Old Music: Forget Remastering, "Revisit" It Instead

One of the biggest boons to the recording industry has been the advent of compact disc and the most profitable aspect of the compact disc revolution has been the sales of back catalogue titles. Much of the current woes of the industry stems from the fact this sector has been so successful that people have bought and replaced many of their old favorites from the days of vinyl on newer and cleaner sounding compact discs. And then we bought all those albums over again yet another time to the craze of newly remastered and enhanced versions hit the market. As the labels fight out a VHS/Betamax style fight over the next generation of superior audio in the forms of DVD-Audio and Super Audio Compact Discs, and audiences actually favoring more compact, less dynamic forms of audio in the forms of digital, downloadable music, the labels are at a loss to do next to attract the market.

I have a possibly controversial suggestion that would appeal to a niche market of consumers and probably alienate and piss off another group. But since you can't please all people all of the time, perhaps this is worth a try.

In the last couple of years there have been several career spanning collections released for artists who have seen hits spread over several decades, but some of the old gems on the collection sound and feel, well, stale and like they were recorded in a tin can compared to their more recent forays up the charts. It's not that the songs are bad (in fact, it's usually the opposite) it's just that the 1963 AM radio classic song that's been recorded in mono sound doesn't sound quite as dynamic when parked on the same disc as a 2001 chart topper that has a much greater sonic range and in stereo. And with people converting their collections into digital form and putting them on massive storage "jukeboxes" such as the iPod, and having the ability to have any song out of thousands come up at random on these players, these old songs sound more dated than they do sound like classics.

When preparing some albums for conversion to digital means for my own portable jukebox player, I came across an interesting note from Tina Turner in the liner notes from the soundtrack to the movie based on her life, "What's Love Got To Do With It" and she indicated that when the movie was going to be made, she realized it wasn't going to be long before she'd be asked to re-record some of her old classics from the days of Ike and Tina because the original recordings wouldn't be suitable to work with modern movie sound systems. Many of the songs she didn't really want to touch again with a ten foot pole because they were part of a past that didn't sit favorably in her memories, but ultimately she said she and her band had a fantastic time recording the old songs. This got me to think that while that experience might have been cathartic for Tina Turner, but I would want a more practical solution to improve the sound of old classics without destroying the charm of the original by taking it out of its context and recording a completely new version with the original artist who is either decades older, or possibly no longer with us. We don't want to loose the original charm of the performer's voice as it was when the song was new.

So, I think the music industry should commission new performances of the musical accompaniment of the old songs and layer the original vocal tracks from the original versions of the songs into a new more sonically modern classic. Obviously this will be blasphemous to "purists" but the purists aren't the target audience for what I'm envisioning. This is aimed at creating new fans to some wonderful songs with the original artist still in tact, it's just making sure the music doesn't sound like it was made in a tin can to turn off the potential new listeners.

A good case in point is the Elvis revival of late, to introduce children to his music, his music was prominently featured in the Disney animated feature, "Lilo & Stitch" and posthumously Elvis was a hit again when a song recorded by Elvis long ago was given a modern dance remix treatment and sent him up the charts. The "Lilo & Stitch" movie also featured covers of Elvis songs, which brought a more modern sound to many of Elvis' songs, but they lacked Elvis. And while I'm not suggesting the original tunes should be changed, I think had the original Elvis songs have had more sonically dynamic range to them, many of the covers probably wouldn't have been placed in the film.

If Natalie Cole can duet with her dead daddy in his prime and both Celine Dion and Robbie Williams can duet with the Frank Sinatra of the 1960's, why can't the music industry think to do this without having to make it a gimmick of using a "modern" artist in a duet style? The songs and arrangements don't have to be changed, just a newer recording of the music that takes advantage of the sonic range that more modern recordings have.

A number of artists that I have in my collection would be considered "classic" artists because they've been recording for decades, but I don't want to touch much of their older material because the recordings themselves don't sound dynamic enough for me to enjoy them. As an ABBAMAIL friend has recently introduced me to the artist known as Lulu, I'm finding that I enjoy Lulu's talent and voice, but for right now, I want to limit my enjoyment of her work to what was recorded in the 90's. I don't to delve back to her sixties hits because I don't want to listen to tin can sounding songs, no matter how good they are. Cher is another example, I think some of her older songs she does in concert are fantastic sounding, but going back to the original recording, the only thing great sounding about them are her vocals, not the music.

Even our own Agnetha and Frida's early solo works could benefit greatly from revisiting the music. Frida's performance of "En Ledig Dag" is stunning and could be even more stunning with a new music recording to accompany the magic charm of her vocal from her youth. And I'm not as much a fan of Agnetha's early works but those too could be a lot more inviting to younger fans with better sonic dynamic range.

Who knows what revisited songs could do if they were promoted by the labels, we might actually see some hit the top of the charts because the freshness of the recordings would bring people who never would give the original recording a chance would find enjoyment. It would give the modern artists a run for their money and challenge them to create better performance if they actually had to compete with classic artists hitting the charts sounding like they were in their prime once again.

And I think the beauty of it is that it could be done relatively cheaply as all that would be needed is new session performers to re-create the original tracks for the modern sound. The original artists and their estates shouldn't complain too much because they'd still be earning their performance royalties without having to give a new performance and the goal would be to match the original performance with better dynamic range in the recording. It might be more expensive than remastering, but I think the labels have been to that trough enough times it's practically dry for new revenues anyway.

So bring on the revisited classics!! My ears are anxiously awaiting better sounding versions of the classics.

Ryan Cameron