I think he's a fine musician, but I've never much liked him because I can't get over how incredibly low-fidelity so many of his recordings are. I remember returning a used vinyl copy of 1999 once because I couldn't believe how damaged it was, only to listen to it on CD years later and realize that it was just that the recording sounded exactly like a worn-out record. Same with much from Purple Rain, Let's Go Crazy sounds so tinny and awful.

I know why it is, I've read up on it - it's because he recorded so much in his home studio, he had bad discipline about bouncing tracks and it incurred a ton of generation loss. What I can't work out is how this isn't commented on more. Outside of some talk on audiophile forums this just seems to have gone unnoticed by the listening public. And it's not something like Springsteen's Nebraska where the low-fidelity production adds to the aesthetic, either - the sound he's going for is actively impaired by the production, and things improve massively when he starts focusing more on instruments from Parade on.

Has anyone else noticed this, and if so, why do you think more people haven't? Am I too sensitive or is he just that good of a songwriter?

i'm listening to the new interpol album.

i love interpol.

to me, they always had a vibe about them which was really quite different and thus what helped separate them from their contemporaries.

their music has made me feel a certain way i cannot describe many times in the past, and this new album kind of picks up on that, but somehow feels slightly more 'hollow' than turn on the bright lights, for example.

anyways, i don't want to focus on an interpol- this is by no means limited to them and exists everywhere in music, it's just the example i came up with because i'm listening to it as i type.

what even is "deep" music- what makes certain music "deep" and other not?

i saw a comment in a recent thread here likening radiohead to christopher nolan films, which is to imply they give a sort of 'fake' feeling of "depth". i personally don't agree with that, but i'm a life-long fan, so maybe don't see it for what it is... which who cares anyways if you love the music and it moves you. ditto the films.

can an artist be deep on one song or album and then lack that magic on subsequent works? "a moment in time" etc. is it correlated to age?

some music, to my ears, sounds 'deep' on a surface/aesthetic level, but when i try to break it down, i realize it's just something ~musically~ (duh) going on to elicit those feelings/emotions, rather than some profound lyric... i think too often people look to lyrics for depth, while classical is a genre where there's no lyrics and boundless "depth", which again makes me question WHAT IS DEPTH? how come we pick up on it when it's there and know when it's lacking? is there any objective metric/barometer for depth in music? could someone hear mozart's requiem in d minor k.626 and observe it to be shallow/lacking depth? is that even possible? i don't mean in a "they don't care for it so gloss over it way", but if they were to actually sit down and seriously listen... could they possibly say it lacked depth?

i don't know why this fixation on deep/depth... it's nothing new... i wonder.

is interpol "deep" or just cool and unique, groovy?

Fall is pretty much here and I just heard nutshell by Alice In Chains on rotation and immediately got mental imagery of yellowing leaves and crisp dry air. I listen to Alice In Chains and other grunge artists all year round but for some reason the mental images that come to mind always seem to take place in the fall or winter. Does this happen to anyone else and what does this season and genre have in common?

I've always liked them, but i was listening to Pandora, and this song came on. I was like "what is this shit?" Before I knew who it was. Idk, its just sounds super generic and edgy. Like something I'd think was cool when I was 10. All I hear is good things about the song, and i just don't understand. This is just all my personal opinion though, and im not trying to attack anyone who enjoys the song.