Do you think it's better for music to sound in some way like it comes from its own era?

This question has popped into my mind recently. I love analog gear and use it a lot - reel to reel tape, spring reverb, analog synth. But sometimes I wonder if I am going too far in what you might call a retro direction. By way of contrast, I think a lot of Autechre's music to me sounds very digital. True, some of their sound sources are analog but the overall effect is of something that is meticulously sculpted with digital technology. And they make that digital technology sound really good. Their music in recent years doesn't sound like it could have come from any other era.
Maybe not all of you are fans of their music in the first place, but I think the question remains the same. Do you think that this is in some ways a stronger path to take, to embrace the technology of the current era? Is music that sounds like it could have been done in a past era in any way lesser in your eyes? Or are you completely indifferent either way?

Indifferent, until it occurs inside a genre that blows up my skirt, like Lilys 'Better Can't Make Your Life Better' a 1996 which could have been released in 1968.

Apologies - a 1996 *record*

i like modern music that sounds of its time. not even entirely having to do with technology. but a feeling that it was made here and now. i mean, most new music sounds like this, but you can sound now and still use all the stuff from the past. i think when people consciously decide that they want a time capsule sound or a very specific past sound it doesn't thrill me. but if they are just inspired my those past sounds and then make their own sounds you get the best of both worlds. most good music does this. cuz its hard to escape the past entirely unless you are a martian but its what you do with it that matters.

"by" those past sounds...

no. next.

i guess the two exceptions for me would be metal and hardcore punk. i don't have a problem with metal or hardcore sounding EXACTLY like the 80's or whatever. in general though i don't have a lot of time for neo-traditional museum/time capsule music outside of classical or folk. never a fan of neo-garage and stuff like that. never bought albums by the chesterfield kings or the lyres. i did buy a stray cats album when i was a kid but my knowledge of rockabilly at the time was zilch, so, it was new to me.

one of my favorite albums of the year is that pacific northwest gothrock comp that i bought online and it totally pays homage to the past and is entirely RIGHT NOW as music. i love that. i really do.

was just coming here to say something like what scott did. I find empty throwbacks (like a lot of the boring retro-thrash) to be dull, but stuff like In Solitude, Portrait, and other metal that is a callback to the 80s sound with actual enthusiasm and songcraft behind it...I can dig it. especially since I missed the real thing the first time around.

My problem is that when bands try to sound retro, on modern equipment, they fail. All these retro hard rock bands from Sweden, for example - Graveyard, Horisont, Witchcraft - they're all trying to sound like November, and they don't, because everything is too crisp and clean. The guitars get close, because you can use vintage amps and old pedals and whatnot, but nobody records drums the way they recorded them in the '70s, with just one shitty mike on the kick, one on the snare, and a couple for room sound. Everything is all close-miked and pristine, and you can't get that cardboard-box thump you could hear on every '70s hard rock record. Jazz has the same problem. I would love to hear some modern jazz groups record on a two-track, like Blue Note artists did in the '50s and early '60s.

yeah, this too. what phil said. everything sounds so clean and shiny you can't really go home again.

If I had money to throw down the sewer, I would start a jazz label that would record artists on two-track and release 78s (with download codes, of course).

i'm always amazed by stuff i hear from the 70's and early 80's - privately pressed folk/rock/jazz/etc - and how rudimentary the set-up obviously was and it might have been done at home or in a small local studio and how AMAZING these set-ups could sound and people at home or doing it themselves now - who may be enamored with these simple homespun 70's sounds or other past sounds - don't come anywhere close. its either too bright and you have to shield your eyes or their attempt at "lo-fi" is fumbling or amateurish or maybe just dumb cuz you know they probably have access to a computer so why would it even sound like that? 9 out of 10 normal local releases i hear on cd - i try to give local normal people a listen - sound really bad and harshly digital (so if you are a retro band or even a retro 90's-sounding indie band this just makes you sound bad no matter how good you are). i think people should really just save their pennies and find a local sympatico studio and maybe just record one song at a time if money is an issue. use real equipment. their are analog/digital studios around here. vintage stuff and all the newest stuff. people who are really good at it too. actually crafting a song or album in the studio and trying really hard to get the sound you want or the one you hear in your head, so underrated these days. if you want to sound like the past try really hard to do it right!

I don't often care about perfect authenticity on retro. like I know on Amy Winehouse records, the shit sounds too clean to be really from that era, and Raphael Saadig has some uncharacteristic distortion on the vocals.

I like it if they can get close enough, but ultimately if the soul isn't in the actual performances/songwriting, I won't give a fuck.

i can't listen to a lot of modern trad/postbop type jazz. my dad listens to tons of it and i kinda hate how a lot of it sounds even if i like the players. but i also have a problem with neo-trad jazz in general. so its a two-fold problem i have. its shiny music beholden to the past. and tht's why i'm stuck in the 70's. i miss the adventure and wildness of the 70's sounds (that also sounded amazing) and the fact that it wasn't just outcats drawn to it. all kinds of people listened to stuff on impulse and the like. it was prog jazz that appealed to many types of music lovers. and now you are either in the trad dad camp or the totally out there camp and as a result neither camp works at full strength.

I will admit I much much prefer black metal from the 80s/90s than the stuff that comes out now because it is sonically different and I felt that it worked better in its heyday than it does now (where much of it has gotten cleaned up and indified). which is why I like stuff that still sounds like Arckanum.

I have to admit lately I find myself frequently wanting to listen to things that sound contemporary to me, but I wouldn't go so far as to say I think it's better for music to sound that way. I don't think there's anything wrong with wanting to sound contemporary or wanting to make music that sounds contemporary, but realistically, the way eras will be divided in the future might be very different than the way we imagine the boundaries of our own era now.

(Posted that before I had seen the answer before. Not sure why we are all "admitting.")

I feel very contemporary when I listen to DJ Q.

Ha, a bunch of Q's recent stuff is very much on a "take it back to '99" tip.

I don't know any better since I basically missed everything he's taking it back to.

^^ this is why i wdn't draw up hard and fast rules about sounding "of your era"

I heard Thompson Twins and Peter Schilling on the radio yesterday in the car and was thinking about how it didn't sound very old. Doesn't have that super flat dynamic range thing happening, but otherwise just as shiny as modern records, I think. I don't know what other significant differences there are.

there's something charming and timeless to my balogna that a theoretically more era-accurate parody of my sharona would have lacked
(and would also be confusing since my sharona was already a retro sound?)

but my sharona sounded REALLY new when it came out that summer. like bifffbangpow!!

lol, just priced this 80's tommy makem record and had to laff.

http://clancybrothersandtommymakem.com/images/TM/13_lonesome.jpg

I presume the Clancy Brothers aren't on this

no, i really enjoy hearing a record and being unable to determine when it was made, though it's very unusual and probably really difficult to pull off such a thing. though a lot of the music i hunger for is that which is informed by the present (the accumulated past), and that which is made with a spirit of avoiding obvious styles or patterns.