I Like It Raw

Published October 23, 2007

By Alex Pinto

What is in a great recording? One could make standard arguments for and against the hi-fi masterpieces of Steely Dan—heroes of middle-aged audiophiles everywhere—and lo-fi indie sound catastrophes of the twenty-first century.
I’m merely a listener and fan of music. But one thing I always listen for is the division of heavy and light production. Nothing makes me super tingly like a recording that can be described as pure.

I mean just real, bare bones, almost-live, smack your booty recordings. Recordings that are technically well done, but for which the artists say no to cleaning up errant noises, sacrificing cleanliness for raw power. And this can crop up in some unexpected places.

Remember Reel Big Fish? Anyone who had the obligatory “ ska phase” in middle school or high school ought to remember quite well. Though I’ve shifted away from total ska obsession, I have never outgrown RBF; they are just great musicians, especially on stage. They’ve come out with a handful of albums over the years, and, though they’ve experimented with thicker production in their more recent albums, they have reverted to purity in terms of recording.

In the openings of songs you can hear the scrape of fingers on guitar strings, and the nuances of individual voices in the backing vocals; the horns growl and bite in a way usually reserved for great live recording. This is because Reel Big Fish has nothing to hide—they seem to have given up trying to break it big with a new album, and they’re making music purely for the sake of making music. That is refreshing.

The advents of hi-fi, quadraphonic recording, and cassette tapes constantly changed the world of recording. Some bands, like Pink Floyd, entered the new era of recording with energy, and took advantage of new technologies to start making high quality, almost sterile albums in the early 70’s.

Other groups, like The Band, still let the instruments do their job, rather than pushing their limits. Granted, if you listen to The Band’s eponymous album, which has recently been re-released with unproduced outtakes and alternate takes of the songs, you can hear the huge difference good production makes—the fissure in quality between the outtakes and the real album is quite noticeable. But if you compare it to pre-production recordings of Floyd or other bands of the period, you can appreciate the minimalist production The Band gives their songs—they don’t mess with the recording nearly as much.

The whole “The Band” album has a lively feel to it; it sounds like the instruments are being played through amps and not miles of computers and compressors. Listen to the lead singing in the album cut of “Jawbone” and you’ll hear what I mean. During the chorus you can practically see Richard Manuel standing in the booth twisting his face for those notes. His lines have plenty of room in the recording against the instruments, but without total sound of the song being sparse.

Compare that with the vocal solo in “Great Gig in the Sky”, from Floyd’s 1973 Dark Side of the Moon, and you will notice that the female vocals are surrounded and somewhat muffled by the volume of sound around them.

Admittedly there is more instrumentation going on in “Gig” than in “Jawbone”, but all the same, it sounds to me like Floyd produced the shit out of it. Of course clean ‘n’ tidy recordings have their place, and one of them is “Dark Side of the Moon”—it’s a great work. But still, everybody should have some good raw music in their lives.

So look for it, it’s out there!

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