Fascinating article, Robin. Thanks for sharing it.
+1 and WOW!
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Indeed!
I’ll buy the next round then! 
Oh yeah! It does make me think… do people drink at listening sessions?.. Would be a great way of selling speakers I suppose.
Its all down to physics and opinion… If I was the client, I’d consider sobriety at least part of the time!
The problem with today’s music isn’t the delivery method. There’s still a wide range of quality, from crappy to superb, of reproduction methods and equipment. That choice is usually (not always) up to the end user.
The problem is that music has become almost totally commoditized. A commodity is a unit of production that can be easily exchanged for another similar unit of production for the same price and overall quality. This is why approximately 75% of every song that makes it into the Top 40 utilizes the same trite I-V-vi-IV chord progression – producers, distributors, and consumers alike all know that this is pleasing to the ear, and that it sells. Nearly every Taylor Swift song is built around this tried-and-true template.
What is left of music has retreated to the Underground, but even that realm reeks of conformity anymore. In the same way that a blue-collar worker dons a bandanna, gets a tattoo or two, and hops on his Harley without wearing a helmet thinks himself to be a real bad-a** outsider but is really just another conformist, amid a horde of like-minded conformists, surrendering to yet another form of group-think and “me-too” superficiality
Hi Doug,
I have to agree, the “business” is just that, the concern is not about quality, its about product and consumerism.
Personally, I like to mess around with the many technologies that are now available and often end up with music you simply cannot categorize, which does not bother me - is it commercially viable(?), perhaps not, but does that make it less meaningful? Do others seem to like it, yes, sometimes. Depends on how you take your gratification! (double cream no sugar please) 
Perhaps we have to ask ourselves what our goals are when we sit down to compose… Are we fabricating for the market or simply rendering expression from our inner selves … which goes right back to the title of this topic. I prefer the feast over the fastfood, even if my wallet/pocketbook would perfer to be fuller. 
And lets all push the boundaries of the underground. 
I agree but is the ‘feast’ even still available?
I ask the question:
What is the highest quality music (at any price)
the ‘typical’ consumer can buy in 2013?
I remember reading a post about:
CD-Format to be Abandoned by Major Labels by the End of 2012
If this is truly the case,
imagine a consumer just bought a very nice $2500.00
sound system and now want to buys some music.
Can 16 bit CDs be bought?
according to the above link this now seems increasingly more rare.
DVDs with 32bit tracks?
Even more rare.
Cassettes?
No.
Vinyl?
Probably not.
Reel to reel/8 tracks?
c’mon.
My point is, no matter how much $$ one spends on a
‘super’ sound system, they will most likely be listening to
mp3s. or IMHO fast food.
From the ‘typical’ 2013 consumers POV,
there IS no more ‘feast’. Only fast food.
What do I want??
Because of todays ‘digital’ technology, I want the consumer to hear in their speakers
what is coming out of my speakers. Not a fast food version (mp3).
However I do not see that happening going forward.
And what is the ‘Entertainment industry’ doing these days?
Trying to push 4k video.
Seems the quality of video marches forward
while the quality of music ‘marks time’.
Sad.
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A perspective:
I love very high quality sound. I was brought up with it. Starting in the early 60’s, when my Dad had high-end separates with a box just for the crossovers that determined which driver in the speaker cabinet (tweeter, midrange, woofer) received what frequencies. Moving coil phonograph cartridges, 10" reel-to-reel tape, etc. Lovely stuff. He was in the business. We always had top quality gear at home.
But…
What gets me about music, is that I can remember hearing the Beatles through and AM radio in 1968, when I was 10 years old, and LOVING it. If I am having a conversation with someone in a restaurant, and a certain progression comes over the tinny crap embedded in the acoustic ceiling, I have a hard time concentrating on the convo I’m in.
For me music will always be about emotional movement, and the medium I hear it through—the quality of the production—is about pleasure or disappointment.
Given a choice, I’ll add to the emotion with pleasure, and given a choice (nod to Doug), I won’t ignore a good piece of artistry that’s performed well just because it is I-V-vi-IV, but I will ignore soulless contrivance in any key or progression, no matter how great the production or the gear I hear it on.
Still, I always question my musician friends: If Taylor Swift, or worse (much worse in my mind) Kanye West wanted to perform one of your songs, would you refuse on principle?
And as an aside: more annoying than low-rate MP3? Going to a concert wherein the FOH crew doesn’t know a thing about mixing a live band.
~M
Aloha m and welcome the the board.
Right on!
Or what is scary to me is
this is way the band wants to sound! Oh No! 
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I say an MP3 at 256 bits is indistinguishable, per scientific testing. But I also say it is moot, since FLAC is here, and I really don’t think in any case that we are disagreeing that an MP3 is higher quality than FM radio, let alone AM radio, to 1magineer’s point.
I think Doug makes a good point about popular music, but I also think if that’s all you’re finding, you’re not looking hard enough. There is so much good music now, with the 7 billion people on the planet making it at a high participation rate, that it can be hard to find. What we need are more ways to funnel it based on what is being sought. I’m certainly way behind in listening to stuff that’s already on my list.
Couldn’t agree more, and same situation, AND, I love the self-accountability in your approach. It reminds me of something I used to tell my kids… if I’m bored in a world of billions of people (and all the possibility and variety and contrast and opportunity that brings), I am truly mentally lazy. 
Lets hope that comsumer level bandwidth multiplies to the extent that data compression is irrelevant. That would help with the sonics, but getting the world to hear YOUR work will still be the greater challenge. Some great points in this topic.
On the poetry forums it is a truism that in the age of the Internet there are more people writing poetry than reading it. The same situation happens with indie music: most of it is trite and boring but there are millions of masterpieces heard by almost no one. Not ideal but better than the previous generation when the music scene was controlled by a small number of labels. I don’t listen to broadcast radio anymore but love the 'net stations. It is as if we’ve gone back in time a couple of centuries and music has become a highly localized experience enjoyed by the few family and neighbors in our small communities. That odd looking kid up the hill sure picks a mean banjo. Give him a listen in the Made with Cubase hollow.
Spot on Ted. More supply than demand. But the local internet radio thing is cool… that is definitely something musicians should consider for exposure.
Hi all, lets not forget with the advent of the computer and programs like Cubase, Pro-Tools etc. it has become so much easier to create music today than when I was a kid back in the 50’s. Back then it could take hours and hours to just write the score for an idea in your head. Today all the music you need is at your finger tips and the recording of it is so, so much better. You can get as fancy as you want but it is still your own imagination that creates. It’s what you do with it after that, that we are now trying to controll and do. So, “Fast Food”, in some respects—yes.
If you want a good breakfast ya gotta do the work raise: your own chickens and slaughter the pig out back. Anything else is just cheatin’.
Does that include sampling/digital delay?
In answer to the OP, I would say absolutely. It’s inevitable, just like the movie and any other enterprising industry.
It’s never enough to just match a previous target, its level of success has to be surpassed. Eventually the amount of material has to increase but effort has to decrease. The outcome is unfortunately always the old adage of quality versus quantity, and as such I think that the label ‘Fast Food’ is fitting.
Big business always seem to taint the quaint and natural beauty. I am no ‘tree hugger’, but I have to say that I am in no way disagreeing with their efforts. Something is very wrong when things like this is happening.
It’s Fast Food alright. Though this does not mean that there isn’t good material surfacing here and there!