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.

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.

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.

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.

To blot out thoughts of mortality.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=-fZX_3J_Ykk

so good for me, I'd have babies with it if I could.

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.

Oh, and Boston is like the most awesome thing ever!