Post Random Pearl Jam-Related Thoughts You Have

[stip]

I don't have the problem with Ed's modern vocal style that everyone else seems to have.

[stip]

Brickwalling is one of the worst things for me because it doesn't just sound bad, but it physically hurts to listen to it after a while. To me, listening through a shitty bootleg recording is an entirely different animal.

Just quit being such a wuss about it.

[Wendy Carlos's Twin]

When listening to an album in full, I just set the volume where I like it and go, just like any other album.

That is a complete misunderstanding of the basic fundamentals of the argument at hand. It's like throwing a snowball to prove that global warming isn't real and therefore doesn't matter.

When something is brickwalled, you can't listen to it at any volume without hearing fatigue setting in. And it gets worse as you get older. It hit me really hard about a year or two ago...I can't listen to anything brickwalled now without actual severe frequency loss. And that makes it really hard to "get into" what you listening to.

[Birds in Hell]

Indeed, it's really nothing to do with volume - it's dynamics. And it's not simply the impact on the difference between loud and quiet sections of a piece of music, which is obvious, but what I'd guess you could call the micro-dynamics: drum hits, cymbals and guitars don't decay like they should and the overall effect is really unmusical. I can't get into the music because there's an odd disconnect going on where I'm aware that the drums don't quite sound like drums, etc.

It absolutely stops me listening to things, even music I really enjoy. I'd rather just listen to something else.

[LoathedVermin72]

...Except, you know, it can also totally shock an album (and listener) to life. Like The Woods. Sometimes clipping and boosted levels can make a noisy, aggressive album just that much more chaotic and pleasurable. It's rare, but it does happen. Sometimes discomfort is intended, and satisfying. You "hearing fatigue" people don't listen to a lot of metal, do you?

[Norah]

The Woods would be a much better album if I could actually listen to it.

[LoathedVermin72]

The Woods would be a much better album if I could actually listen to it.

And this is how I know you're just plain incorrect.

[Norah]

The Woods would be a much better album if I could actually listen to it.

And this is how I know you're just plain incorrect.

How does it feel to be wrong all the time?

[Norah]

lv

[Birds in Hell]

We agree on many things El Vee but you're wildly wrong here.

[Norah]

I was being loose with my definition of painful. Everything speeno and bag o' dicks said is spot on.

[LoathedVermin72]

It's ridiculous to write it off entirely as an artistic device simply because you don't like how it sounds and it's usually used extremely poorly and lazily.

[Norah]

Someone can sculpt a pile of elephant dung into a bust of the virgin mary and it would be valid artistic expression. But it still smells like shit and I don't want to stand near it.

[tragabigzanda]

pearl jam sucks now

[LoathedVermin72]

...Except, you know, it can also totally shock an album (and listener) to life. Like The Woods. Sometimes clipping and boosted levels can make a noisy, aggressive album just that much more chaotic and pleasurable. It's rare, but it does happen. Sometimes discomfort is intended, and satisfying. You "hearing fatigue" people don't listen to a lot of metal, do you?

The first song on The Woods definitely benefits from being very loud, but by the third or fourth song it's pretty unlistenable. I can barely make it through Modern Girl and Entertain, which I think is the high point of the album, and have never made it to the end (after my first initial listens when the album cane out), 'coz my ears are dead.

Well, that's a subjective reaction that I have never experienced at all. That album would not be the energetic noise bomb it is without all the clipping.

[chewm]

The Woods would be a much better album if I could actually listen to it.

And this is how I know you're just plain incorrect.

I feel like it's the first time I really agree with what you're saying.
I really like how The Woods sounds, the album wouldn't be as great without the brickwalling.

[LoathedVermin72]

The Woods would be a much better album if I could actually listen to it.

And this is how I know you're just plain incorrect.

I feel like it's the first time I really agree with what you're saying.
I really like how The Woods sounds, the album wouldn't be as great without the brickwalling.

we are finally together in the sun

[Jorge]

Indeed, it's really nothing to do with volume - it's dynamics. And it's not simply the impact on the difference between loud and quiet sections of a piece of music, which is obvious, but what I'd guess you could call the micro-dynamics: drum hits, cymbals and guitars don't decay like they should and the overall effect is really unmusical. I can't get into the music because there's an odd disconnect going on where I'm aware that the drums don't quite sound like drums, etc.

It absolutely stops me listening to things, even music I really enjoy. I'd rather just listen to something else.

I'm not quite there with you. An album with bad mastering is just a strike against it, but not a dealbreaker. I can think of some examples where brickwalling to the point of distortion is the point and can work aesthetically-- I dunno, the first one that comes to mind is Jay Reatard's Blood Visions, or the Flaming Lips' Embryonic-- and others where it's just the result of incompetent engineering, like Iggy Pop's mix of The Stooges' Raw Power. I can't understand how a human being with functioning ears could think that version of the album sounds good. Or, to bring it back to Pearl Jam, something like the intro to "Worldwide Suicide" which sounds like literal aural garbage.

The extent to which loud mastering is detrimental to enjoyment of the music is subjective, but also varies from album to album. I generally stay away from super brickwalled stuff because I don't like how it makes the frequencies all flattened out and tinny, but it's not the main thing that will cause me to turn an album off. Bad songs will.

[tragabigzanda]

pearl jam sucks now

[Jorge]

RHCP's By the Way is brickwalled, and I wouldn't change a thing about it.

I would change everything about it. I would throw it out the window.