To use your example, we haven't had distorted guitars on every single popular record released in a decade irrespective of sub-genre. There are tracks where it makes no sense, yet still happens.

As I've inferred in this and other threads, that 'distorted' sound is 'now', and people want it.īut as I sit on the porch in my rocking chair, moaning at those pesky kids it does seem more than that though, because of the loudness wars. You are right knutinh, and at nearly 40 (heck!) I can't comment. I'd rather listen to Peggy Lee myself, but plenty of people apparently like Emeli Sande's voice - why would someone do that to it?! Drag it up and listen to track 2 on Spotify or YouTube or where ever. I gave in and bought no.2 on that list for my wife at Christmas. That's the only time you'd hear this sound 25 years ago.

Well, I do, I've lived through it - but honestly, if you played these CDs to someone 25 years ago, they'd think you were playing them a cassette tape that had been recorded using a deck with manual recording level control, and that the recording level fader had been knocked to maximum by mistake. Maybe some of the elements of the original mix were distorted? I listened to some tracks from Night Visions on Spotify. They believe 'Millions sold = we did a good job.' Remember - there are people who have created records that have sold in their millions with this kind of sound on them. The tricks people used at the start of the loudness wars to hide the fact that the level was too loud (and avoid outright distortion) have sometimes been abandoned - they're now happy with obviously audible clipping and distortion.ĭo we now have a generation of engineers who only know how to create this sound? Again, I fear so. Interestingly, the trend now seems to be for less compression, and more distortion/clipping. Has this sound now been 'the norm' for so long that it's the desired sound on some releases? I fear so. Is this sound the inevitable side effect of the loudness wars? Yes.

Imagine dragon night vision album