NPR piece on compression and the trending of loudness in modern music.  Anchor Robert Siegel interviews legendary mastering genius Bob Ludwig, who has 40 years of experience in sound engineering. He references the following YouTube clip entitled “The Loudness War” as an example of the decline in dynamic range.

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A handful of the behind-the-scenes pillars of the Blur legacy reminisce about the band’s origins, coming of age, and imminent future. By comparison, the American perspective on Blur is wildly different from pretty much any other country in the world. Even though we know Blur were the titans of the Britpop movement in England, it [...]

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Great article in the Ireland’s Independent from Johnny Marr on Outsiders in the Music Industry.

It always came from the outside, from outsiders created in the real world. These people, out of necessity, rejection, frustration and talent, and with vision, built their own ark and sailed it alongside and ahead of the music industry. In doing [...]

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The Voice has an interview with Mr. Merritt on the cusp of his Fall tour. I’ll be catching him in DC.
“Ordinarily we completely ignore the sound of the record when we develop the live show, but in this case I have made one tiny concession, which is that instead of playing the ukulele, quietly, [...]

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Andrew Bird’s blog over at the New York Times discusses the recording process and all of the myriad decisions made that eventually “make a song.”
We discuss a lot of things to help us get the songs just right — like not hitting cymbals because the crashes can be “cheap thrills.” Instead we favored the dark, [...]

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