Just watched Sound City. Not sure how to feel about it.
While on some level there is a great deal of regret to be felt about the direction that music is currently taking, I somehow don't think that the loss of antique tape machines and Neve consoles is the root of our problem.
Technology is a tool. It can either be used or misused. It's all down to the individual. It shouldn't come as a surprise that widespread industry pressure would push it into misuse for the vast majority of music one might hear in the mainstream.
I don't believe that 'real music' can only be created by a group of players performing live in a room, just as I don't believe that a certain period of music creation should be romanticized as the 'be all'.
What was demonstrated in that video was a group of people attempting to relive an era of music that is a bygone. A footnote in history. Those improvs and jam sessions are tantamount to the embrace of musical regression, however fun or validating they may feel to the individuals involved.
Ironically, the people TRULY pushing the envelope these days are commonly also the ones recording in their bedrooms. The ones investing their time and creativity into creating things which are truly new and unique - using new methodologies to do so.
Sure, there is a fair amount of room for misuse and homogenization, but that's always been the case. It's not like somehow people were more talented back in the 1970s. The industry climate simply required them to refine and perfect their skill sets a lot more sharply than it does players today. That doesn't mean that the potential isn't there, or isn't being unlocked by certain individuals. The only difference is that the wide proliferation of recording devices and independent releases is allowing EVERYBODY to be heard, regardless of whether they should be or not.
The operators referred to the studio as a business multiple times, as its design and intent was to nurture and create top-selling records. A studio is a business like any other. If it is no longer relevant or profitable, it goes the way of the dodo just as countless businesses have before it. Unless an industry can move with the times, it will get left behind.
What people should think about celebrating is the adoption of the desirable qualities of all recording mediums, whether analogue or digital based. The idea that we can combine it all to create something greater than the sum of its parts. The idea to actually INNOVATE rather than romanticize or regress.
In fact for myself, personally, the most validating aspect of the entire movie was the section where Trent Reznor was combining the effects of Guitar Rig with an analogue recording rig to inject some cool, bizarre tones into an otherwise very natural arrangement.
I'm glad that the people involved enjoyed their trip down memory lane, but as for something that's relevant to musicians out there trying to push the boundaries and give the world something new, the relevance was very minimal.
Sadly we can not all afford to have vintage Neve consoles, tape machines, Barefoot monitors and vast racks of gear set up in the basements of our respective mansions. We use what we have at our disposal, in tandem with the opportunities and income that the industry presents us. From my perspective it is highly strange to see those privileged enough to have earned a living from the industry during a period which could be considered its financial 'heyday' lecturing the newer generation, who operate under an entirely different paradigm, with GREATLY reduced opportunity, about what's 'real' and how to truly capture it.
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