History Reissued and Remastered

A couple of weeks ago, the Rolling Stones' eponymous album Exile On Main Street was re-released amid much fanfare and hype. The album is remastered by Don Was and includes up to 10 additional, never-before-released tracks and a vinyl version, depending on the "specialness" of the edition you buy.

Previously, the big reissue hype was centered on the recent Beatles box set. All of their albums received the remastering treatment, and in addition to the box set, each album is available separately in the new remastered condition. Included with the late period albums is a short documentary that can be viewed using a computer. This is not the first Beatles box set, their catalogue has been remastered and reissued before, under the auspices of being "the definitive remaster." I have the first four albums from this series and must confess they do sound pretty good. I couldn't say whether they sound better than the current reissues, I haven't heard any of the new early album remasters. And let's not forget McCartney's ultimate remix and remaster, Let It Be...Naked,  the reissue scrubbed of Phil Spector's strings and choirs and, in Paul's words, closer to the original vision. It's how the album was intended to begin with, or rather, the way Paul intended it to be heard.

As an aside here, Beatles history geeks will recall Paul's anger over the decision to use Spector on Let It Be. This was during the breakup period of the Beatles and Paul was somewhat estranged from the rest of the group. John, George, and Ringo unilaterally decided to call in Spector without Paul's knowledge or permission. Spector then added strings and choirs to three songs including "The Long and Winding Road,"  a McCartney composition. Paul was not thrilled to put it mildly and after thirty years, rectified the situation by returning to the studio and remixing Let It Be stripping off any semblance of Spector.

Before the Beatles there was the Band. Their box set released in 2005 was heralded as the definitive collection too and like the Stones' Exile, contains previously unreleased tracks, plus a big fancy booklet with pictures.

How historically valuable are these reissues? Considering the albums already exist, it's not like an unknown Rembrandt being discovered. Certainly the B sides and previously unreleased tracks are historically valuable. Many times these uncover the compositional process, as they can be demo versions or first attempts of a song. The Beatles' Anthology, while not being a remaster reissue, contains several alternate takes of their hits. In the case of Exile, Jagger added new melodies and lyrics to some existing bed tracks, sort of finishing the songs forty years after the fact, throwing the compositional timeline into disarray.

The music is not changed when albums are remastered. Generally it's the overall sound of the album that is tweaked.  Exile On Main Street  is an exception, but the "spirit" of the album was retained with the new lyrics and melodies that Jagger added. So what it comes down to is a fix of the technology. It's changing analogue to digital. It's repainting over old colours. The sounds are made current for today's audio reproduction devices. The big audiophile stereo systems of the past have been replaced by digital home theatre audio with Dolby this and THX that and a sub-woofer and, of course, the teensy little earbuds, but I digress.

Imperfections in the analogue recordings show up to a greater degree once the sounds are digitized, so in essence, an album's sound is cleaned up when it is remastered. There is more definition between instruments, although one could argue that we don't hear that way in the real world. Performance sound is not as clinical as a digital recording. In a live setting, the instruments blend to give a complete audio experience and even if the album was originally recorded live in the studio (the band plays like it's on stage rather than recording each instrument individually), if the digital reissue has been remixed, it is not the same recording as the original vinyl mix. 

Remasters, remixes, and reissues are financially attractive for the record companies and the artists. They have already made money once off the recordings and the reissue gives them the opportunity to make money off the same recordings again. If you throw greatest hits albums into the mix, the labels can profit several times off the same set of songs. Over and over.

I'm geeky enough that remasters are interesting to me. I have audiophile vinyl records that, at the time, were touted as being the definitive way the records should be heard. Definitive as far as the current technology goes that is. The reissues today are no different. It's a modernizing of the sound taking advantage of the fact that people don't like to listen to "old sounding" records. If we did, 78s would be the rage too. But, generally the Great Unwashed could not tell the difference between a good vinyl record and a remastered digital one. The digital one would sound louder, that's all. And most people (geeks aside) are content with whatever version of an album they have. Are the reissues valuable? In a manner of speaking, yes. Vinyl will last longer, but the reissues help bring the music to a new audience and they can be useful for archival purposes.

So, for the music geeks out there, reissues, remasters, etc. satisfy the musical Jones. And if it's your favourite band, even better.

The Loudness War and Bad Sound

Have you ever noticed that the music you listen to today seems louder than the music you listened to ten or even twenty years ago? It's not an audio hallucination, it's a result of something called the loudness war. What's the loudness war? Well, in a nutshell, it's a ramping up of the sound level of the final mix of a recording. Once all the tracks have been recorded, the recording is passed on to the mastering engineer. It's at this stage where the overall sound of the recording is compressed and, at the same time, the dynamic range is reduced. In other words, the difference between the soft parts of the song and the louder parts becomes negligible. By squashing the dynamic range, it's possible to increase the volume to the point where something called "clipping" would normally occur (think of this as distortion and not the good kind), but because of compression the danger of clipping is reduced and the music can be mastered louder.

But dynamics are necessary to bring a piece of music to life. Dynamics allow the music to breathe and create space. Live performance, for example, has an incredible dynamic range. Think of a composition such as Haydn's Surprise Symphony. Without dynamics, the "surprise" in the Surprise Symphony wouldn't be much of a surprise at all. To put it another way, removing dynamics in music is like getting rid of all of the shades of colour. Can you imagine a world where there is one shade of green, one shade of blue, one shade of red? Not only that, all the colours are neon. Now, transfer that idea to music and you might get a clearer picture of the consequences of the loudness war.

The loudness war has been raging since the days of vinyl. Back then, no producer wanted their record to be the quietest one in the jukebox, so the output levels of the master mix would be increased. When CDs finally dominated the market, the loudness war really came to fruition. Known as "hot mastering" in the studio world, it has become commonplace for CDs released in the 00s to sound louder than those released in the 80s and 90s and, of course, much louder than a vinyl record. Oddly enough as well, the Great Unwashed grew to equate volume with quality. If it sounds louder, then it must be better.
 
To add insult to injury, the advent of portable music devices such as the Walkman in the 1980s and presently the iPod also contributed to the degrading sound. Have you noticed that sound quality is not a selling feature of the iPod, or any other MP3 player for that matter? The main selling feature is storage space, ironically not the quality of the sound. It's like advertising for a race car that doesn't mention how fast it goes. And when earbuds are brought into the picture, sound quality deteriorates even further. It's bad enough that the music is compressed, but then to put compressed music through substandard speakers (earbuds) and you're left with music that is a mere shell of its former self.

For the audiophile it's somewhat of a conundrum. Having high-end gear to play your music through is wonderful, but if the sound of the music has already been compromised, the highest-end gear will not make it sound better. So what's the point of the great gear? Certainly there are recordings out there that have a dynamic range that hasn't been cannibalized. You can find these in genres like classical, folk, and jazz. On the other hand, pop, rock, country, hip hop, R&B, and even contemporary blues have had the lifeblood sucked out of them. Now I'm not saying that music should not be played loud. Of course it should. Loud music with its dynamic range intact sounds exciting and powerful. In a lot of ways, it's how music should be listened to; however, reducing the dynamic range does a disservice not only to the artist but also to the listener. 

At one time, The Who had the dubious honour of being the loudest rock band in the world. Loudest in performance that is. The loudness war has made almost every artist the loudest in the world, loudest recordings instead of performance.

Personally, I'll take the loud performance. I'm tired of my CDs shouting at me.

40 Years After "Ohio"

Tin soldiers and Nixon's comin'
We're finally on our own
This summer I hear the drummin'
Four dead in Ohio*

This week passed a somewhat ignominious anniversary. On May 4, 1970 national guardsmen fired on student demonstrators at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio. Four students were killed and at least nine more wounded. Sadly, the students were killed up to 390 feet away as they were walking across the campus or standing. Several of the wounded students were shot at greater distances. The farthest being 750 feet where student Donald Mackenzie was shot in the neck. They were not part of the demonstration, simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Toward the end of the 1960s, student protests were becoming more frequent. The war in Vietnam was still raging and the Nixon administration, elected on a platform of ending the war, was slow to admit the futility of the conflict and even slower to end it. Anti-war protests on campuses were frequently met with force and invariably it was the students who received more than they bargained for. Kent State was the culmination of anger and frustration felt on both sides. There is still conjecture surrounding the events of that day, but one thing is certain, the Ohio National Guard used disproportionate force in their attempt to break up the demonstration. There was no reason to shoot.

Enter Neil Young. In 1970 he had joined with Steven Stills, David Crosby, and Graham Nash to form Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. Their album Déjà Vu was released in March of 1970 and became a platinum seller. Two months later, while hanging out at their road manager's house, Crosby handed Neil a copy of Life magazine containing the famous picture of a Kent State student grieving over the body of her dead classmate. Neil was moved by the photo and the story, and grabbing his guitar he wrote one of the quintessential contemporary protest songs, "Ohio." "On the porch in the sunlight," recalls Crosby. Within twenty-four hours a studio was booked and the song was recorded. It reached number fourteen surpassing CSN &Y's previous single from Déjà Vu "Teach Your Children."

Lyrically, "Ohio" is short. Two strophes. Just ten lines. But in those ten lines Neil captured the fear, frustration, and anger felt by youth across the country. In typical Young fashion he sets it to a plodding dirge that asks the question, "What if you knew her and found her dead on the ground? How can you run when you know?" The prevailing thought among much of the older generation was that the students deserved it. Neil turns this around and brings home the tragedy by making it a personal question. What if it was you or someone you cared about? What then?

As usual, some radio stations refused to play the song and Neil was criticized for writing it in the first place. The perception being that these long-haired hippies (CSN & Y) were profiting off the tragedy. This was not lost on Neil, as he admits being conflicted over the success of the song, "I always felt funny about makin' money off that. It never has been resolved. I think I resolved it by the way I treated other things after. That was about the first time I had to have a conscience about something like that."**

Still, after 40 years, "Ohio" is still relevant. Parallels between the war in Vietnam and the U.S. conflict in Iraq have been drawn, but that is not the point. Wars will always be protested, the important thing to take away from "Ohio" is the simple act of saying something. In other words, it tells us not to be silent when injustices occur and to have some empathy for those who are suffering because of those injustices. This is not some 1960's counterculture, touchy-feely concept, this still applies.

After all, what if you knew her?


* Neil Young, "Ohio" (1970)
**Jimmy McDonough, Shakey: Neil Young's Biography (2002): 346.