Remastering Music Is Music Revisionism

Why this urge to judge the past by present standards? Won’t our current standards be outdated soon enough?

a hip-hop singer presides over a court with a gavel in his hand and headphones on his ears while Aristotle, Da Vinci and Einstein stand accused in front of him, modern digital art — by DALL·E

I have written before about remastering records. I deplore the practice with an abnormal passion.

Digitally Remastered Rant

As I was listening to Selling England By The Pound by Genesis for what must have been the tenth time this week, it hit me again: all that added compression from the early 2000s. The record, from 1973, had none of that. Then, thirty-five years later, some label executive decided the music needed to be brought up to digital standards. Probably, the reason was that, some years before, another executive had discovered that although most people don’t understand what “digitally remastered” means, it sounds good and sells better.

A Summary Of 21st-Century Politics

As music became louder thanks to the digital revolution, record companies fought to have the loudest music out there because we humans are biased to perceive loud as better. As a quick aside, equating loudness to better could be a summary of early 21st-century politics. Naturally, it doesn’t take high levels of intelligence to see that the equation is flawed. However, music on the radio is about first impressions, so the fate…