Artists should not be allowed to re-master

Here is one idea many people will disagree with.
I don't care, I have thought long about it and I stick with it.

Artists don't have a clue about their own work. And worse, they have much less respect for it than their audiences, because in their minds if this record is lost, they can always do another one, just as good, or actually... better.

What I mean is that a great guitarist, playing in a great band, can come up with great music. Great. It's all great. But then the process of producing the album involves the skills and ears of good sound engineers, some really good equipment, probably a series of lucky accidents, and as a result we have a record that becomes a milestone in the history of recorded music.
This same guitarist, twenty years later, will be involved in the re-mastering of the CD. Well, my point is that the guitarist is not the best person to judge on the sound quality, because he was never really responsible for it in the first place.

Musicians play with what they find: it's 1970, throw a Fender Rhodes and a tape recorder at a skilled jazz player... he will switch on, crank up the volume and play. Classic record.
Part of that sound is due to the characteristic of the instrument and the (side) effect of tape compression, but this wasn't there by design, it just happened to be the technology at the time, so that is a happy accident that humankind has to be thankful for.
The same musician in 1990 will take a digital keyboard and one 16bit digital recorder, and the same brilliant sequence of notes will not have the same magic effect on my ears. And yet, from the musician's point of view nothing has changed.

Of course players spend a lifetime perfecting the tone of their instrument, but that's where they stop. Very few can hear the sound of a mixed album in the same way their sound engineer can.

One example of all this comes from one of the most respected musicians of the 20th century, Frank Zappa. In 1983 he released a LP called The Man From Utopia Meets Mary Lou.
As it happens it turned out my first Zappa record and -possibly because of that- a great favourite of mine. Rumor has it that Zappa was never entirely happy with it, so it was entirely remixed in the 90s, not by Zappa himself but under his supervision.

The result is the 'Zappa authorised' version, which is simply unbearable. If the original mix was well balanced but a bit lacking in bass, this one has instruments all over the place, with -for some bizarre reason- massive prominence given to the floor tom, a very thin bass guitar, and it's generally speaking a very bad mix.
Once again, this is the only version that one can buy now, and it's the only one that will remain for posterity, unless someone makes a recording of the vinyl.
If you happen to have it or if you know where I could buy the original LP, please post a comment.

About this blog

I have been meaning to start this project for a very long time. To cut a long story short, records (and to a lesser extent movies) get remastered. Digitally re-mastered: bigger, better, louder, new liner notes, new bonus tracks, etc.
The re-master is commissioned by the record company that owns the record, and it comes with the blessing - and in some cases the direct involvement - of the original artists and producers. Truth is, for them is a no-brainer: it's free money. It would be stupid not to do it.
Most people don't care, and indeed might be attracted by the idea of a classic record made even better.

I respect that. But for myself, I was absolutely fine with the original, and it's not just a matter of romantic attachment to the sounds I grew up with: given the chance to compare the originals with some of these 'improved' versions, using a decent set of speakers instead of a mobile phone, most people will agree that louder means worse, or at least significantly different.
And the real problem is this: every time a CD is remastered, the old version goes off catalog. You might think that it doesn't matter, since you already own a collection of your favorite CDs, but it does matter, because compact discs don't last forever (just about ten to twenty years, as a matter of fact, before all those ones and zeroes fade away) and the only version you will be able to buy is the re-master of the month.

What I am proposing here is the institution of the Masters Preservation Society, dedicated to the conservation of original masters by ways of collecting originals, cataloging re-issues (and noting the differences), recording copies before it's too late, finding legal ways to make these originals available.
Any such activity will be tagged MPSFTLW which stands for Masters Preservation Society: Fight The Loudness War. The ridiculously long acronym is intentional, so that it will be easier for anyone to find relevant information on internet or elsewhere.

To clarify: if you want to turn the Mona Lisa in to a 3D hologram go ahead, why not? It can be an interesting alternative interpretation. But would you replace the one in the Louvre and update every book, encyclopedia with the re-mastered version?
Whether you agree or disagree you are welcome to post your comments to this blog. You can read more about this topic in posts labelled MPSFTLW.

Thank you for listening.

F.