bongo drums and acoustic guitars . . . or more?

Quite a topical question, I think. I guess we're all sitting around for the next punk to happen, and it has to come from something that everyone can do. Most of the big recent albums have been vastly expensive, using a lot of equipment to paint big, abstract soundscapes with little relation to what's really happening (or what's happening to me anyway). I am, of course, thinking of Kid A and Amnesiac, but it goes for Reveal, Parachutes, Travis, Dido, Stereophonics...

Even a lot of the songs in the singles chart are overproduced and lack the clarity of most classic pop. This seems especially true of American R&B and pop, which is full of twists and turns and strange little noises but really never seems to go anywhere.

I don't know about rolled up magazines, but it can't be long before someone finds a way to talk about what's going on without it costing the earth.

What makes you think a "next punk" will happen? Or that we're waiting for it? I'm to busy having fun listening to music.

Agreed re. priciness of current big-hit albums - some good some not, though only the technicians know how much a very 'produced' sounding record like say Air's new one actually costs. Disagreed re. the R&B thing - jittery multi-stimulus faster/more disconnected production seems *totally* appropriate to 'what is happening' at least as I'm experiencing it. Classic pop is only simple and direct in a simple and direct era, perhaps? (Not that any era is)

The same fragmentation that leads to R&B and current hip-hop sounding so relevant and current also stops there being a "new punk" (in the unifying force / watershed sense), though of course punk is in your head - there are mini-punks happening every day.

And of course "punk" doesnt have to come from the musicians - filesharing = consumerpunk.

Tom is briskly on the money, as so often, in challenging the idea that 'we're all waiting for the next punk to happen'. If it means people who are bad at writing songs writing loads of bad songs, then I'm not sure I want it to happen at all.

Naturally and politely I disagree with Tom about the 'relevance' of hip-hop. It sounds 'relevant' to him; it doesn't sound 'relevant' to me.

That Air album probably cost a fraction of what it costs to make a Britney single (although I'm not a technical insider by any means). I read somewhere they finished too early and then decided to fart away a couple of months of extra studio time at the expense of zee record company.

Waiting for the next punk? Not really.

Tom, you're possibly right about 'the next punk' - maybe I'm believing too much in what I read, and I do agree with you about filesharing and so on. I would still disagree about singles though. I have a bigger and bigger problem with the increasing mechinisation of music; not content with making the beats sound like a broken factory, now vocals all have to be processed to sound like robots. Maybe I'm not moving with the times, I don't know, but I like to hear people on records. Maybe it's an urban thing, though; I've lived in or around the country for most of my life so visiting London freaks me out as well.

and speaking of the new air album: the new punk?

The new prog rock, perhaps, as I had pointed out to me this past weekend.

the new frog rock, maybe, but not the new prog despite the cover of the album and the bombast of their live shows.

New Album of the Year maybe, although frog rock will also do nicely. :)

Me, Ian and Stephanie watched the most POINTLESS thing on M2 about Air during Memorial Day weekend, some point after our club meet when HORRIBLY EMO-RIFFIC. It came on, "Amp Special Edition: Air", and I was all, yes! Assuming, of course, it'd be Air videos, and I'd get to see Sexy Boy. But no! That would be, you know, what the audience wants! We can't have that! Instead, it was this artsy black and white thing with subtitles that were so low on the screen to get cut off by the end of the tv, half of it in French, with random Americans intercut into answering bizarre questions in contradictory fashion. I felt like I was watching the worst Godard movie ever made. We watched it for like an hour until Stephanie was all like, "You fucking crackheads watch the worst tv shows I've ever seen", and coming from a girl who watches nothing but E! True Hollywood story, this was worrying, so it was switched off in favor of something else. Probably something awful, like that Undressed show I was forced to watch.

Having heard _10,000 Hz Legend_ last night, I think they're pulling off having their cake and eating it too. You can't accuse that album of possessing po-faced seriousness.

As for wanting to hear people, I've heard enough people (and I'll hear more, sure). A few robots keeps things lively, there should be more of it.

John: I can only give myself as an example that your explanation does not always apply. I am very much a ruralist (indeed, some people find my self-definition as such irritating) and I love and cherish the "mechanisation" you have a problem with.

I don't think it's an "urban" thing. The Pinefox lives in London :).

I have a bigger and bigger problem with the increasing mechinisation of music; not content with making the beats sound like a broken factory, now vocals all have to be processed to sound like robots. Maybe I'm not moving with the times, I don't know, but I like to hear people on records. (John Davey)

I think most people would probably accept that, in pop, it takes approximately five to ten years for something that sounded 'state-of- the-art' to begin to appear laughable. I'm referring not to songs but to production styles so an example would be the heavy gated-reverbed snare and 'matching' clicky kick drum (on *everything* c1985).

Some time around the mid 90's people started feeling it was good to process their music more....filters on everything, distorted samples, distorted voices, re-recording samples through an amp then distorting the result..then filtering it again. I suppose the impulse was partly driven by a dissatisfaction with off-the-peg electronic sounds, and also (within the indie field) a wish to re-explore some of the ground covered by people like the Beach Boys and others in the late 60's/early 70's. I don't have a problem with it - in fact I use these techniques myself - but it's very likely that, in years to come, a lot of music around now may appear very over-processed. But what may replace it is not a return to simplicity but new, subtler forms of processing.

re. priciness of current big-hit albums - some good some not, though only the technicians know how much a very 'produced' sounding record like say Air's new one actually costs. (Tom)

What makes a record expensive is not how 'produced' it sounds but how expensive the studio was to hire and the amount of time used. If an artist uses their own studio these costs can be remarkably low.

Ah well, all alone again...

I LOVE DEF LEPPARD - more overproduced than techno. more expensive equipment used on Sir Cliffs chrimbo rekkids than on most TECHNO.

THE 80S - not overproduced in MY view - though i like acoustic guitar and bongos i like 'brass stab 2' equally.

Tom is right about filesharing, fragmentation.

you can't google my favourite bands.

New Freaky Trigger motto alert: The Man can't google our music

actually thinking about it - overproduction only occurs when a song fails to work its magic on you due to overworked/drained/useless showoff bits etc - are there more songs that seem UNDERproduced once you've listened to Timbaland etc