The Living Rockumentary

I'm listening to the beegees mix I made for Rick Housecat DeVille and thinking maybe some of us have just learned to love "bad" sound, or what the engineers think is bad. I dunno. Like, Exile on Main Street is the muddiest mishmash of drums, guitars, horns and vocals but it's kinda glorious. One of my favorite records ever is The Bobby Fuller Four's "Never To Be Forgotten" because the reverb is over-the-top, the drums are mixed too loud and everything is hot and distorted and wet at the same time. Overplayed surf records on vinyl (to the point where they get slightly distorted) must be the best-sounding thing in the world to ears like mine. Throw in an audience of girls screaming a la the Beach Boys' 1964 concert LP- audio bliss?

What is a particle board? I really don't know.

The "future" of buying music article has my head reeling, but towards different considerations, such as the death of the album as we know it that i talked about yesterday. Here's another thing- the average music listener will not be exposed to diversity like as in decades past. Think about it. In the past, radio and MTV, even though they concentrated on Top 40, that meant a wider palette of styles (and artists) than radio plays now. As youngsters we were forced to listen to Teddy Pendergrass' latest hit alongside the newest by The Fixx next to The Georgia Satellites next to UB40 next to Kenny Rogers. But now if listeners can zero in on exactly what they want and already know and savvy marketers attack them with recordings that are in the same genre, then people just won't hear much beyond what they already know. Bad for diversity, bad for new artists that don't closely resemble a popular artist of the day. And the less diversity one is exposed to, the less appreciation a listener would have for other things outside their known world. Having so many choices, people can only be expected to whittle things down to a manageable pool to choose from. Less superstars and big money-makers (and those that are will be even more uninteresting and devoid of character than the Celines and Garth Brookses we already have, if you can imagine that). Artists that jump around different styles and genres (like us) will have an even harder time finding an audience. I'm lamenting and complaining here, I guess, but this is the trend I think this new revolution will lead us towards.