You really (usually) can’t have it all. I’d rather be a success at one thing than at none, and all too often in our modern world that’s what happens.

People have no concept as to sentence structure, don’t know what assonance or alliteration are, and have never hears of a thesaurus, let alone a rhyming dictionary, the best of which were the secret weapons of many of the old timers.

It was complex, but it was a complex rendition of reality. That’s impressive.

I don’t often comment back on these sort of things, since my views are all readily on display on the 1000+ pages of this blog, but here’s my $.02. What you say may be true of your experiences. That being the case, I have never found there to be any necessary connection between ‘fidelity in the audio-rendering of an artist’s performances’ and their level of skill and/or imagination. For instance: I cannot think of a better Dylan album than the basement tapes. I cannot think of a better 90’s songwriter than Bob Pollard (well, maybe malkamus in his earlier years but it’s all about the same there as far as fidelity). There is a definite limit to the gains that can be made to the quality of a recording through enhancing the fidelity; the uncertainty of the playback apparatus further ensures this. Complexity, the adding of sonic detail in an audio rendering, however, offers limitless potential for new ideas/and direction.

The general technical level of musicianship of people coming into the studios I have done work for is depressing. The singers are terrible. The drummers are terrible.

The guitar players know a lot of licks but they don’t have any comping skills.

And the songwriting skills suck. Really.

The first requirement for recording, to me, is to have something worth recording.

thanks man! Good to see you round these parts again… LMK if yr ever back in CT… c.

Right on. Never said better than that.