Sunday, August 25, 2013

Dismantling the wall of sound

    I have a CD. It's by Loudon Wainwright III's sister Sloan. She has a wondrous contralto voice (or anyway, a voice lower than mine). She has fine songs. She has been listening to very bad advice, in that the record is just grotesquely over-produced. I bought it on the strength of hearing a couple of songs on NPR, but as I recall that was a live performance, just her and a guitar.
    In 2013, there's no reason in particular we should have to put up with this. We ought to be able to download the raw tracks and mix them as we prefer. Or at least be able to specify a "produced for '80s MTV" version or a stripped version (which could also be called "produced for '90s MTV Unplugged"). If all this is already available, that would be really great. (I don't keep up all that well these days.)
    Anyway, Sloan, call me. My advice is at least as good as whoever you've been listening to up to now!

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