I subscribe to the Lefsets Letter. Bob Lefsetz is a music industry “insider” without really having been on the inside. But he tooted his horn, was often brutally honest with his views, and the industry listens to the guy. I’ve got to admit that despite his often pessimistic vitriol he makes a helluva lot of sense; enough sense that major, heavy-hitters read his letter, and send him email on a regular basis. This morning, I was surprised to see an email from Steve Lukather. Here’s an excerpt:
Damn the soundtrack of my childhood Bob.
I LOVE all these records so much.
The whole 60’s era of music will never get old to me.
The songs, the production the musicians, and let us not forget the STUDIO players in LA-NYC-Nashville-London and Motown!!
Oh the bands were great too but many had ‘ ringers’ ya know. THE guys.
And the singers!
Nothing remotely close today for me.
Everyone uses the same f**king plug in’s and over compression on everything and the same drum samples etc..
It is like seeing how many twinkies you can shove in your urethra. Painful and pointless.
I was recently thinking about what singers are doing today, and it’s all the same crap. It seems that very few pop singers can get through a song without doing some sort of Whitney-Houston-gospel-chorus-inspired vocal run every chance they get. Male and female vocalists alike are guilty of this. Singers like Whitney could pull it off because they were some of the first to really use it and it set them apart. But now all of pop-dom does it, whether they have the vocal chops (as in strength) to do it or not. Believe me, most don’t. You need lots of power to pull off those modulated vocal runs, and there just aren’t very many powerful singers out there. Unfortunately, for many pop singers, this is the norm, and it’s perpetuated by the music industry. But if you want to be different, you gotta break out of the box.
On Lukather’s view on over-compression and using the same drum samples, I totally agree, and the twinkie thing says it all! 🙂
Guitar Gear 
What a great post. Bang on the money for me. Some of these so called vocal divas seem to think that they have to deliver a song as if it was a vocal exercise for their voice coach. Self indulgent garbage of the worst order. It seems that the music industry these days takes the view that the least talented of all are the ones who deserve a break in the business. That may of course be down to the plain fact that the music business as recognised by people of Lukather’s generation is not what it was any more. The players are doing it for themselves in terms of recording, and marketing.
All the auto-tune vocal runs to correct the off-key singing makes me hate most of this garbage. I wasn’t a huge Motown fan, but I love hearing the stuff the Funk Brothers laid down on some of those classic tracks. They were basically uncredited, but man, they could PLAY!
Yeah Dan, I hear you. This is very like the way that cars came to be designed. Same with music. Someone said to me years ago that if you throw a brick into a wind tunnel it will always come out the same shape if you are looking for drag coefficients etc. Record industry has gone the same way.
Like you I was not the biggest fan of Motown either, but it does sound better now than when it was new. Always about comparisons. Progress doesn’t necessarily mean better and the examples we’ve been talking about show that progress does tend to make some stuff appreciably worse.
The word for it (that vocal masturbation) is melisma. Seems appropriate somehow.
I knew there had to be a technical term for it…
I have often observed in the past to my teenage daughters (now long grown up) that a lot of the music they ‘adored’ sounded like random tracks thrown in a blender. No real talent or artistry. Myself, a big Pink Floyd fan (oh god, a 64 yr old Pink Floyd fan!). But remembering the latter 50’s and somewhat remembering the 60’s … there is no comparison. Maybe that is why I appreciate well contructed songs with good lyric andstrong melody lines … Mellencamp, Henley, Tom Petty, etc. …where I can actually hear the instruments. The crap I hear today is banal and empty.
I don’t know if I’d say there’s no real talent in the industry. I actually think there’s quite a bit of talent, but it’s the filter that the talent has to go through that has ruined music today. And unfortunately, so many artists fall prey to the traditional model of “getting a record deal.”
For instance, my eldest son shoots tour photography for up and coming bands, and he shares with me what the bands are trying to do. With no exception, they all want to get a deal with a label perpetuating the myth that a label will somehow get you riches and glory. It also helps perpetuate the filter of autotune and over-production.
It’s a different world now than back in the heyday of “our” music. Back then, the RIAA and its members were the ticket-takers and the DJs were the ushers into the big game. That’s no longer true. There are so many artists out there now who are using alternate means to get themselves promoted and their music tracked.
Unfortunately, the majority of artists still follow the same old, tired pattern of trying to get a record deal. If Bob Lefsetz is to be believed (and having done a bit of poking around I’m starting to see his point), it’s a do-it-yourself and reap the rewards directly type of world now. And those who are doing it themselves have much more control over their sound.