Does music from your hometown radio station sound better?

Does music from your hometown radio station sound better? ( conspiracy )

submitted 2018-12-13T09:53 by Diogenes_The_Cynic

I've been toying with this concept for a while.

Radio stations used to get super high quality magnetic tape way back in the day. The bosses would send them singles (never full albums) through regular mail, and expect each tape to get tons of airtime when its new. I dunno how long ago they went to digital, but the music out now sounds flatter.

When you reuse a magnetic tape it stretches slightly. And you couple that with tons of reuse, temperature differences, manufacturing defects, each one would eventually develop its unique sound on top of the song its playing. Thats the one version of any song you heard the most when you were younger, and the one you grew used to, not the one on the cd, or the one you hear at a different radio station today.

They went to digital, it'll never sound that good again, and your brain knows the difference even if you don't.

6 comments

blumen4alles 2018-12-14T18:55

These are not my words, but your post reminded me of them .

Observation: Songs on the radio, Youtube, and streaming services are probably fake

About 20 years ago companies like Muzak started doing very realistic covers of famous songs that were close to the original (but still obviously a little off) and the deal was that stores could then use what Muzak had re-created for cover music cheaper than paying full royalties on the original copies. So when you walked around a big box store, the music was "sort of" Ok. Not the originals, but OK.

It is evident that this has been escalated enormously. About 10 years ago the covers started getting so good they were mostly indistinguishable from the originals. A lot of the original music groups were upset about this, but they were not able to do anything about it. About 5 years ago, I heard rumor that radio stations were going to stop paying royalties on the originals, and start using these extremely well done "covers" instead. I had noticed some of this creeping in, but today took the cake . . . .

A neighbor just bought an enormous powerful stereo and is blasting a streaming music service through the roof, it is all clearly hearable. I don't know what service it is (yet) but every song is an extremely convincing cover. The voices sound identical, but the actual inflections in key points of the songs are different, and (for example) the song "sweet dreams are made of this) it was originally sung "some of them wanna" and in the cover version it was a perfectly defined "want to" and overall, in general all of the songs simply don't have the life the originals have but it is really hard to put a finger on .

-SO-

If you have noticed songs just don't have the life, or the same feel they used to have, you did not forget and it is not the mandela effect. Much of what is broadcast now is simply not the original anymore, if you want that you will have to go back to your old CD's and vinyl. And I mean your old CD's, I suspect that they are scamming covers onto new CD's now also, and selling them as the real deal and you can probably forget about Itunes.