Music you like at low quality

[gmanyo]

We're a hi-fi community here. All about WAVs and 32-bit floating points and 192k sample rates. But is there any music that, for whatever reason, you like at lower quality? And I'm not talking about 8bit music or bitcrushed stuff or glitch. Not lofi as an effect, but actual low quality audio, the whole song.

 

My dad used to record indie music from internet radio, so I got used to indie rock being at 128kbps and that's how I like to listen to it if I just want to relax (Grandaddy, The Mountain Goats, Le Tigre). In fact, any music at 128kbps kind of reminds me of growing up and listening to music with my parents. I also enjoy super low quality Gabber or J-core; gives it that shitty internet vibe. I guess it can be seen as more of an effect, but it permeates the whole track.

[Polymershapes]

i sometimes hear songs on radio stations with bad reception, then get disappointed when i hunt down the track later and hear that it's pristine, but i can't think of a specific example right now

[geosmina]

lo fi music

[Guest disparaissant]

Only tangentially related, but I really prefer the prerelease leak of Built to Spill's "You in Reverse." It's 160 kbps and littered with Mike Jones samples. It's perfect.

[Guest zaphod]

i've been listening to beach house's first album in my car on one of those horrible belkin fm tuner things that connects to my ipod. the signal is so bad that you can hear layers of other radio stations and little halos of static around the songs. master of none sounds like it's being broadcast through a country station from a dying star.

[Uniret]

dylan .- changing of the guards

[usagi]

I have an approx. 200kbps vbr version of London Zoo and a legit 320 kbps version, and I prefer to listen to the former. I can't quite put my finger on how exactly it sounds better, the bass and beats just sound punchier and more textured somehow without sacrificing any hi-end/vocal clarity.

 

music featuring distortion (metal in particular) can sound really interesting at degraded quality. I mean, Godflesh incorporated the lo-fi aesthetic directly into the music from the get-go and it complements their music very nicely. in fact I'd say it's an essential component of their sound. those drum machine hits would sound cheesy as fuck in pristine quality. Justin Broadrick has spoken at length about how he likes degraded, fucked-up sounds.

 

on the flipside though, it bugs me that Clams Casino's instrumental mixtapes are all at 160 kbps. it just doesn't work there for some reason, I can hear it every time there's a cymbal crash in, say, Motivation and it doesn't sound good. gets on me tits. fortunately tracks like I'm God worked out ok though.

 

edit: at the risk of gushing for the umpteenth time on WATMM about the Birmingham mob of Mick Harris, Kevin Martin, Justin Broadrick et al, I'm just going to say that that whole crew are right up there as far as this subject goes in a production sense. some of their collaborators have had the same aesthetic, e.g. Alec Empire (The Destroyer is an essential lo-fi record), and I suspect that was indeed one of the reasons for them collaborating in the first place.

[sheatheman]

I listen to stuff at 60kbps all the time. And lower. I also like listening to music on bad speakers, which is a much more relevant subject where music listening is concerned.

 

I think we should embrace sub 128 bit rates because it may be all that is possible in the future what with the looming catastrophic collapse of globalism.

[Guest M360]

Lo-fi (vinyl?) rip:

[youtubehd]I9KyXVf1Hjo[/youtubehd]

 

Digital remaster:

[youtubehd]-LAmteCp_2A[/youtubehd]

 

I like both but the lo-fi feels more impassioned (that kick)

[Captain James Mission]

Black Metal.

[zkom]

For some reason I like this VHS rip

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Zi9nd5fnYU

[MadameChaos]

old music and that.

 

[perunamuusi]

 

My dad used to record indie music from internet radio,

 

 

[mcbpete]

There's tape/vhs type hiss and warbles, high pitched whines, it crackles all over the place and yet it sounds perfect as it is -

http://rla.web.fm/19980000_F5K/Hamburg_fsk_%235.reenc.mp3

[Adamovich]

[youtubehd]7ZB-53_3wlc[/youtubehd]

[modey]

My favourite way to listen to Kid A was a cassette version I recorded when a radio station played the entire thing one night. It had the announcer popping up every few tracks but I listened so much on my cheap walkman clone that it started to degrade. I taped over it with SAW85–92 and gave it to a friend, and one night while listening in his car, we could pick up Thom Yorke's voice in the background; it was surreal as fuck!

[YangYing]

I have always preferred the Peel Session version of Green Lanes (by Mike P.) to the one released in Somerset Avenue Tracks. That radio rip is really bad quality, but I still like it over the real thing.

[Npoess]

Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)

[Terpentintollwut]

^true, lots of Hip Hop has kind of more soul when it's not cleanly produced

 

I think I recall liking both Polygon Window - Quoth and Gescom - The Sounds Of Machines Our Parents Used even better @128kbps

 

I don't get Hype Williams at all though. His track titles are ace, but I don't like his music except the track Businessline.

[Npoess]

^true, lots of Hip Hop has kind of more soul when it's not cleanly produced

 

Especially early/mid 90's New York hip hop. Illmatic, The Infamous, The Sun Rises in the East... etc. etc.

 

It has to sound like it is played from a old dirty cassette. Adds to the grittiness.

[Lane Visitor]

i dont mind listening to anything in a low quality manner, as long as it's not the type of music that relies on high quality playback. i'll often sleep with music playing from my iphone sitting next to me in bed and sometimes its off the ipod, sometimes youtube...

 

some of my go-to's that still satisfy me even in low quality are Nightmares on Wax, early Aphex like On Ep/Remixes, SAW, etc.

 

I also really like putting on stuff like Alternative TV, The Stranglers, post punk, gothic stuff.. stuff like that.. great at any quality cuz of it's attitude and character..

 

edit: yes- wutang (;

[joshuatxuk]

i sometimes hear songs on radio stations with bad reception, then get disappointed when i hunt down the track later and hear that it's pristine, but i can't think of a specific example right now

 

I've had that happen too. I used to listen to college stations until they completely faded and often I'd be disappointed when I heard the songs later IRL.

 

I heard this on Rice University's infamous KTRU station (RIP) as I left Houston. I had assumed I'd lost the channel during that noise interlude and was picking up some ambient or classical station until the drums came back in at 9:55:

 

 

Sometimes distorted bass from live DJ sets, especially ones Aphex Twin has done, sounds cooler than the cleaner copies I later listen.

[Terpentintollwut]

 

^true, lots of Hip Hop has kind of more soul when it's not cleanly produced

 

Especially early/mid 90's New York hip hop. Illmatic, The Infamous, The Sun Rises in the East... etc. etc.

 

It has to sound like it is played from a old dirty cassette. Adds to the grittiness.

 

 

And very much this also: http://www.discogs.com/Jedi-Mind-Tricks-The-Psycho-Social-Chemical-Biological-And-Electro-Magnetic-Manipulation-Of-Human-Co/master/2741

[Guest zaphod]

i remember being in high school, probably as a sophomore, reading dantes inferno, listening to this:

 

[youtubehd]k0Mq3jc9wWg[/youtubehd]

 

this was as an mp3 being traded around prior to kid a's release. i've always preferred this version of pyramid song, probably because it was so simple compared to the final orchestrated one. there's something about the crappy audience recording, people talking, thom's voice being very distant and echoey, that makes it more powerful for me.

[usagi]

the final Pyramid Song is probably my favourite thing they've ever done. either that or Codex.