ndycus1 said:
Personally, I think that a huge aspect of the engineer's job is to make the artist sound better than they actually are.
that's debatable, and it depends on the engineer. certainly some set out to make things sound "better than they are"......and some set out to capture the sound "as it is" (steve albini comes to mind here).
these are very fundamental philosophical decisions, and are usually determined by the record company and/or the producer.
howver, it's obvious in today's music industry, that image is what sells. it's not skill. 38 Special, Lynyrd Skynyrd, the Doobie Brothers and The Allman Brothers would never get signed in today's industry--they're all ugly lookin guys with long greasy hair and bad teeth.
they made their mark based on the fact that they all can *play* and that they write great songs--not b/c they look good in a video.
Conversely, Shania Twain, Kenny Chesney or Carrie OutofTune would never have been signed in the Patsy Cline days.....none of them could sing live in a room without "help", and none of them could write a song to save their lives. in the pre-autotune and DAW days, those things were paramount.
but Shania, Kenny and Carrie are all attractive people--and what country girl isn't going to turn on CMT and see a buff, shirtless kenny and not want to consume more of that product? who cares if he can't sing his way out of a bag--we can fix that now in the DAW. and who cares if he can't string 3 words together in a sentence? we have plenty of writers to pen songs for him. but NO ONE wants to see Gregg Allman shirtless, and he's a phenomenal vocalist (among other things).
Video did, in fact, kill the radio star.
once it became about how you looked on TV, it stopped being about how you sounded on the radio (b/c we can fix that however we want).
cheers,
wade
PS--the irony in all of this is that the excellent songwriters in nashville are the people you don't see on TV.....largely b/c they don't have the image that sells records. Rodney Crowell comes to mind here.....
