The Sorry State of Music
By: Keith
What is it with Parenting magazine that their columnists have to be such a bunch of spoil sports? I seem to read something in that magazine once every week that completely rubs me the wrong way. The most recent of these opinions is that kid’s music, like Raffi, is unacceptable listening material. The assertion is that there is no reason kids can’t be introduced early to more sophisticated music and that parents should not be subjected to such simplistic slop. This is where I blow a fuze. I’m going to bet whoever wrote the article owns an iPod and considers the noise it produces music. The article didn’t say specifically what music was acceptable, but it sounded like it was directed at the trendy parenting set who listen to the kind of music they like to tell their friends about. I have two things to say. First, there is no such thing as acceptable mp3 music, and second, there is almost no such thing as acceptable music produced in the last 10 years anyway. I’d rather listen to Raffi before Coldplay any day.
Music Editing
I’m not an expert on the death of High Fidelity, but I know it’s happened. Music storage devices like iPods carry thousands of compressed songs that people listen to through itty bitty speakers. That means sound technicians are forced to make the music loud to make it audible. Unfortunately, by doing that, they remove all the lows and highs in the music thereby sucking the life right out of it. I looked it up; it’s called dynamic range compression, and it’s the reason music sucks. All those remastered CD’s I own? I thought they were better versions, more clear, than the originals. As it turns out they are these muddied up versions of songs I used to like. Now I can’t even listen to them anymore. Bummer! I thought it needed stating that I’m not necessarily against modern music; I’m against this sort of modern music – the stuff edited for compressed formats. The nice thing about Raffi is that all of his music is so simple that what you hear is what you get. You could hear it live or on a car radio and it’s about the same. There is no string section the get drowned out by the percussion. It’s Raffi singing like an idiot, and that’s cool.
Snobs
I am a snob about a few things. I’m a little snobby about music. But it’s a good snobbery because it has nothing to do with genre or perceived intellectuality. I just know what sounds good, and I know what sounds like crap. I appreciate unpretentious music, and although I’m not going to say Raffi is quality music, I will say that it’s no worse than what people listen to through their iPods. I appreciate music that just wants to entertain me rather than impress me. Raffi doesn’t sit around trying to be something he isn’t. He knows he sings simple songs that are crack to children’s ears. When my kids used to listen to their kid music they would sit there, perhaps bounce around, giggle and really enjoy it. They didn’t care that some stupid passerby might think they were childish or that they should be listening to Mozart like his/her own overly preened child. Kids have simple tastes, and that’s fine as long as we all know what the score is. Who are we to say what they can like when most of us listen to worse garbage – worse because it pretends to be quality when it’s really no better than Raffi. I certainly can’t listen to Raffi and the Wiggles all day long, but I’m not going to be embarrassed to listen to it with my kid. I find opinions like the one I read in Parenting Magazine annoying. They are written by people who pretend to teach the essence of quality when they themselves wouldn’t know it if it fell out of a tree and smashed their iPod to bits.
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I haven’t truly enjoyed music on the same level since the LP went away. The scratches and skips were music to my ears. Kid songs are fun, sweet and goofy and we are in trouble when we cease to be any of these.
I totally regret getting rid of our record player. I thought buying cd’s would be an improvement. Oh, how wrong I was — they just took all the life out of the music. I haven’t seen a live band in years. There’s nothing that beats that. Wanted to see clapton a few years ago but it was 400 bucks and I was broke — sorta like now!
Quality music is not measured by the fidelity, but by the soulfulness! You could eat shit with sterling silver spoons on bone china plates– doesn’t mean the”food” is any good!
.-= Dennis Yu´s last blog ..Friends don’t let friends make paper airplanes =-.
Doesn’t matter how soulful the music is if you can’t hear it. That’s the point.
The “loudness” war is one reason I hate the music industry in general and there really aren’t many bands that don’t up the eq anymore Elbow is one that still uses natural eq which is very evident in the song “Starlings”. But while as not everyone wants to waste space for FLAC you can tell a huge huge difference in the fidelity and I prefer OGG, WAV, or FLAC over Mp3 any day I’ve read articles before about the negative psychological effects of lossy audio formats and how your brain has to reassemble a lot of the missing information which make the music less enjoyable because your not able to relax when listening to it.
.-= Josh Hamby´s last blog ..Download Three Albums Free! =-.
Thanks for the comment, Josh. Shows you how much I know about these other formats that I didn’t even know about them
I’ve been so anti-iPod that I haven’t even investigated. It’s been so disgusting to me what the music industry has been doing with music and what kids have been passing off as quality music (teenagers mostly) that I just don’t pay attention anymore.
I introduce my kids to a wide variety of music. I expose them to many genres and let them decide what they like. I also allow them to watch shows like Imagination Movers, Hip-Hop Harry, and Yo Gabba Gabba because they use music to teach lessons. Music has always been very important to me and I want to share that love with my children.
.-= Mocha Dad´s last blog ..Small Talk =-.
Hey, Mocha Dad. I think you’re spot on in introducing your kids to a wide variety of musical flavors. It always a good idea to pass the things on to our kids that we find valuable. Music is just as a legitimate love as literature or art. Thanks for the comment!