This makes me sick!!!

So a week ago I bought the newest Jeremy Camp album.  He is one of the few CCM artists I really like.  Anyway, so I started listening in the car and I told my wife that except for the guitars the music all sounded programed.  I opened the liner notes and I was exactly right!!!  The acoustic and electric guitars were the only musicians credited.  The programming was so generic that the programmer wasn't even credited!

I hate that music has become so robotic.  I know this is a cheap way to produce music from the label's point of view, but the listener gets cheated from real musicianship.  Thank the Lord that I grew up in the 70s and 80s when people still played their instruments and played them well.  I feel so sorry for the younger generations who actually think that their music is good.

It's a sad, sad time for music.

It's become ridiculous how much so-called music is programmed, rather than performed.

How sad is this.

Terribly sad.
I think it started in the 80's though with the big drum machine craze.  Lots of popular artists were ditching perfectly good drummers to use a drum machine on their records.  I was listening to something from Madonna's first album (or possibly second, not sure), and it was obvious that the drum track(s) was not made by human hands.

I understand the why of labels doing this.  It is merely to cut costs on recording.  If you can program it quickly, then you can cut a record cheaply.  That cuts down on what the label has to recoup on their investment with an artist.

Sadly, though, they ditch good musicianship in exchange for cheap art.  What is even sadder is that many music fans don't even realize that they've been duped into buying or streaming lower quality music.  They are not getting wowed by a performance anymore.  To me it would be like going to see the Barnam & Bailey Circus versus going to some little roadside circus that can't give you the same experience due to a lower budget.

Due the extreme high costs to release an album they have started with kickstarter projects.
I wonder why the cost to produce an album are so extreme high.
Maybe a stupid question.

rockerVu2 wrote:

Due the extreme high costs to release an album they have started with kickstarter projects.
I wonder why the cost to produce an album are so extreme high.
Maybe a stupid question.

Not stupid at all!

If you don't own your own recording gear and have a good knowledge of how to create a great sound, then you will have to use a more professional studio.  Many studios charge around $100 an hour these days.  An album can take many days or even weeks to record, so that money goes up quickly.  If you bring in an outside producer to help you get the sound you desire, he gets paid.  Then, you have to pay for mastering.  Lastly, you have ot pay to have your CDs made and distributed.  It can take tens of thousands of dollars if you have to do all that.

Yep, I understand that.
But ... isn't that the end of the music?
When the costs are so high to hire an professional studio?

rockerVu2 wrote:

Yep, I understand that.
But ... isn't that the end of the music?
When the costs are so high to hire an professional studio?

It's been done that way for decades, so I don't think it brings/brought an end to music. Crap is what brings an end to music. I remember in the 80's hearing a great song on MTV, going out and buying the album, and the rest of it sucked. After a while I got tired of being duped. One of the best thing was when they introduced listening stations. Good for me, bad for them, as then I didn't buy what I didn't like. With a lot of pop there was just filler, and people got tired of that.