Is Bruce deaf? (was Re: Evaluating Magic at the 3-month point)

This is not a troll. I just spotted Magic at the bottom of the stack
yesterday morning and thought "why haven't I listened to this more?"
I put it in the car and listened to it straight through twice and came
here to post my thoughts only to find that Essmaze had already done it
for me a couple of weeks ago:

On Jan 3, 10:03 pm, Essmaze <essm...@xxxxxxx> wrote:
( . . .)

So three months after the release ofMagic, this is my take. Probably
Bruce's best collection of songs in 20 years.
(. . . )
But there's a huge obstacle in the way of my enjoyment of this album.
On a bunch of tracks, especially in the first half, the sound just
sucks. Harsh, tinny, jangly -- none of those adjectives is exactly
right. Maybe there's a recording engineer in the group who can supply
the correct jargon. But the mix just offends my ears.

Agreed, and agreed. In my case, I just find the sound *so* bad (yes,
I think "offensive" is the right word) that I just can't listen
"through" it to get to the songs (and I listened for years to 4th-
generation bootleg tapes to get to those songs, so my tolerance is
pretty high). And if the songs weren't so good, the frustration at
not being able to get to them would not be so great.

I can almost not find the words to express my dislike of the sound on
this disc. There are absolutely *no* dynamics. For a top-tier artist
to make a record in 2007 that sounds like crap compared to most things
produced in 1967 is baffling. To have a singer with as distinctive a
voice as Springsteen and then process his vocals into syrup is dumb.
To have a drummer like Max and then mix a record such that his snare
has no impact or snap whatsoever is just unforgivable.

Magic is the worst example yet of the damage being done to music by
the "Loudness war" and iPod-ready production (see
http://createdigitalmusic.com/2007/05/16/loudness-war-music-over-compression-demonstrated-on-youtube/
or http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/17777619/the_death_of_high_fidelity
as starting points for discussion).

It just shocks me that it comes from Bruce, who has historically been
a stickler for quality in his releases (if not always a great ear for
sonics). It seems that he has been happy recently to just hand over
the tapes to somebody and let them go to town. O'Brien seems to
fundamentally misunderstand so many things it boggles my mind that
there hasn't been a huge outcry over this. The Spector wall of sound
was all *about* dynamics -- put a couple dozen instruments in a room
without any compression or limiting and you'll get something cool on
tape (think about the opening drum lick from "Be My Baby"). Mix a
couple dozen tracks together digitally, compress, process, and limit
the hell out of them, and you'll get the kind of ear-splitting muddy
mess that is Magic.

I can blame O'Brien directly (and the general trend toward crap
production), but how can Bruce not have heard this when the mix was
being delivered?

Thinking about this I pulled out a bunch of old Springsteen records
and recognized that the other problem is the *arrangements* (another
thing that Spector recognized as key). From the very first discs
Bruce's band arrangments, both on record and live, have had a rather
steady and depressing trajectory from nifty, recognizable parts to the
current turgid things where eight instruments are playing the same
chord at the same time.

I really suspect that years of stage and studio work have taken a toll
on Springsteen's hearing, as it has so many of his contemporaries.
This would explain both the choice of a hack producer in the first
place, the acceptance of the crap sound, and even the lack of
attention to arrangements in recent years.

As it is, I'm looking forward to the inevitable DVD/live disc of the
tour; at least we can hope that a different set of ears will be beind
the dials for those versions of these songs.

JGM
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Awful sound on Magic - is Springsteen getting deaf?
    ... I'm finding that the songs are strong enough to overcome the production. ... I just don't get the point of recording with a ... going to muddy the sound and make each instrument so indistinct. ...
    (rec.music.artists.springsteen)
  • Re: Is Bruce deaf? (was Re: Evaluating Magic at the 3-month point)
    ... Bruce's best collection of songs in 20 years. ... I can almost not find the words to express my dislike of the sound on ... attention to arrangements in recent years. ... And then, one day, I played it in the car, and it sounded so bad, I had to take it off. ...
    (rec.music.artists.springsteen)
  • Re: Two songs, two productions
    ... be interesting for me to hear your comments on the level of the sound of the songs. ... It may be an a priori judgement; "it is synths, ... The production can't but benefit of such a participation. ...
    (rec.music.makers.songwriting)
  • Re: Bad WOAD-review from Norway today!
    ... I think WOAD album is one of Springsteen's 3 most musically realized ... sound that much of Magic exhibited. ... there's really no rival for the production on TWIESS ... It IS nice to hear arrangements ...
    (rec.music.artists.springsteen)
  • Re: My Thoughts on "Working on a Dream"
    ... and hopefully the production won't ever sound ... organ/hurdy gurdy sound that I didn't like on Magic, ... He's certainly written some songs that lack substance- "Crush on You" ...
    (rec.music.artists.springsteen)