“Mellencamp, 58, has established a reputation during his career as a bit of a loose cannon disdainful of music industry niceties,” Goodman reports. “He still lives in his home state of Indiana, saying he never fit in elsewhere. Famed for such hit songs as ‘Hurts So Good,’ ‘Jack and Diane‘ and ‘Small Town,’ he is also a political activist who campaigned for President Barack Obama.”
“‘I think the Internet is the most dangerous thing invented since the atomic bomb,’ he said. ‘It’s destroyed the music business. It’s going to destroy the movie business.'” For starters, the popularity of digital downloads, which fans listen to on their MP3 players and computers, has come at the expense of sound quality, he said,” Goodman reports. “He recalled listening to a Beatles song on a newly re-mastered CD and then on an iPod, and ‘you could barely even recognize it as the same song. You could tell it was those guys singing, but the warmth and quality of what the artist intended for us to hear was so vastly different.'”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: The Beatles are notoriously not available as legal “digital downloads,” so, logically, “digital downloads” simply cannot be blamed for the sound quality disparity that Mellencamp laments. It’s beyond comprehension that someone in the music business like Mellencamp doesn’t understand that the “newly re-mastered CD” could have easily been encoded in a lossless format and played back on any iPod which would have been indistinguishable to him, as opposed to the compressed file he was obviously listening to on that iPod.
As for the sound quality of legal digital downloads, blame the music companies for not allowing sales of uncompressed files. Apple’s move from the early days of iTunes Store music sold at 128 kbit/s to the current 256 kbit/s is a tremendous improvement in sound quality. We’re not sure if Mellencamp is commenting on the “old days” of 128 kbit/s digital downloads or the current 256 kbit/s files, but, if we had to guess, we’d guess the former.
We continue to hope that, someday, Apple will be able to offer uncompressed music tracks via iTunes Store to customers who want them, even if they cost more.
Wot a plonker…..
Stick in the mud..
How predictable that the tinfoil-wearing nutjob Mellencamp was “also a political activist who campaigned for President Barack Obama.”
Some people who make it big –Tom Hanks, for another glaring example– feel guilty about it and dive headlong into Liberalism without thinking things through. Knee-jerkers. They can afford to be very generous with everyone’s money since they’ll never run out. Ever notice that the biggest Lib proponents are also the richest (Soros, Kerry, Kennedy, etc.)
It’s not “mean” to expect people to work for a living and it’s not “unfair” for some people to make more money than others. It’s life. It’s not meant, nor is it possible, to be artificially “equalized.” That’s why socialism always fails and why capitalism –which works with human nature, not against– when allowed to work, works wonders.
He’s done too many drugs
High fidelity stereos and speakers are sadly missed.
My brother is an audiophile and his set sounds amazing when I visit him. I hear so much more from his system compared to my crappy walmart life. Of course, he has spent thousands and thousands on it.
He is a little goofy too. Bags of lead shot holding down the equipment to eliminate vibration. Empty cardboard boxes strategically positioned around the room to change the acoustics. Metal spikes connecting the equipment to the sub-flooring.
But it does sound amazing!
…and then compare the CD to the LP or original tape…”new” stuff is notorious for shrinking the dynamic range…it is what it is.
The internet doesn’t kill industries, people kill industries.
cars destroyed buggies…movies destroyed theater…industry destroyed the environment…political parties destroyed america….shit happens…
Socialism Always Fails?
Or did you mean compassionate inclusive governments do not always fully succeed in mitigating the worst excesses of a free market?
Little pink houses are actually more deadly than an atomic bomb
……that equating the internet’s effect on the entertainment industry with an atomic bomb is, well, just a little rich…..
As if sound quality ever mattered in Mellencamp’s songs.
If the internet and digital destroyed the music business, you can’t prove it by me. Before iTunes I ‘d stopped spending on music. Since iTunes I’ve spent plenty and keep spending. I can now find new music, try it out, buy it, play it, take it with me. Thousands of pieces of music, my entire cd library plus several hundred iTunes purchases or more, plus podcasts, all in the iPhone4 in my pocket. I spend less per each tune than I once did, but I listen to a vastly wider variety.
I’m not an American, and don’t really have an interest one way or another, but whoever signed his post as “The Obama Mistake” put forward an erroneous premise.
People who make it big (such as Tom Hanks, or Bruce Springsteen, as another example) become “liberals” (none of them in fact are; the term ‘liberal’ is so grossly misused in America, to describe progressive conservatives, that it is just amazing), and there are many reasons for this. But most certainly, none of them are the guilt (for being rich), or because they can afford to be generous with everyone’s money, since they themselves will never run out.
From what I’ve seen and heard from these high-profile public figures, they are proponents of taxing the rich (where they themselves would end up most hurt) and providing things that any developed country already has, except America (such as universal and mandatory health care, for one example). I’ll have to stop here, since there’s no doubt, this thread is again descending into the political slugfest, which was the reason I had abandoned MDN several months ago. In the last few weeks, it seemed that the political mudslinging between American visitors here had subsided somewhat. I’d appreciate subsequent contributors not to try prove me wrong…
As for the actual subject at hand, this Mellencamp guy is obviously uninformed about many things, which is perfectly OK. However, being a (relatively) high-profile personality gives him disproportionately authoritative voice, which means many will actually think that what he says makes sense. It unfortunately doesn’t. Fortunately, his profile is only relatively high, and fairly little, if anything, will be affected by his statements on this.
I contend that the music business needed destroying.
@ CourtJester
Your first mistake is believing that Socialism produces “compassionate inclusive governments”.
He has a high opinion of himself to think that anything having to do with digital downloads of music is equal in importance to the development of the “atom bomb.” The survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki would probably differ with his comment.
People who invest all that money to have perfect audio are a bunch of fools.
I’ve worked in the industry for years, and yes compression has ruined the subtile dynamics in music today – cds still sound fantastic. I’d take a digital version over vinyl any day.
On that note, want to buy a magic clock to help your audio?
http://www.machinadynamica.com/machina41.htm
Or maybe magic stones?
http://www.machinadynamica.com/machina31.htm
Ironically He’s a HUUUUGe Prince fan, so…..just sayin”
John M. said: “new technology could paradoxically delay the inevitable demise of rock ‘n’ roll,”
BTaylor translation: he means the demise of the obscene profits from said rolling of the rock.
John M. said: “the China-Russians or something’
BTaylor says: What is this a bad eighties movie?!?!?!?
The article stated: “Mellencamp, 58”
BTaylor’s take: ahhh… that one’s self explantory
John M. said: ‘It’s destroyed the music business”…
“It’s going to destroy the movie business”
Btaylor’s translation: again, he means the demise of the obscene profits from said rolling of the rock. The weeding out of the bastards who make art for the soul purpose of fame and fortune.
The Rolling Stones idolized the old blues legends. Quick trivia ?
Who’s bank account had more zeros?
John M. said: the popularity of digital downloads…has come at the expense of sound quality.
BTaylor says: (see MDN’s take above) and I’ll add to it–I have poster prints of Picasso painting’s in my den–It doesn’t mean i enjoy them any less.
1. Prince Rogers Nelson. Check.
2. John MellenHead. Check.
3. (Next: aging, irrelevant, pompous ’80s rock star)
Funny, there are those who would say the same thing regarding audio quality with a good phonograph recording versus the remastered CD. The CDs seemingly have never bothered J.C. Mellenhead; did he ever listen to LPs growing up?
MDNMW: passed: as in his time
@The Obama Mistake
You’re under the false assumption that the Democrats are left wing socialists. I’m assuming you are probably because Fox “News” told you they were.
We have two major political parties in this nation. One is right wing, the other is far right wing.
As a classically trained musician, I’d like to think I am a bit of an authority on the sound quality issue.
Unlike deepdish‘s brother, most people listen to their music on a wide variety of devices, almost none of which can properly and faithfully reproduce the entire dynamic and tonal range of the CD, never mind analogue tape (or even some of the good-quality vinyl LPs). When you listen to a lossles recording and a 128kbps AAC recording of the same track (especially if it is something like Mr. Mellencamp’s rock music), on an iPod/iPad/iPhone, in an average listening environment (i.e. with some background noise), on Apple’s bundled Harman-Kardon earphones, you simply CANNOT tell the difference. His comparison, and the subsequent conclusion, was so completely wrong that it really makes no sense. Listening to a CD (presumably on a CD player, connected to an amplifier, connected to some decent-quality speakers) is a vastly different experience from listening on an iPod, even with those Harman-Kardon earphones. The difference he heard was NOT due to compression artifacts; it was due to the difference in quality of the listening environment.
I haven’t heard the recently re-mastered Beatles tracks. However, recent re-masterings of older recordings all tend to have this devastating effect on the original dynamics. The sound is made much more punchy and exciting due to wanton use of dynamic compression and various sound processing tools. If Beatles tracks suffered the same fate, then he may have used a bad source for this comparison to begin with.
I used to like Mellencamp’s music, although it is getting a little ripe these days and now seems rather quaint. However, his comments about the Internet prove that he is one dumb son of a bitch from Indiana.
Mellencamp is usually pretty smart about things but saying that the greatest communcation device ever invented is a bigger threat than the atom bomb is sadly misguided.
It might be a huge threat to old entrenched industries like the music and movie business, but thats only because it destroys the middleman and allows artist to speak directly to their audience without having the creative life choked out of them by soulless bean counters.
And if you don’t think that’s true just look at the sad array of music groups that pose as ‘talent’ in the music world today. Black Eyed Peas? Serious? The Jonas Brothers? Give me a friggin break. Ke$ha? I’m going to vomit.
Hey, Cougar:
How’s that hopey-changey stuff working out for ya?
Oh, right, you’re already independently wealthy.
For the rest of us, it sucks donkey schlong.
Where’s Obama?
On his SIXTH vacation of the year, that’s where.
Mellencamp obviously supports huge expenditures of taxpayer money for the President and his entourage to bolster tourism and golf course greens fees.
You Obama backers are fscking suckers!
@The Obama Mistake
You’re a douche…
He’s a dumb-fuck. Next drama…
Despite MDN’s unqualified audio expertise and opinion Apple Lossless is inferior to AIFF in audio quality and fidelity. Though by literal definition Lossless may suggest otherwise, (that description may pertain to file size compressed vs. decompressed net ), Apple Lossless is not or par with full bandwidth CD quality audio.