Moar Video Game Metal

I know I've referred to DragonForce and The Black Mages as "video game metal". Well, they aren't anymore, because I've found a band that takes the video game cake: Powerglove! (Possibly named after an obscure and failed NES accessory) They do ridiculous, extreme power metal covers of video game hits like the Super Mario Bros. Theme, Zelda soundtracks, Final Fantasy (I'm not sure if I like this or the Black Mages' cover more), and even Duck Hunt (which apparently has no soundtrack). Their latest album explores the TV shows and movies of the band's youth, including The Simpsons, The Flintstones, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Winnie the Pooh, and best of all, the Pokemon theme song featuring Tony Kakko. Simply glorious. It's a blast to listen to covers of songs I'm familiar with, and even the ones I'm not are still great. These guys can play!

Headphones

I've been meaning to make this post for a while. For starters, I'm going to throw some images up, in no particular order, for no particular reason. Make of them what you will.

Okay, maybe there was a reason for that. My point is that one of these things is better than the other. Why would you eat a nasty McDonald's hamburger when you could have a delicious, balanced steak dinner? Why would you try to find the 20,000th Fibonacci number on a relic of the '70s when a modern computer is so much better? Why would you listen to your favorite music through the earbuds that came with your iPod rather than through some high-quality headphones? I hope my point is clear.

A quick aside on how I got into high-quality headphones. A guy who lived down the hall from me freshman year had brought his hulking desktop computer to college, and used some seriously big headphones with it. They were Sennheiser HD-555s, the (significantly less cool-looking) predecessor of the 558s pictured above. I always thought they'd looked pretty cool, and eventually in early March I wondered if I could listen to my music library...better. I asked to test-drive his headphones. Being incredibly careful not to damage them, I carried them to my room and fired them up.

I don't recall exactly what happened, but I'm pretty sure my jaw dropped. I don't know how to describe how different my music sounded, felt, but I was gripped by a desire to go back and listen to everything. The headphones really changed my music, added new dimensions to it I'd never heard before. I immediately knew I had to have a pair of my own. The withdrawal while waiting for them to come was not fun. It's like trying to describe art to a blind person; all I can advise is to find someone with good headphones and ask to try them out, like I did. I would be happy to loan anything from my collection out.

Now obviously the other possible conclusion that can be reached from the pictures is that one of these things is many times more expensive than the other. And for something consumable like a meal, it's a valid point. But if you take care of them, a good pair of headphones can last decades. (I don't have firsthand experience on this, but I've had my HD-555s almost two years, put them through plenty, and they sound better than when I got them) It's a one-time investment that keeps on paying off. If you don't have the money, I don't recommend sampling high-quality headphones as I did, because once you hear them, you never go back. There are plenty of affordable headphones that are a huge improvement over what the majority of people listen on, though; Sennheiser's HD-201s are barely $20 and have the best sound-to-price ratio I've ever heard. A top-of-the-line pair of headphones like the HD-800s isn't for everyone, but I suspect that many, many people would find a marginal improvement to their listening experience well worth it.

One-Liners

Try as I may (or not) my album review-writing can't keep up with my talent for finding interesting bands. This post aims to (somewhat) catch up. The following are one-line descriptions of some of the stuff I've been getting into lately. Hope it tickles your fancy!

Finntroll: Trollish polka metal.

Yellowcard: Symphonic pop-punk.

Primordial: Metal about ancient wars and prophesied doom.

Tanglefoot: Canadian bluegrass.

Equilibrium: Mythic metal!

Eluveitie: Gaulish metal.

Powerman 5000: Sci-fi B-movie metal.

Wuthering Heights: Frantic pirate/medieval metal.

Needtobreathe

Apologies for the recent trend in post content. Seems like it's been nothing but unoriginal content and rants lately. I was in the process of writing another one when I realized I'd left behind the reason I started this blog in the first place: good old biased reviews of albums I like!

It's hard to sum up the latest release by South Carolinian Christian rock band Needtobreathe, except that the album has soul. Just calling them "Christian rock" doesn't do their unique, folksy style justice and risks lumping them with a whole slew of excellent, reverent, but not terribly innovative bands. Besides the standard instrumentation, this album contains harmonica, banjo, ragtime piano, and plenty of good ol' hand clapping and foot stomping. Vocalist Bear Rinehart has a distinctive wail that is an instrument in its own right. The songs are diverse and uniformly enjoyable--try as I may, my words can't do them justice. But rest assured that they are fantastic, and after a few listens you'll start feeling attached to them. Especially memorable are pretty much the entirety of the title track and "Something Beautiful", the stark atmosphere and spacey drumbeats in "Through Smoke", stomping and clapping a-plenty in "Lay 'Em Down", the awesome a capella bridge in "Hurricane", the ragtime (I think), stylings of "Prisoner", and anthemic album closer "Let Us Love". Just listen to some previews or Youtube clips and the musical charm of this album will become evident.

The lyrics of The Outsiders are similarly interesting, and beautiful. Rather than take the more direct praise-and-worship angle so heavily trod by Christian bands, Needtobreathe goes abstract. God and Jesus are hardly mentioned, but their inspiration shines through the album's overall message of hope and longing for redemption. Christians will be thrilled to listen to music that presents such an original angle on the gospel and is more musically interesting than 90% of the Christian contemporary scene, and non-Christians will find a beautiful album with lines like "When the daylight breaks through the buildings of Chicago/I will stand alone in the valley of tomorrow". This is a beautiful, inspirational album that gets better with each listen, and I highly recommend it for everyone.

Listening to Music

When was the last time you really listened to music? I mean really listened to music--sat down and did nothing but listen to music, perhaps a favorite album, with no distractions? In today's musical culture it's a tough question. Our lives are pervaded by music--in the car, in stores, on the way to class; on our iPods, computers, phones, and anywhere else there's a microprocessor. Perhaps it's the omnipresence of music that makes it so much easier to ignore and pushes it into the background of our minds. I tried just listening to a favorite album today--Dark Passion Play by Nightwish. To be honest, I didn't entirely succeed. I love that album, but even so I found my mind wandering and my hand reaching for a book. Movies manage to hook our attention, maybe because they give your eyes something to do, but even for a professing audiophile like me, giving that same attention to music--good music--is hard.

Besides our frenetic, multitasking culture making it hard to slow down and just listen for an hour, the way we listen to music, and music itself, seem to be shifting away from the old-fashioned custom of listening to whole albums (maybe on vinyl). The exact same album I just listened to on my pseudo-audiophile setup sounds unremarkable on the kind of setup (iPod with cheap earbuds) that so many people are content with. And then there's the dynamic range compression that I've already written an essay about, which removes the load-soft dynamics of music and makes it even easier to tune out. When we do listen, it's rarely to entire albums--it's mixes of all different songs jumbled together in a playlist.

So I'm not really sure how to end this post, and I'll just leave it open-ended. If there's anyone else out there, reading this blog (I'm not sure), what are you thoughts in Americans' shifting music-listening habits? Do you miss the good ol' days of vinyl and undistracted music listening? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

The Loudness War: Is It Taking Music to Eleven?

The following is another essay I wrote for my rock history course, on the topic of the "loudness wars" phenomenon of modern music being mixed increasingly loudly.

Waveform of "The Song Remains the Same", by Led Zeppelin (1973)

In 2008, thrash metal pioneer Metallica released their long-awaited album Death Magnetic. Though it was received positively by fans and critics and praised as a return to the roots of the genre Metallica helped invent, the album was also plagued by criticisms surrounding its production. Under attack was the sound quality of the album, which was rife with audible distortion resulting from dynamic range compression—in short, the album was too “loud”. The situation of Death Magnetic is not unique; it is just a highly visible casualty of a war that has been raging in the music industry for decades: the so-called “loudness war”. This race to produce louder and louder recorded music is a troubling trend that threatens the quality of modern music.

Waveform of "Alive", by Pearl Jam (1991)

The urge to produce “loud” music has existed for almost as long as recorded music itself. Back in the days of vinyl, jukeboxes and radio stations would be set to play music as a preset volume. In this environment, a record that had been mastered “hotter” (louder) than the competition had a better chance of standing out and making a psychological impact on listeners. This created pressure to make louder records, though the nature of the medium prevented the music from getting too loud; records that were too loud had less room for music and could cause the needle to jump during playback.[1] In the 1960s and 70s, producer Phil Spector capitalized on the power of perceptually loud music with his “wall of sound” technique which layered the sound of many instruments playing together to produce a powerful, reverberant sound that reproduced well on jukeboxes.[2]

Waveform of "Boll Weevil", by the Presidents of the United States of America (1995)

The introduction of the audio CD and the advent of digital music created a vast new battlefield for the loudness wars. Digital music has a preset, unbreakable limit to the volume of a song; once this limit is reached, the only way to make music “louder” is to amplify the quiet parts of a song via dynamic range compression. As CDs became the standard medium for music, newly developing digital signal processing methods let producers make ever louder music.1

Waveform of "Bullets", by Creed (2001)

In dynamic range compression, the loudest parts of a song—the peaks, such as drum hits—are lowered in volume closer to the level of the rest of the music. The entire song is then amplified to its previous maximum level, resulting in an increase in uniform loudness and a decrease in dynamic range—the difference between the loudest and quietest parts of a song. In the early days of CDs, songs were typically mastered with their highest peaks at about six decibels below the maximum level the medium allowed, with the average level of loudness at around eighteen to twenty decibels below the maximum.1 Today, mixes can average as little as four decibels below the maximum, a huge decrease in dynamic range.[3]

Waveform of "Dimension", by Wolfmother (2005)

A visual example of this trend can be seen in the appendix. A song from the 1970s, while reaching the maximum allowed loudness due to being transferred to CD, nevertheless shows a wide distinction between loud and soft parts, with pronounced drum hits and a wide dynamic range. A song from the early 90s, while slightly louder, still has much of this dynamic range. In the mid 90s, we see evidence of dynamic range compression; while loud parts are still somewhat pronounced, on average the song is much closer to the maximum possible loudness. In the early 21st century, much of the song is quite loud, pushing the digital loudness limit with less distinction between loud/quiet. This becomes even more pronounced in a 2005 song. Then we see the waveform of a song from Death Magnetic, an album that brought the loudness wars to the forefront of music culture; the majority of the song is completely amplified up to the maximum. The waveform of a current pop song shows similar levels of dynamic range compression.

Waveform of "The Day That Never Comes", by Metallica (2008)

The escalation of dynamic range compression has taken a heavy toll on modern music. Removing the loud/soft contrast of music decreases its emotional power and can be fatiguing to listen to; ironically, if a song has no quiet parts, the impact of its loudness is lost. Increasingly, dynamic range compression also causes audible distortion in music as the peaks of sound waves are sheared off to fit into the maximum allowed digital volume. Peter Mew, senior mastering engineer at Abbey Road Studios, explains: “The brain is not geared to accept buzzing. The CDs induce a sense of fatigue in the listeners. It becomes psychologically tiring and almost impossible to listen to. This could be the reason why CD sales are in a slump.”[4] Squeezing a song into such a narrow dynamic range reduces the definition of the instruments and makes them harder to distinguish; what was once a loud, crisp drum hit disappears into the mix and its power is lost. Sometimes the pressure to fit all the instruments into one set level of volume can cause their volume to literally oscillate up and down with the beat, causing a very unpleasant listening experience.

Waveform of "Bad Romance", by Lady Gaga (2009)

Not everyone is content to sit back and listen as music becomes increasingly loud and distorted. Some sound engineers actively seek to resist the loudness trend in their work; Joe Lambert of Trutone says, “there’s nothing I do just to make a record louder.”3 Bob Hoffman, who remastered the Red Hot Chili Peppers album Stadium Arcadium for vinyl to provide greater dynamic range, refuses jobs that involve overcompressing music “at least once a week.”1 Others, like Bob Katz, look for ways to increase the perceived loudness of a track while minimizing distortion.1 Turn Me Up! Is a nonprofit organization that certifies music mixed to have a greater dynamic range, encouraging listeners to enjoy it by turning up the volume themselves.[5] An algorithm called Replay Gain analyzes songs and automatically adjusts their playback volume to give listeners a consistent level of loudness, negating the need for techniques like dynamic range compression to make music louder.1 Replay Gain and similar systems are being integrated into popular music players like iTunes and Winamp, though their use is far from universal. But despite the best efforts of sound engineers and other wellwishers, the outcome of the loudness wars depends largely on the listeners. Besides sound quality-conscious listeners like audiophiles, many consumers are content with loud music that they can hear over background noise in cars or on MP3 players. The noisy environments in which so much music is consumed today mean that many listeners are completely unaware of the creeping effects of dynamic range compression or even welcome them. Record companies wouldn’t continue to overcompress music if the average consumer didn’t demand it. Until overproduced, loud music stops being so profitable, we’re unlikely to see an end to the loudness war.

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[1] Sreedhar, Suhas, “The Future of Music, Part One: Down the Wall of Noise,” IEEE Spectrum, August, 2007, http://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/software/the-future-of-music.

[2] Spector, Phil, “Phil Spector on MySpace,” MySpace, http://www.myspace.com/philspectorrr.

[3] Jones, Sarah, “The Big Squeeze,” Mix Magazine, December 1, 2005, http://mixonline.com/mag/audio_big_squeeze/.

[4] Sherwin, Adam, “Why music really is getting louder,” Times Online, June 4, 2007, http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/music/article1878724.ece.

[5] “Who We Are,” Turn Me Up!, http://turnmeup.org/about_us.shtml.

Modern-Day Epics

It has been brought to my attention that apparently I can't share docs with just anyone via Google Docs, they need to log in and stuff. So, I am posting my essay on how epic Painkiller by Judas Priest is, linked to from my post on epic music, here:

Throughout history, people have enjoyed stories as means of understanding the world around them, or escaping to different ones. The culmination of the tradition of storytelling is the epic. Epics are stories on the largest possible scale: tales of great heroes, fierce battles, and larger-than-life adventures. They have been told in the form of poetry (such as Homer’s Odyssey and Iliad), literature (as in Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings), or film (Ben-Hur). Increasingly, however, the relatively new art form of music has taken up the epic tradition.

One classic example of this is British heavy metal band Judas Priest’s Painkiller, from the 1990 album of the same name. The song begins fairly unusually with a fast-paced drum solo, unaccompanied by any other instrument. Packed with time signature changes and virtuosic precision, the solo establishes from the beginning that this is no ordinary heavy metal song—it’s something bigger, heavier, more powerful. Soon the guitar soars in and the bulk of the song begins. The verses are occupied by generally the same guitar riff—a sixteen-note pattern that seems to switch between three and two-note time, but stays in time with the rapid sixteenth notes of the bass and snare drums, which add a textural speed and urgency to the background of the whole song. Through it all, the instrumentation sounds huge; the heavily amplified and distorted guitar constantly resounds, creating a dense, thundering sonic atmosphere. From the start, the song sounds huge and of great importance.

The vocals follow a similar pattern. The lyrics of the song are about as fantastical and over-the-top as even metal gets, depicting the exceptionally violent and loud salvation of humanity by the godlike metal messiah, Painkiller. The setting is the final stand of mankind against an indescript evil force, certainly a familiar one for epics. The song is packed with superlatives; the Painkiller is described as “faster than a bullet”, “louder than an atom bomb”, and “brighter than a thousand suns”. Priest’s exceptionally talented vocalist Rob Halford considerably adds to the power of the song in his delivery of these lyrics, singing almost entirely in a screeching, yet melodic falsetto. Where other metal songs might use screamed vocals to add special emphasis to certain lines, Halford applies this technique to virtually the whole song. There is no poetic depth to uncover here; the message is clear: This is it. Everything hinges on this avatar of metal; all the chips are down; this is the final battle. Lyrics of lesser songs seem insignificant by comparison.

The intensity and drama never let up as the song unfolds. After a few verses and choruses introducing the dire state of the human race and the Painkiller, we get to a new, bridge-like section. Though the lyrical theme is similar, continuing to describe the fury of the Painkiller, the intensity of the song rises even further as the guitar and bass drum fire away at maximum speed and the last line of the vocals rises from the regular pitch we’ve been hearing to an impossibly high, held note. The guitar and snare drum begin playing, but constantly speed up. Just when we thought the song was beyond anything before it, it keeps becoming more, faster, higher, louder.

The purpose of all this is to build anticipation for the climax: the guitar solo. The increasingly rapid-fire notes of the bridge abruptly give way to incredibly quick guitar shredding. What follows is a solo to end all solos; loud, complex, and at nearly a minute and a half, incredibly long. Several times the main riff of the song is heard repeated in a higher key and with some variations before fading back into the solo. It’s about as over-the-top as metal got, and certainly the focal point of the song; after all, it represents the incredibly loud, powerful, and destructive battle of the Painkiller against the forces of evil.

Immediately after the solo ends, the main guitar riff resumes, along with the vocals. The battle is won; humanity is given hope once more and is free to rebuild from the devastation the Painkiller inadvertently incurred. After this the chorus repeats twice, with different lyrics further describing the metallic awesomeness of the Painkiller, after which we hear the quickening pre-chorus again. Instead of another solo, the guitar plays the main riff alone and in a lower key with occasional drum thrashing interspersed. On top of this is the chorus, but this time it’s sung more normally in an intensifying shout that soon builds back up into Halford’s falsetto screams. Just as they reach their height, we get the expected solo, albeit a much shorter one than before. As the solo fades away, Halford offers a final ultimatum: “Can’t stop the Painkiller,” holding the last syllable for nearly 20 seconds as the drums go wild with a solo that accelerates to seemingly impossible speeds.

All told, Painkiller is an extraordinary heavy metal song that extends the tradition of the epic into the musical realm. The apocalyptic story its lyrics tell lives up to the epics of old in scale, power, and weight, making even Priest’s other lyrics seem inconsequential by comparison. The bombastic guitars and bass-heavy drumming, blisteringly fast and virtuosic in musicianship, are similarly beyond that heard in other songs, even other metal songs. Everything is beyond the impossible; an impossibly long solo, impossibly fast drumming, Rob Halford’s impossible vocal skills. All of these elements and more would soon be adopted by power metal, a whole genre arguably devoted to the epic tradition in one way or another, but Painkiller is one of the songs that would define this sound. Film and literature continue to have their moments, but today music has become a consistent teller of epics.