Further adventures in the death of music

I've known and been ranting about over-compression of music for a few years now, since back when it was only a topic covered in audio-nerd magazines and blogs.

The last year or two, though, awareness of the problem has spread nicely. Not enough for a critical mass of people to stop buying crap and force the record companies to actually take advantage of the talents of music engineers and producers, but still, you gotta start somewhere.

I'll say though, this is the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen:


(image from Gizmodo)

At the top, you see a segment of one of the new Metallica songs as heard on Guitar Hero 3. At the bottom, the same segment off the CD.

Holy carp! Nuance? Dynamic range? Who needs it?! (And spare the jokes about metal and Metallica and nuance, blah blah.)

So Activision got the masters as envisioned by Rick Rubin (see below), and left them alone. Metallica's record label squashed the shit out of them to make it LOUDLOUDLOUDLOUD. No wonder I quit listening after midway through the 4th song. I couldn't stand it anymore.

For background, here is one of the best articles you'll find, and the comments are top-notch too. Wiki has a good one as well.

Well, I'm sure glad I didn't pay for the new Metallica. I'll have to wait for the anniversary remaster next year.

UPDATE: Found a cool video demonstration. Of course, you kinda need to listen through decent speakers or earphones.

UPDATE UPDATE: More on the Metallica album. "In comparison, the released CD version is - to coin a technical phrase - smashed to f**k." I'm disappointed to find that Rick Rubin had something to do with this. It's usually the label's mastering engineer at the end who does this shit, after the producer and the band are done.

UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE: Sure enough, uncompressed FLAC files from GH3 are "out there," if you know what I mean. Report forthcoming.