beers at dinner, I'm prepared to admit the following: I spent the better part of the day blasting away my hearing with this song.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=-fZX_3J_Ykk
so good for me, I'd have babies with it if I could.
Grandy. How about I read the book first and I will get back to you about what I think about it. Not trying hit you with any hate but I still think you can like/ appreciate both at the same time.
god, i never comment on people's blogs but this is SO poorly thought out. i read the post and it's ridiculous. clive sounds like at least as much of a prissy d-bag as those crazy "audiophiles".
does it really seem weird to like a pop song and also want to listen to it carefully? just because you still like it on your radio shack earbuds means that it's stupid to want anything else? i bet a REALLY great pop song would still be great if you're getting attacked by a bear, so if you aren't being mauled while you listen, you're a total snot.
why be a dick about wanting to listen carefully? who the f is this dude to tell me "pop music is supposed to be a disposable, gritty little lo-fi affair"? does that sound corny to anybody else?
i've known a good handful of snooty sound guys, and that can be lame, but the only people who ever tell me what music is "supposed to be" are the ones who say rock and roll only happens on 4-tracks.
Awesome post! I think you're totally right. It's analogous to guitar-collecting freaks who do not actually *record* or *perform* with their gear, but merely enjoy having 50 different guitars around so they can occasionally play a chord or two and re-experience the timbre that makes each unique.
Oh, and Boston is like the most awesome thing ever!
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