# Music That Is Difficult To Date



## Chr!s (Dec 27, 2018)

Some time ago, I saw an interview where Mick Gordon talked about how following production trends is a good way to wind up making your music sound dated down the road.

I've thought about that since, and I suspect that "modern" styles like dubstep or trailer music will soon sound "old". 

Musicians who never really rely on trendy sounds or recording techniques do indeed seem to be hard to put a date on, for example:

1994



1995



1990



To me, all of these recordings sound like they could've been made today. I'd wager that if you showed most 15 year olds today, they'd probably think these were new songs, but they're almost 30 years old.

ACDC always just sounds like ACDC. They never really fell in with whatever was the trend of the day. I first heard thunderstruck when I was like 13, and I thought it was a new track, but was already 15 years old.

Anyone have any more examples? Like, what's the oldest recording you can think of that is tough to guess the year or decade on?


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## Henu (Dec 27, 2018)

If you take anything rock or metal recorded 30 years ago and remaster it to match "today's standards" (which I personally am not a big fan of), it starts quickly to be very hard to recognize the original date of the album only production-wise.

Most of those two genres' production values haven't changed much and while the first decade of the 2000´s we saw all productions being even more perfect, polished and even plastic-ky, it quickly went to the situation at the turn of 2010's where everything sounded so artificial that many bands, fans and producers have been toning it down a bit for the last couple of years- especially in the metal scene.

I think we've been past the peak of overpolished crap in rock and metal music, and many producers are now taking notes again of the time there was still some "danger" left in the music and production, a.k.a anything before the early 2000´s. This makes an album recorded in 2016 much harder to separate from an album recorded (and remastered in 2016) in 1993, while an album recorded in 2009 sounds completely different in all of it's plasticness. 

This being said, I can also be living in a happy bubble but goddamn, I don't want to leave it. Bring back the 90´s...but just leave us today's sample libraries, please. :D


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## Nao Gam (Dec 27, 2018)

Henu said:


> If you take anything rock or metal recorded 30 years ago and remaster it to match "today's standards" (which I personally am not a big fan of), it starts quickly to be very hard to recognize the original date of the album only production-wise.
> 
> Most of those two genres' production values haven't changed much and while the first decade of the 2000´s we saw all productions being even more perfect, polished and even plastic-ky, it quickly went to the situation at the turn of 2010's where everything sounded so artificial that many bands, fans and producers have been toning it down a bit for the last couple of years- especially in the metal scene.
> 
> ...


Curious, is it the polished mixing/mastering in today's metal that bugs you? Or the songwriting itself? I personally seem to like polished, well compressed metal mixes tho too much reverb/delay on the voice can be cheesy


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## Chr!s (Dec 27, 2018)

Henu said:


> If you take anything rock or metal recorded 30 years ago and remaster it to match "today's standards" (which I personally am not a big fan of), it starts quickly to be very hard to recognize the original date of the album only production-wise.



I dunno, I mean for some of it sure, but a lot of that stuff at the time absolutely followed the trends of the day. Like, if you remastered this, I'm sure it'd still sound distinctly "80s"



For the heavier stuff though, yeah I guess a lot of it probably does still sound current. Actually, I'd say better than the new, binary-code metal.



Yeah, that sounds great. Way better than their new stuff. God, I forgot how good In Flames used to be.


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## Henu (Dec 28, 2018)

Nao Gam said:


> Curious, is it the polished mixing/mastering in today's metal that bugs you?



Mostly that, but also the fact that all "danger" has been polished out as well in today's (mainstream) metal- not to even mention the robotization of the recorded instrument tracks. Yep, sometimes you need to fix something a bit, but I know people who actually beat align the DI'd guitar tracks before they reamp them by default. Just how metal is that?

I work also as a metal producer whenever I'm not composing music, and I only work with bands who deliberately want more "natural" sound instead of everything being polished to hell and back. There's nothing fun on slapping a 0- velocity triggers to every drum, flatten every instrument with a multiband compressor and build the bass sound out of four differently filtered tracks. Besides, as the band has used a lot of energy to capture their aggressive music in the recording situation, it wouldn't be fair to be now watering it all down in the mix phase. Nobody wants a _bad_ sound to their album, but I think that in this era of perfection we have forgot that sometimes _too good_ can become bad and _unsuitable_ in itself.



Chr!s said:


> Like, if you remastered this, I'm sure it'd still sound distinctly "80s"



Oh sweet lord, what is that abomination? I thought we were already done with one Def Leppard back in the days. :D But yeah, you are absolutely correct with Autograph, as that songwriting is already so prominent for it's own era. But then again, take bands like Steel Panther and other similar tributes of today...and suddenly we cannot trace anything back anymore due to their purposedly done copycat songwriting and production.



Chr!s said:


> God, I forgot how good In Flames used to be



I was never a fan (the Gothenburg- sound wasn't really my cup of tea at all), but I remember when they started to go more and more "American" in their music and especially production during the whole 2000´s to the extent that I remember laughing at some point I heard their newest album. :(



Nao Gam said:


> too much reverb/delay on the voice



Katharsis disagrees!


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## Rodney Money (Dec 28, 2018)

For me it's Stokowski's orchestral arrangement of Bach's Chaconne from Partita no. 2.


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## Loïc D (Dec 28, 2018)

OP mentionned Loreena McKennitt (good pick!) which made me think about Dead Can Dance.

To me, what makes production sound dated is mostly (by order of relevance)
- synths / drum machines
- guitar effects
- production effects (80s gated reverb)
- songwriting / arrangment (guitar solo of 80s/90s)
All those 4 elements are directing the style, zeitgeist, fashion.

The lesser those elements, the better the aging.
Thus, acoustic based music, or simple electric instruments with few processing (blues, folk, jazz) don’t or never get old.

That said, I still enjoy “Surfing with the alien” : a merry combo of those 4 elements.


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## Nao Gam (Dec 28, 2018)

Henu said:


> Mostly that, but also the fact that all "danger" has been polished out as well in today's (mainstream) metal- not to even mention the robotization of the recorded instrument tracks. Yep, sometimes you need to fix something a bit, but I know people who actually beat align the DI'd guitar tracks before they reamp them by default. Just how metal is that?
> 
> I work also as a metal producer whenever I'm not composing music, and I only work with bands who deliberately want more "natural" sound instead of everything being polished to hell and back. There's nothing fun on slapping a 0- velocity triggers to every drum, flatten every instrument with a multiband compressor and build the bass sound out of four differently filtered tracks. Besides, as the band has used a lot of energy to capture their aggressive music in the recording situation, it wouldn't be fair to be now watering it all down in the mix phase. Nobody wants a _bad_ sound to their album, but I think that in this era of perfection we have forgot that sometimes _too good_ can become bad and _unsuitable_ in itself.
> 
> ...



I guess everyone's taste is different.. while there is a thing as overproduced metal, I've always felt a little sad many metalheads wear cheap sounding productions as a badge of honor. Maybe I'm not a romantic or maybe it's my pop/altern rock original background as a kid but I've seen a lot of the "if you made it big I'm not interested" defeatist attitude in the genre and it's a shame - not that you said anything close to that but I'm sure you've seen it too.
As for the example you posted, while I'll gladly listen to it, it's not the kind of music I'd usually actively look for. I personally prefer productions like Slipknot's or Amon Amarth's.
The reverb does suit the vocals tho as they're further back in the mix. I was thinking sth along those lines (which you'll probably consider overproduced - I'm fine with it except for the vocals which sound cheesy):


I should also mention pitch correction, which makes them sound kinda sterile, I think?
Ok after a couple listens it sounds pretty smashed as a mix but closer to my taste than the katharsis sound


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## Henu (Dec 28, 2018)

Well chosen, sir! This Mask of Prospero basically represent _absolutely everything_ that's wrong with today's metal music for me. :D The Meshuggah- guitars, autotuned and super-aligned things, "prog" (_read as "Devin Townsend_")- elements, machine-like-artificial drums, completely pop-styled overproduced vocals and absolutely no any sort of identity of their own. Which is sad, as I'm sure that these guys could do a lot better if they had a bit more of their own in the package.

I'd love to point out, though, that music tastes are supposed to be different. While I am fully aware that Katharsis' overall style and production doesn't suit everyone's tastes (and to be honest, I'm definitely not referring that as "good" sound either!), I am not going to tell people that they like "shit music". For most, Katharsis represents that shit music anyway, hah! Besides, their songwriting and sound is heavily influenced by the Norwegian band Darkthrone, so it's not that they are exactly re-inventing the wheel either. Everyone is entitled to have the own taste, and even though I might sound like attacking on people's opinions, it's mostly my uncompromising 25+ year love for metal music, attitude and lifestyle which lurks behind my sometimes a bit harshly chosen words.

A bit off-topic, but concerning metal production in general.....

Every album needs the sound it needs, and there is definitely not one sound that fits all albums. What you said about cheap-sounding productions being a sort of badge of honor, I can relate to that to an extent, especially for what it comes to the black metal genre. But most of the time it's a "fine line", as e.g. most of my clients want the sound to be less polished, _yet they want to hear everything they have performed_. Sometimes I may spend actually quite a lot of time to actually find that balance between the sound, and sometimes it's still either too good or too bad for the artist.

As an example I could use a death metal band called "Lie in Ruins" of whose EP and album I produced. We recorded everything in the same session, but mixed the EP first due to release schedules. After the EP was released, the band said that they have changed their minds and want to mix the full album differently and more "garage/old school" sort of way. So, while the EP sounds like this....



....the full-lenght (yes, it says EP in Youtube but it's not) sounds like this instead.



/end of off-topic

You also said yourself that the pitch correction makes Maks of Prospero sound kinda sterile. On that I agree completely, but I also think their overall sound is made first too sterile in the mix, and then later squashed in order to make it more aggressive and heavy. Which is, in my opinion, the worst approach to make aggressive music IN CASE you want to sound aggressive. If you clean the mix too much, you start to lose a lot of things in the process and it's really hard to get that back in master.
On the contrary, you can still polish a messy and undefinitive mix in the hands of a great mastering engineer- I have a couple of albums in my repertoire which were turned from a failed mess of a mix into a "real-sounding album" by my trusted mastering guru.



Nao Gam said:


> I've seen a lot of the "if you made it big I'm not interested" defeatist attitude in the genre and it's a shame - not that you said anything close to that but I'm sure you've seen it too.



Absolutely, but metal is one the genres where "hitting it big" doesn't necessarily mean you are being seen as a sellout. Quite the contrary! E.g. Cannibal Corpse is extremely popular (and one of my favourite bands!), respected and has a huge fanbase. Besides, their production is usually top-notch without sounding plastic or too inhuman. 

Amon Amarth is also considered rather respected as well, but their late offerings have been extremely repetitive and there are a lot of voices raised towards them making musical compromises in order to keep their fanbase growing. Nevertheless, they have never jumped into any sort of trends, which is highly respected in the metal scene.
And speaking of trend-hopping, _that's_ actually the biggest sin in metal. Period. Sell a million records with your own terms and conditions? Acceptable, respectable and awesome. Change musical style and imagery in order to sell more albums? Loathable, despicable and usually the best way to alienate your fanbase faster than light.

Then again, I don't want to turn this discussion about what makes metal  music "true" enough, so I think I need to stop my rantings now. :D It's a very interesting topic and extremely close to my heart, but at the end I also feel that the more it becomes a debate on production values, the more there is a risk to debate on the topic which is more "true metal" and which is not. 
And at the end of the day it's still better to listen to music which is done with heart and soul instead of something the marketing people chose for today's playlist!


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## Nao Gam (Dec 28, 2018)

Henu said:


> Well chosen, sir! This Mask of Prospero basically represent _absolutely everything_ that's wrong with today's metal music for me. :D The Meshuggah- guitars, autotuned and super-aligned things, "prog" (_read as "Devin Townsend_")- elements, machine-like-artificial drums, completely pop-styled overproduced vocals and absolutely no any sort of identity of their own. Which is sad, as I'm sure that these guys could do a lot better if they had a bit more of their own in the package.
> 
> I'd love to point out, though, that music tastes are supposed to be different. While I am fully aware that Katharsis' overall style and production doesn't suit everyone's tastes (and to be honest, I'm definitely not referring that as "good" sound either!), I am not going to tell people that they like "shit music". For most, Katharsis represents that shit music anyway, hah! Besides, their songwriting and sound is heavily influenced by the Norwegian band Darkthrone, so it's not that they are exactly re-inventing the wheel either. Everyone is entitled to have the own taste, and even though I might sound like attacking on people's opinions, it's mostly my uncompromising 25+ year love for metal music, attitude and lifestyle which lurks behind my sometimes a bit harshly chosen words.
> 
> ...



I still wonder how many times a band has tried to take itself to a new direction and was percieved as "selling out" by part of its fanbase.
But yeah, I generally agree with everything you've laid out.
As for mask of prospero, it's actually a friend's band  don't worry no offense taken. The vocal processing, lyrics & limiting/compression applied do bug me as well, plus the occasional sudden key/signature change that usually comes with prog metal ( not a big fan of prog, I think this is actually djent as well? Still not sure what the djent thing is) but other than that I'd totally listen to it. My friend is the bassist and he also plays guitar, he loves muse and dream theater, it might be showing a bit here.
As for the drums, the drummer had to use samples as they couldn't afford recording drums for this so maybe that's why they sound artificial to you. She's normally very good and also a tiny adorable vegan, which makes it even more awesome when she's smashing those drums like hell on stage.



Completely unrelated but there's a worrisome, self-reflecting frenchman on my potato box





He probably missed his spitfire wishlist!


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## Jimmy Hellfire (Dec 28, 2018)

Since Metal became this plastic-made nerd music, it became unbearable for me. It's an absolute joke.


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## Nao Gam (Dec 28, 2018)

Jimmy Hellfire said:


> Since Metal became this plastic-made nerd music, it became unbearable for me. It's an absolute joke.


Oh come on... There's a ton of different metal bands out there making great music. Here..


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## Jimmy Hellfire (Dec 28, 2018)

Nao Gam said:


> Oh come on... There's a ton of different metal bands out there making great music. Here..



No, honestly. I think that stuff is dilletantish and ridiculous. Metal is far beyond the point of contentual bankruptcy and the production values are desatrous. In its contemporary variety, the genre oscillates between the cornerstones of a masquerade shitshow, nerd and escapist nonsense and superficial poser culture. On a way more elementary level, hardly anyone knows anything about actual songwriting. That's what I'm hearing.


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## Nao Gam (Dec 28, 2018)

Jimmy Hellfire said:


> No, honestly. I think that stuff is dilletantish and ridiculous. Metal is far beyond the point of contentual bankruptcy and the production values are desatrous. In its contemporary variety, the genre oscillates between the cornerstones of a masquerade shitshow, nerd and escapist nonsense and superficial poser culture. On a way more elementary level, hardly anyone knows anything about actual songwriting. That's what I'm hearing.


What's the metal you used to love then? Dio? Sabbath?


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## Jimmy Hellfire (Dec 28, 2018)

Nao Gam said:


> What's the metal you used to love then? Dio? Sabbath?



Those two not so much. Although I can appreciate some of the songs. I liked lots of different stuff, but that's not the point. My criticism isn't towards styles, but musicianship and songwriting, sonic sensitivities and culture.

In fact, the whole thing about all the styles, sub-styles and what not was one of the things that did Metal in. It gradually developed to a thing where people are more interested in deciding what type of "style" they wanted to do, or what stupid name they could give to their derivative variant nonsense, than coming up with good music.

Generally, I also think that Metal has shifted towards unmusicality to a great degree. On the one side of the spectrum, there's the incredibly fake sounding, edited-to-death garbage, and on the other side the celebrated dilettantism. Pick your posion. Oh yeah - don't get me started on the whole topic of singing and the role of the vocalist.

The general level of musicality is atrocious. Note that I said musicality, not musicianship. The fact that a style of playing that consists mainly of chugging along to choppy subdivisions of 4/4 in nonsensically low tunings, and occasionally performing masturbating hand motions over triad arpeggios is considered "technical" really says it all. Same with the sonics. I would actually argue that younger listeners of contemporary Metal have a very warped idea of what guitar playing is, and most certainly have no idea what an actual drum kit sounds like.

And then there's all the poser culture and masquerade, for fuck's sake. Demons and wizards, vikings and pirates, and idiots who act as if they were a sect and give themselves ridiculous role playing names. Granted, stuff like this has always existed in Metal to some degree, but the escapism, self-therapy and theatrics are unbearable. Talk about vicarious embarassment!

So yeah, it just isn't what it was and has morphed into something else I personally have a very hard time relating to. It's a joke genre. There's many different reasons as to why it turned out the way it did and I think that it's just a sign of the times. The way society, culture, economy and the music industry work now - it's just not a fruitful time for music scenes, bands, musicians and the whole spirit and craft around it.


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## Henu (Dec 29, 2018)

This sounds like you were almost into metal five years ago but quickly grew out of it because you _matured_.


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## Chr!s (Dec 29, 2018)

Henu said:


> This sounds like you were almost into metal five years ago but quickly grew out of it because you _matured_.



As a person who used to be really into metal down to the silliest sub-genres, he honestly has a point.



Jimmy Hellfire said:


> The general level of musicality is atrocious. Note that I said musicality, not musicianship. The fact that a style of playing that consists mainly of chugging along to choppy subdivisions of 4/4 in nonsensically low tunings, and occasionally performing masturbating hand motions over triad arpeggios is considered "technical" really says it all. Same with the sonics. I would actually argue that younger listeners of contemporary Metal have a very warped idea of what guitar playing is, and most certainly have no idea what an actual drum kit sounds like.



I would say the low level of average musicality and musicianship is due to the nature of the electric guitar in metal music.

This is something I noticed in bands. When I was a teenager, I reasoned that most of the guys I was jamming with sucked because they just weren't as dedicated as I was, and that was true to an extent. Then, when I started jamming with 30 - 40 year olds, I found I ran into the same problem.

The reason is because you can go out and buy a basic strat copy and low-watt Line 6 or other modeling amp, crank up the distortion, and learn how to play some cool sounding riffs with minimal effort. By design, you only need to know the power chord finger shape and how to palm mute and you can play a whole range of badass riffs.

This causes delusion into thinking "Hey, I'm not bad and should join a band of other wannabe rockstars". Most bands also tend to delegate different roles simply because "we already have a guitar player or two". So the shittiest guitar player takes up bass and the vocalist does it because "somebody has to" and when in doubt, just try screaming. Drummers suffer a similar problem to guitarists.

The point is, it takes a lot more skill to play even the most basic things well on most other instruments and the fact that you sound like shit (and can't just play unplugged or play with headphones) means that people who aren't serious about learning the instrument are going to drop it pretty quickly.



Jimmy Hellfire said:


> Demons and wizards, vikings and pirates, and idiots who act as if they were a sect and give themselves ridiculous role playing names. Granted, stuff like this has always existed in Metal to some degree, but the escapism, self-therapy and theatrics are unbearable.



Eh, I don't think any of that is inherently bad, but a lot of bands, specifically "power metal" bands since Norweigan black metal have taken gimmicks to stupid levels.

We demand to be taken seriously!







My main beef with a lot of metal today is that it's too silly or too "low palm-muting on absurdly lowtuning" like you say. My main beef with a lot of metal in general is that I don't like the recording style of 90% of it and there are a lot of mediocre songs.

When it's good, it's great, though. 


Anywho, we're super off-topic.


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## Henu (Dec 29, 2018)

I'm getting more "seriously" back on the topic later, @Chr!s , but I need to quickly point out that an ex-member of this particular band is an active user of this forum. :D Not sure if he's in the picture, though, he might had quit before this "era" of the band.

(No, I'm definitely not mocking him nor this band- in fact, many of these peeps in the picture are my personal friends from a long time since. But I just find the coincidence fun. :D )


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## Chr!s (Dec 29, 2018)

Henu said:


> I'm getting more "seriously" back on the topic later, @Chr!s , but I need to quickly point out that an ex-member of this particular band is an active user of this forum. :D Not sure if he's in the picture, though, he might had quit before this "era" of the band.
> 
> (No, I'm definitely not mocking him nor this band- in fact, many of these peeps in the picture are my personal friends from a long time since. But I just find the coincidence fun. :D )




Oh, don't get me wrong, I love Turisas.

But they're silly as hell lol


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## Jimmy Hellfire (Dec 29, 2018)

Henu said:


> This sounds like you were almost into metal five years ago but quickly grew out of it because you _matured_.



Well. I was into Metal since the late 80es, but sure enough I matured. One would hope. Still, the notion is faulty because it makes it sound as if the music and its quality actually never changed. Which most certainly and objectively isn't the case.


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## fiestared (Dec 29, 2018)

Chr!s said:


> Some time ago, I saw an interview where Mick Gordon talked about how following production trends is a good way to wind up making your music sound dated down the road.
> 
> I've thought about that since, and I suspect that "modern" styles like dubstep or trailer music will soon sound "old".
> 
> ...



EXCELLENT THREAD


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## krops (Dec 29, 2018)

Interesting topic (hard to date music). I'd like to throw in this one:


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## Chr!s (Dec 29, 2018)

krops said:


> Interesting topic (hard to date music). I'd like to throw in this one:




I dunno, to me the synths in that sound pretty oldschool. I would guess late 80s or early 90s.

I think I found another good one. Though the drums kinda give it away.



Under-rated rock song, IMO


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## CT (Dec 29, 2018)

Music is very difficult to date, as it turns out. I should find time to do it with women again.


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## Chr!s (Jan 13, 2019)

I found an interesting one. This is from 85, and definitely sounds like it, but something about the sound quality of it makes it feel like a modern throwback.



Can't put my finger on it


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