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I remember when the Dresden Dolls first came out. All my friends who knew my tastes told me I had to check them out, that I would love this duo. I’d ask what they were like and would get, “They’re a cross between goth and cabaret,” to which I’d reply, thanks but no thanks. It was totally a knee-jerk reaction but during this time, I was receiving a lot of promo material from a metal label that started focusing on the goths. After a month, I had a stack of CDs with black-lipped women moaning about the “exquisite death” and “sensual pain,” followed quickly by shrieks that could only be produced by someone giving birth to a schoolbus. Thank you and no, said I, to the Dresden Dolls.
Cut to three weeks ago. I’m in the local bookstore. It’s rather a liberal atmosphere there, meaning they’re not afraid to play CDs with the dirty words in them, so I’m listening as I rifle through the graphic novels section. It’s sounding pretty good, in fact. It’s piano rock, a super-sub-genre that’s been hurting lately. I was disappointed with the recent Regina Spektor and Tori Amos albums and the category as a whole often slides into Adult Contemporary blather about undying love or line after line of toothless affirmations. What was playing had, dare I say it, some edge left to it. I went to the counter and asked what it was.
“Oh, that’s Amanda Palmer. She’s from the Dresden Dolls.” Oops. “It’s been out for almost half a year now.” Double oops. (more…)
Two things happened to the producer’s lot when home recording went digital. We’ll cover the second later on, but before the laptop and PC, home recorders used cassette machines that utilized 4, 6 and 8 tracks on the tiny width of a store-bought Maxell tape. To increase the amount of tracks, you’d have to “bounce,” meaning recording on seven of the tracks, playing back those seven and bouncing them down to the eighth, then starting the process all over again. You got more sounds, but also more hiss. Now, with home versions of ProTools, a home recorder has as many tracks as he or she has the patience to fill. Filters combat hiss and various tricks can foil the sound of Do It Yourself recording.
Ben Folds, Way to Normal (Epic)
Instincts run hot and cold, depending on who is relying on them. Some artists go against the grain and it works out fantastically for them. Some make last-minute choices that, while not haunting them forever, certainly don’t help them a hell of a lot. Ben Folds runs somewhere in the middle.