Old Man Yells At Cloud, Maybe, but Computers Really Did Ruin Music

By Petr Navovy | Miscellaneous | March 14, 2024 |

By Petr Navovy | Miscellaneous | March 14, 2024 |

Look, I’m fully aware that the phrasing of that headline is very much venturing into ‘old man yells at cloud’ territory, but dammit, I stand by it. The sweeping digitisation of music—both from a distribution standpoint as well as a production and composition perspective—has had some devastating effects on the industry and the art form. That’s not to say it’s all black-and-white, of course, as there have been some positives, like the diversification and democratisation of certain areas that have come with it, but in so many other ways, the transition from analogue to digital in music has proven to be a rot.

Musician and engineer (and huge YouTube presence) Rick Beato released a video a few years ago that took an in-depth look at one element of the art side of things: Quantisation—the process in modern music recording of snapping everything to a grid, in which you use software to smooth out any ‘imperfections’ in timing and tempo, aligning everything to precise measurements that then allows you to move things around at will. Beato calls the widespread adoption of popular quantisation software like Beat Detective the ‘death of rock music as a worldwide movement in the mid-2000s’.

That might be a little bit hyperbolic and reductive, but Beato nevertheless makes a compelling argument as he dives into some post-2000s songs and demonstrates the sterilising effect of quantisation by rearranging things willy-nilly. Comparing those songs to those recorded prior to the adoption of digital tools like Beat Detective is like night and day. As Beato says, ‘music is what happens between the grid lines’, and some of the most potent magic found in pre-digital records by the likes of Zeppelin, the Stones, Maiden, and Rage Against the Machine (and yeah, I’m just focusing on rock and metal here) is found exactly in those wonderfully human moments where things don’t align to the bloody grid. Try re-arranging ‘Black Dog’ in Pro Tools or whatever without losing your mind and pulling out your hair. Good luck.

It’s understandable where some of the drive for the adoption of this humanity-killing software comes from. I’ve recorded music in the studio with a band. It makes things so much easier! For musicians on a budget, who can’t afford to do a billion takes to get rights right, it’s a godsend. That doesn’t mean it’s not evil. Breaking down what should be messy, spontaneous, intertwined, human—alive!—into fascistically structured and atomised elements easily broken up and re-arranged … It’s the neoliberalisation of music I tells ya! Give me messiness, give me drift, give me floating rhythm, give me records recorded by a group of people together in a room. When asked once why Van Halen never released any live albums, Eddie Van Halen responded by saying: ‘Go listen to the studio records.’

‘nuff said.

Take it away, Rick.

(Disclaimer: This doesn’t mean all digital era is bad, obviously. Far from it.)