A tale of two mixes
As Britt can vouchsafe, stupid pop music is a fascination of mine. Unfortunately, this fascination is often in direct conflict with another fascination of mine, audio reproduction. Perhaps I can illustrate my point by comparing two recent-ish albums, Vanessa Carlton's Be Not Nobody and Avril Lavigne's Let Go. Carlton's album gained popularity last summer for the single "A Thousand Miles" with its arpeggiated piano hook, orchestral backing, and, unfortunately, not much more to recommend it. Lavigne's album, on the other hand, has had one single ("Complicated") played to death, with another ("Sk8er Boi") rapidly approaching the same status. Neither album is terrible, but my vote goes to Lavigne for two reasons: lyrical maturity and recording quality. It's the latter reason that pops up over and over when I listen to pop music.
Carlton's album, mixed by one Jack Joseph Puig, sounds terrible. Note that this isn't about the music, it's about how it sounds. On "A Thousand Miles," for instance, the percussion is smeared, the vocals are punchy, and there's absolutely no dynamic variation, indicating that the song has been compressed to within an inch of its life. Virtually all of the vocals on the album have been poorly recorded and further "enhanced." Put all of it together and you get a recording that is absolutely tiring to listen to on a halfway decent audio system, which is where I do most of my listening.
Lavigne's album, on the other hand, was mixed by Tom Lord-Alge and isn't at all shy about it: Lord-Alge's credit is found on the back cover of the album instead of buried in the liner notes. No matter who mixed it, the album is full of nuances. "Sk8er Boi" features a recurring bass drum hit that is more accurately felt than heard and a number of tricked-out guitars that dance around the stereo sound stage. The vocals are much more tastefully processed, too, with an appropriate amount of reverb. "Complicated," too, features a rich sound texture with muted shaker and scratching lurking throughout. There's nothing earth-shaking here, but the sonic variety makes this an album worth listening to more than once.
Posted by ned at February 10, 2003 02:08 PM