Musical Nostalgia
So in my world—in my musical world, retro and nostalgia are good, strong positives, but I don't think they're generally good things in and of themselves.
I sound both retro and nostalgic, but it’s because I'm from the 80s.
The first time I was buying and listening to my own music was the late 70s, early 80s, and—you know, you listen to it all, absorbing it. Just one of those periods where you're eating everything, so here’s where my sensibilities lie, and my timing, and my phrasing, and the sounds I like, and the kind of motifs I use or whatever.
Long done are the tens and tens of thousands of hours of listening and pulling apart and picking and thinking about it all. So here’s where it all stayed, even thru the college rock revolution of the 90’s. Musically the die was cast. It all comes out 80’s and hazy.
So, if you weren’t there, and you did not have a similar experience, be really careful trying to do that and trying to ape or plug-in some trump’ed up nostalgia because it’ll get cartoonish quickly.
You know, as mentioned, everything sounds so good now. We’re all trying to destroy recordings and all that stuff. But I started with a cassette four-track, and we hated how that sounded. Those things sounded (and sound) shit.
We had no option to sound good. Now you have kind-of hi-fi low-fi, which I don't think I ever hear anybody talking that. I guess maybe a pushed, dank mid-range. I don't know what it is honestly.
It sounds wonderful, then, and modern.
Maybe that’s your thing. Do your thing. And if you don’t have a thing, do the work to find it. But do not ever shoot for nostalgic.
I don’t, but I'll still use the hashtag!
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