Much has been written about the changes that technology has wrought in the business of music: how we listen to it, how we access it, how we buy it - and who profits. But, as the following article explains, influence of mobility and the technological platforms through which we access music, the way we listen to it, is changing not just the business, but the nature of music itself.
Those changes have shaped our notions about quality and value that are having a ripple effect on how music is presented not just online, but in big and small arenas, in the nature of the way it is marketed and in the degree to which we are willing or not to make purchase decisions based on all of those factors.
In other words, the confluence of mobility and quality are reshaping the fundamental nature of the experience. That is all well and good for music, which is a major cultural touchpoint for most humans. But then imagine what this is doing to other businesses and processes and experiences. And that should provide you with a sense of this evolution's scope and scale. JL
Nick Messitte reports in Forbes:
As the music we buy becomes more and more influenced by the headphones we listen through, songs which do not sound good in headphones have a harder time succeeding in pop arenas.
On March 26th, Zack O’Malley Greenburg broke an exciting story for Forbes: When Wu Tang Clan releases The Wu – Once Upon a Time in Shaolin, it will be a singular piece of music in the truest sense of that word, as only one physical copy of the album will exist.
The plan is to take the LP on a museum tour across the world; a few paragraphs into his article, my colleague divulged a piece of information vital to that plan: anyone attending a listening exhibition of the LP will “likely have to listen to the 128-minute album’s 31 songs on headphones provided by the venue.”
This snippet of information could wind up being the lynchpin of the whole operation, for museum headphone are typically lack-luster in quality.
Cheaply made, tinny of sound, uncomfortable to wear, and often malfunctioning in one ear, museum headphones are probably the worst delivery system for Hip Hop, short of a tin can and string cupped to your ear.
Of course, the museums may offer something better for the Wu. The super-group might very well insist that they do. Nevertheless, one statement remains fact: for an audience vying for their only opportunity to hear a landmark record, the choice of headphone is paramount. In this case, it is literally all about the headphones.
Take a closer look at the history of pop music though, and you’ll see it’s been all about the headphones for quite some time.
Headphone technology has undoubtedly changed the way we listen to music. But more than that, it has changed the way music–particularly pop music–is produced in the first place.
Take this to its logical conclusion, and you’ll see that the evolution of headphones has had a direct impact on the business of pop—and I’m not talking about celebrity-specific stunts like Beats By Dre. I’m talking about sonics: the sonics of headphones has changed the sonics of the music we buy.
The results of this are cumulative: as the music we buy becomes more and more influenced by the headphones we listen through, songs which do not sound good in headphones have a harder time succeeding in pop arenas.
Here’s an example that’s easy to understand:
Ever listen to an old Beatles CD through headphones? Notice how off-balance they could feel, with the drums blasting through one headphone and the vocals chirping through the other? Well, the fact that you noticed is a testament to how thoroughly headphones have influenced your perception of music.
See, the first stereo mixes were designed to be played in physical locations—such as your living room—where pushing the drummer off to one side wouldn’t sound jarring, but instead, true to life: on a stage, one band member might stand to the left, another to the right, and the first stereo mixes were intended to represent such a stage plot.
But in the private arena of headphones, the experience of hearing a drummer blast through one solitary ear is entirely disorienting. It’s a matter of balance, a matter of symmetry—the ear is taking a pounding from one side but not the other; something inevitably feels off.
These days, a record mixed in the old fashion—with the drums pushed to one ear and the vocals towards another—feels at best retro and at worst crude; sporting such a sound, a song can only hope for success in niche markets. It would be far harder for a tune mixed in such fashion to achieve global appeal in the marketplace, as the marketplace has been conditioned to expect an altogether different sound.
That was an example out of the distant past. Here’s a much more recent one:
In 2001, Apple AAPL +0.82% introduced the iPod, and with it, their (now ubiquitous) earbuds. Because of the iPod’s documented proliferation, audiences have been pumping noise into their ears through those earbuds for almost fifteen years. This has had an undeniable effect on the way consumers process music, and in turn, how producers craft their records.
iPod Shuffle Earphones (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The explanation of this phenomenon is scientific, but here’s a laymen’s crack at it:
Earbuds were originally designed to be economical. As such, their sound is far from perfect, or even good (recently there has been a corrective measure on this front, but that’s another story altogether). The way they represent frequencies is essentially off-kilter.
In English, a bass will sound far less full, far less deep—far less bassy—through earbuds. Again, the reasoning for this is scientific: low frequencies require a larger mechanism to push sound-waves through air than earbuds can physically provide.
Bass instruments (electric basses, acoustic basses, and bass synths) are not the only elements to suffer in earbuds. Drums also sound less powerful. Other acoustic instruments take a hit as well: take out the bottom frequencies of a piano, and the piano begins to sound less like a piano. Because of this, listening to older, piano-based jazz through earbuds often becomes an unpleasant and tinny exercise.
Listening to piano-centric pop-ballads like John Legend’s “All Of Me” or Adele’s “Someone Like You” would be similarly unpleasant—if mixing engineers did not compensate for the inferior technology plugged into your ears.
Yes, as in all things, the producers and engineers of today have accounted for earbud technology, and have adapted the sound of their songs to reflect this change.
Here’s how they go about doing it:
While earbuds cannot accurately represent lower frequencies, they are, if anything, over representative of mid-range frequencies.
So what producers and engineers have done, over the years, is to use all sorts of audio-chicanery to trick your ears into hearing a bass sound that’s fundamentally missing from your earbuds.
For example, the 808 kick drum has become a hallmark of pop music—it’s the first instrument you hear in Lorde’s “Royals”. Yet left unmixed, an 808 kick drum could be almost inaudible on earbuds (or laptop speakers, which sport almost the same sound profile).
To fool your ears into believing the 808 is present within the song, an engineer will manipulate an 808’s overtones to resonate in the mid-range frequencies.
Think of it this way: you won’t hear the 808 kick drum on your earbuds, but if mixed correctly, you will hear a representation of that 808–like a courtroom drawing of a criminal suspect in lieu of a photograph. You will hear this representation because the low-sounding 808 has been manipulated to resound throughout the mid-range frequencies.
It’s akin to a magic trick: just as David Blaine might convince you he has shoved an ice-pick through his hand, the engineer Jaycen Joshua might convince you you’re hearing an 808 kick drum in your earbuds.
Browse through pro-audio communities such as Gearslutz, Prosoundweb, and the wonderful Pensado’s Place, and you’ll find engineers around the globe discussing the earbud phenomenon, and how to cater records for it.
Indeed, jamming as much sonic information as possible into the mid-range has become second nature to our most enduring producers because it translates so well to earbuds; as legendary engineer Jack Joseph Puig put it, “it’s the one thing you hear.”
So how does it all relate to the Wu?
Given how drastically earbuds have changed the sound of pop, this poses a unique challenge for Wu Tang’s Shaolin: it’s been reported the producer’s aim “was to create an album with a vintage Wu-Tang sound“–presumably the boom-boom bap! of dark kicks and bucket-like snares, the distinct lack of high frequencies characteristic of 90s era Hip Hop.
But the technology of earbuds has ensured this style has become outmoded—as retro as pushing all your drums to one headphone or the other. Because of how earbuds have changed the sound of pop music, ‘90s era Hip-Hop is identifiably old-hat.
Therefore, when Once Upon A Time In Shaolin hits the Louvre, it could face more than one hurdle—the lackluster quality of museum headphones being just the beginning. The real hurdle, unfortunately, is us: our ears have been tuned to favor a newer sound, and this could have a drastic impact on the business of Wu Tang. You can thank the earbud for that.
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