I just got back from another stint in the recording studio.
I came away with the overwhelming feeling that technology is, indeed a wonderful thing. Modern production, we all want it, even if we want it in a retro package; the face of commercial viability demands a certain level of polish.
The powerful tools available to recording artists let us fix every little timing glitch and bum note. Nudging, coaxing, shifting a little here and there until everything is in time, tune and place. But I also have a niggling feeling that this power to rewrite the past of musical performance comes at a price.
I recently watched Louis Theroux’s documentary on the obsessive, addictive potential of plastic surgery. The apparent logic that summed the programme up was that for many people, making changes that elevate one part of the anatomy above it’s basic flawed state to “perfect” simply reveals the ever more minor flaws in the features that surround the bit that has just been fixed. The cycle begins then, and surgery is the inevitable way to repair the newly highlighted flaws.
It’s no great leap of the imagination to see how plastic surgery addiction can become analogous to the process of prettifying, fixing and repairing a recording. Listen to many of the great folk recordings of the past and there is an inevitable absence of autotune, falsified ambience, clever overdubbing and the like that is all part of the day-to-day arsenal of the modern recording artist. But for all that, they’re not unlistenably out of tune, out of time or lacking in general character. In fact, you could argue that the process of “fixing” a modern recording knocks the character out of it.
I’m not suggesting we abandon the undoubtedly brilliant gizmos of the studio and return to huddling round a single microphone (though many American new-grass artists are seeking to do just that in an effort to capture some mystical vibe of the past). I’m not even saying I haven’t or wouldn’t make full use of the tools to fix something in an otherwise great take, but what I am questioning more and more is how much feeling and character of performance can be eroded by an enticing and addictive set of options.
The voices that I love, the music that moves me is… well, by its very nature as vernacular music rough, slightly unpolished and hopefully possessed of a warts and all brilliance that has made it stand up despite fashion for however many years. So I question why when I find myself listening to my own stuff I forget all that and hurriedly check whether that slightly out of tune note, three minutes and twenty seconds in, can’t be sharpened up to pitch with a crafty bit of autotuning.
When I listen to a lot of modern recorded folk music I’m awed by the production- clean, ballsy, oomph laden, slick pieces of studio wizardry that are sure to please the demands of Radio 2 and commercial viability. But somewhere, in the back of my head there’s often something I’m missing.
Someone once said that a tightrope walker is only interesting to watch if he wobbles. No matter how good the performance, the thing that gives something its edge is often the flaws in it that not only give it character, but also frame the brilliance of its moments.
Are we making the very things that make folk music so enduring and endearing take a back seat to the supermodel good looks of slick production? The perfect supermodel is of course, the plainest, most average person you can imagine; ready to be dressed up in whatever the job of the day demands.
Perhaps I can live with a few duff notes, rather than putting things under the knife this time.
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