HIST 390 Blog Posts

Here’s a topic for debate: Is current music superior or inferior to previous, uncompressed music?

Yesterday’s class stared off with a similar question, lasting the entire period without officially reaching a conclusion. Of course, my teacher claimed its inferiority to music of his day, playing the devil’s advocate to all of our protests to the contrary.

Admittedly, much of class consisted of our teacher attempting to rile the class into opposing his view while we remained meek and mute.

One argument that my teacher held strong to was that we have taken the joy out of listening to music. According to him, music was meant to be listened to and appreciated. Now, someone reading this may say that we do listen to music everyday, maybe while doing chores, homework, driving, etc., but that’s not what he had in mind. According to my teacher, music is best appreciated when it hold 100% of the audience’s attention. Nowadays, it maybe receives 50% if it’s lucky. Even as I type out this blog post, I am currently listening to Carrie Underwood’s Something in the Water on repeat in order to block out my little nephew’s infuriating racket next to me.

Throughout the class period, my classmates gave examples as to why this may be. Some claimed that there are more distractions today than there were in the past, such as cars racing down the street and such. However, one person mentioned that he doubted there was as much distraction now as there was in the caveman era when human were constantly watching their surroundings for predators that could pounce and kill them at any moment. This branch of debate quickly subsided after that comment.

Another student mentioned that we like the music we do because it is all that we’ve been exposed to. Our teacher’s reply to that was whether ignorance was an exceptional reason for our poor taste in music.

When all of us had been quiet for a prolonged period of time, our teacher mentioned (in our generation of music’s favor) that our generation has a large amount of expectations heaped upon us due to our parents and grandparents wishes that we do better in school, go to college, or something else along those lines to have a better future than they may not have had the opportunity to achieve. Thus, music has been made for different reasons, such as providing us distractions from so much stress.

Personally, I like to have something in the background when I do things. I may not appreciate music in the way it was originally intended, but I appreciate it in my own way, getting me though a long essay assignment for a class, or calming me down when my temper’s been reached.

Now, as to whether one type of music is inferior or superior to the other, I have no idea. The maximized compression of today’s music makes for louder music, but lacks the emphasis that non-compressed music makes with the variation in volume. Yet though I cannot explain why, I like the music I listen to today. To me, it’s all a matter of personal preference, anyway.

To any readers, please note your own thoughts to this debate. Is older, non-compressed music better than the modern day compressed music on the radios to date? or vice versa? and for whatever reason?

Today (or should I say yesterday since I’m a day late), class began with the usual boring yet necessary discussion of the syllabus, class expectations, la di da…

Then came the unexpected. This is a history class right? Suddenly my teacher plays Katy Perry’s song Firework, and asks us what’s wrong with the song. Understandably, I was confused and began to wonder if I’d entered the wrong classroom, even though the title of the syllabus (in bold print) read HIST 390, The Digital Past.

Then he played another song, much older (in reality, maybe a few decades old max.), that unfortunately I cannot recall at this moment. The difference was noticeable then. When comparing a modern song to say another song from the 60s or some such era technologically deprived, we arrive at a common, if not often consciously thought conclusion; they sound different.

The “how” of this was quickly explained by the professor as volume control. Turn up the volume of an old(er) song, and there are quite a few noticeably quieter points in the song, due to the softness of the singer’s voice; yet Katy Perry’s song remains “static”, as my teacher explained.

This is where the concept of history comes in. In the past (i.e. anytime before the most recent decades), music was dynamic – meaning that the volume of the song varied, no matter the setting on the radio/stereo/MP3/etc. that was used. Nowadays, even when the singer is whispering, the lyrics remain as loud as when the singer is bellowing (this demonstrated when Katy Perry went from talking normally to full out screaming, with fireworks shooting from her chest, without a hitch in the volume).

Now, the question for tonight is why did music change so much? Honestly, I haven’t the foggiest. My assumption is that when the technology became available, people just wanted to play around with it to see what would happen. When it caught on that people liked to be able to make out the lyrics of the song at its quietest moments, it became more commonplace. Simply put, people like loud music. But, to each their own.

To anyone who reads this, don’t be afraid to post your own opinions, or even do some research and reply. Have a good start to the beginning of the semester!