Is lo-fi a synonym for being half-assed?

no. lo-fi is the way the recording sounds, not the effort put forth by a singer to sound conventional.

my favortie band is definitely lo-fi and features nothing but whining. maybe it's you.

my favortie band is definitely lo-fi and features nothing but whining.

I didn't know your favorite band was Air Supply as recorded in a garage.

Hey I like Lo-fi too, but man some of the singing can be quite annoying.

Micheline I am right there with you.

Being annoyed by Jad Fair is perfectly sensible.

The problem isn't the music surely but the style of singing which has evolved by example to 'fit' the music. I hate it too, mostly. What's your favourite band Jess?

take-uh wild guess-uh.

seriously though, i think i'm much more tolerant of "funny voices" than most people: cf. helium-pitched breakbeat hardcore samples, screaming hardcore (of the punk variety), those muppets outta mercury rev and galaxie 500.

Lo-fi singing isn't so much whining as whimpering. Whining can be simply nasal, but still full-on singing like the guys in Built to Spill or Flaming Lips. Whimpering is a half-mumbling, pity-seeking near-sob like the guy in the Microphones or the girl in the Moldy Peaches. Ira from YLT is sort of a godfather of whimper, although he doesn't annoy me like the new kids.

Be careful, first you'll become intolerant of whiny singers: the next thing you know you'll be buying old Cheo Feliciano albums or investigating Iraqi classical singers. It happened to me (though cause and effect may be a little reversed).

I loved Clinic until I realized that's where I'd end up if I had to listen to their singer's voice for one more second. Just open yr throat up and... SING, it won't kill ya!

are you equating lo-fi to "bad singing"?

yeah, i think sometimes "lo-fi" can be used as an excuse to be half- assed (umm...members of sonic youth recording side projects in their bathrooms), but there are certainly others who give a shit, but either don't have the means for high quality recording or record a "lo-fi" record as an aesthetic choice.

it only gets on my nerves when a) the sound quality is poor enough to be distracting, or b) a band uses tons of expensive equipment just to sound like they don't (like wearing lots of makeup in order to look like you dont...)

but regardless, i think it's a stretch to call either of the last YLT albums "lo-fi" . and then the nothing sounds so careful & delicately recorded-- it had to be for susie ibarra's percussion to stand out & work that well on the record

either of the last two YLT records that is

Mick Collins has a nice little bit about this in thi s interview:

"Y'know, I hate to sound disingenuous, but while we were together, we never, not for a minute, thought anyone was paying attention to the singing. I mean, it was important to US, because we were an R&B band, and if you're going to be in an R&B band, then singing had damned well better BE important (I remember Dan studying Bobby "Blue" Bland records in particular, trying to incorporate Bland's inflections into his own singing), but we honestly didn't think anybody noticed over the crashing din we were making. When people would come up to us after a show and tell us how much they liked it, we thought they were humouring us. Or teasing us. The singing is hard to talk about, because we never really thought about it. It was just natural to us to want to sing as well as the people we were covering; it never occurred to us that we were breaking some kind of unwritten rule about being in a punk band and actually singing..."

The worst singing i have ever heard has got to be Bogdan Raczynski on Myloveilove. The guy is literally tone deaf. Having said that, the singing suits the atmosphere of the record. If you could imagine Aphex Twin as an Eastern European busker, then you are not far off what this album sounds like. It's a fantastic record also, I can honestly say that it would have been crap without the dodgy singing, which was presumably the point.

mick collins is a fucking ACE singer! not that any of you are denying that. just wanted to x'press myself :)

lo-fi does not mean half-assed. i record with a four track and i put a lot of effort into it. as for singing that isn't precise and exactly tuneful, i appreciate that kind of stuff to a huge extent because i got singing training. singing training sucked the life out of my voice. for so long i sounded like a sarah brightman clone the moment i opened my mouth. its been a lot of work, getting my voice to sound more raw and less factory-line, so i totally love people who can whine well. shouting is also good. this isn't to say i don't like people who have more refined voices - depends on the context though.

The first Olivia Tremor Control album I would describe as very lo-fi but in no way is it half-assed. Although a lot of 4-track stuff is pretty shoddy.

I'll go out on a limb here and say most "lo-fi" records are shit. Not half-assed, I'm sure many put a lot of effort into it. I like the DIY ethic and all, but many "lo-fi" indie rockers' aesthetic approach is usually contrived and dubious at best. Many are generic copycats, poor lyricists, shoddy players, and hopelessly bad in the studio. You don't need an expensive studio to make a great record, but you need some knowledge. It's all about personal taste, but that genre as a whole, is just boring to me.

Not having perfect recording quality allows for the element of chance to be incorporated. There may be a scratch here, or a hiss there. I like that!

If Charley Patton and Robert Johnson are considered lo-fi, I take back everything I said.

i like the concept of lo-fidelity in recording as an aleatory strategy. also nicely anti gear snob pro energy / passion & up the proletariat

Is lo-fi a synonym for being half-assed?
Uh, YES
Somebody tell Stephen Malkmus that modern studio sound technology has indeed surpassed the "Two Paper Dixie Cups tied together with a piece of Limp Yarn" in sophistication.

The Bellrays record their stuff on a four-track, for around 20 bucks an album (or something... bear with me, I'm just trying to give an impression), completely live in the studio...

I doubt if anyone hearing their music would term it "lo-fi" (indeed, it sounds closer to Big Brother's Holding Company than anything else) yet that is precisely what it is. The Bellrays almost certainly record for cheaper - and on "lower fidelity" equipment - than ANYONE I can think of, yet they are totally structured in what they do.

And man, can that woman sing!

So yes. You're probably right. Lo-fi, like indie, has been appropriated to describe a certain musical style... not a sound, or way of recording, or set of beliefs at all.

Shame, because originally it was a sweet way to describe a raw quality in music difficult to find outside live shows. Most lo-fi nowadays is deliberately that way, usually recorded on expensive equipment (with, yes, someone who can't sing on vocals) and is... of course... awful.

Bryan, Although Patton's first label Paramount was notorious for its shoddy PRESSINGS, it could probably be argued that for the time, the minimal recording techniques were as close to state of the art as Paramount could afford. Vocalion (his second label) had access to better equipment, masters and pressing plants. It was the repeated playing of these records, hundreds and hundreds of times by their purchasers which wore these records out. BK

If I wanted lo-fi I wouldn't have bought a hi-fi.

wasn't tusk/mac actually partially recorded semi-lo-fi by buckingham in his bathroom while the band didn't do party music as much as just party ? the first lo-fi non-qua-demo as such ?

tusk/dead -- ok they sorta pioneered some aspects of recording process lo-fi (better on other stuff of theirs), but the vocals suffered -- whiney, yes -- if it's lo-fi & vocals then the band are really demanding that you set the volume for the vocals and suffer hi- fi-lo-fi that could have been better shimmering on the sunset -> ear- ache and oh, throw-away vocals anyway := whinging depression music

erm there's a ronnie laine "lo-fi" record which certainly precedes tusk... and wasn't pete townshend's first solo a record that was who demos with just him singing and playing?

Actually I think the real answer = McCartney!!

real answer #2: THESE GUYS ARE GOBLINS!