Happy Dynamic Range Day, everyone! Sure, we’re a month late — it was actually March 27th — but there’s never a bad time to bring awareness to the damaging trend of massively compressing audio files in favor of loudness. How prominent is this trend, exactly? An infographic whipped up by DRD founder and mastering engineer Ian Shepherd shows that Taylor Swift’s 1989 is vastly louder than either AC/DC’s Back in Black, Sex Pistols’ Never Mind the Bollocks, Motörhead’s The Ace of Spades, or Metallica’s The Black Album.
1989 hits a dynamic range of six — DR6 — meaning it’s been crushed to the point where the noticeable difference between the high and low ends is greatly reduced. Back in Black clocks in at DR12, while Bollocks, Spades, and The Black Album all hit DR11. In fact, none of the records on the chart released prior to 1996 ever get worse than a DR9, illustrating how prominent the Loudness Wars, as Shepherd calls them, are in modern music. Even Metallica themselves are a victim, with 2008’s Death Magnetic hitting a miserable DR3.
Shepherd points out that this trend is based on the idea that “louder is always better,” but that the results don’t bare that out. “Beyond a certain point, it sounds flat, lifeless, has less of an emotional impact, and can even sound crushed and distorted,” he told Billboard. “Unfortunately, that’s where a lot of mainstream pop and rock isa at” What’s even worse is that “loudness” doesn’t even really matter anymore. For one, records with compress DRs don’t sell any better; Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories clocks in at DR8, and Jack White’s Lazaretto at DR10, and both of those were big sellers. For another, normalizing (ie, the leveling off of all audio so it’s at the same “loudness”) is now common across TV, radio, Spotify, and even YouTube.
“They prove that you don’t need that loudness,” Shepherd said. “With all this normalization coming in, the ones that are still super crushed are just not going to sound good in that environment and they’ll figure it out. I’m optimistic in that sense, but right now the worst stuff is sounding worse than ever.” See the chart below, followed by a video explaining exactly what all this loudness vs DR really means. See more information at the Production Advice and DRD sites, including a searchable database that lets you see the DR rating for almost any album and artist.
She said that the reason she withheld 1989 from Apple Music is because they weren’t planning to pay their artists during the three-month trial period. On Sunday, Swift explained that even though she has plenty of money, Apple’s plan to hold back three months of royalty payments during the service’s free trial would be a detriment to indie musicians.
Welcome to Apple Music, “1989”…it’s been waiting for you. “Thank you, Apple, for your change of heart.(sic)”. “It’s my opinion that music should not be free…” Later that day, Apple responded to Swift’s concerns and agreed to reverse its policy of not paying artists for their content. “These are echoed sentiments of every artist, writer, and producer in my social circles who are afraid to speak up publicly because we admire and respect Apple so much”. Within 24 hours of the blog entry going viral, Apple’s senior vice president of internet services and software Eddy Cue announced a change in policy.
Taylor Swift’s 1989 will appear on Apple Music. Taylor Swift has always spoken out against streaming services, but when Apple decided to launch their own, the world waited to see if Swift would attempt to go up against Apple. “In case you’re wondering if this is some exclusive deal like you’ve seen Apple do with other artists, it’s not”, she tweeted.
Nielsen Music’s 2015 mid-year music charts confirm what many already knew: Taylor Swift’s “1989” is the top-selling album of 2015 so far, and Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars’ “Uptown Funk!” is the top-selling digital single. “1989” moved 2.01 million units between Dec. 29, 2014, and June 28, 2015, making it the most popular album of the first half of 2015. Behind Swift is Drake’s “If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late,” which moved more than 1.43 million units in the same time frame. Close behind Drake is Swift’s buddy Ed Sheeran, whose “X” moved just under 1.43 million units.
Swift’s dominance should come as no surprise. Since “1989” dropped last winter, it has scarcely left the weekly top 5 album sales rankings. Singles “Shake It Off,” “Blank Space,” “Style” and “Bad Blood” have all been inescapable on the airwaves, thanks to a tempered rollout and blockbuster music videos to accompany each song.
Over in digital singles, though, none of Swift’s tracks cracked the top 10. Instead, Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars’ ultra-catchy “Uptown Funk!” claimed the top spot, with 4.89 million downloads. Sheeran’s “Thinking Out Loud” came in second place with 3.45 million downloads, and Wiz Khalifa and Charlie Puth’s “See You Again” (from “Furious 7″) finished at No. 3 with 3.07 million downloads so far this year.
According to the report, on-demand audio streaming has increased by 74%, now at 58.6 billion streams. Album sales, on the other hand, are down 4% from last year at 120.9 million. Digital song sales have also declined, down 10.4% at 160 million.
Her “Bad Blood” is making some mad money: As of last week, Taylor Swift’s 1989 has sold more than 5 million copies after 36 weeks on sale, Billboard reports.
That makes it the fastest-selling album in over a decade, since Usher’s Confessions crossed the 5 million mark in the 19th week of its release in 2004.
It’s just one in a series of records shattered by Swift, whose “Blank Space” music video became the fastest video to hit 1 billion views on Vevo earlier this week. Back in May, Swift’s “Bad Blood” music video, starring her squad of supermodel pals, broke yet another Vevo record, getting 20.1 views in just 24 hours. Looks like this album’s gonna play, play, play, play, play.
Ryan Adams is a master of stripped-down, emotional covers, but he's taking that mastery to a new level as he records covers of Taylor Swift's smash album 1989 in its entirety and in the style of the Smiths. "Guaranteed saddest version of 'Welcome to New York' ever — or your tears back," he wrote in an Instagram post featuring an annotated copy of the song's lyrics. He shared a similar picture of "Blank Space" lyrics, noting that his version will have a "deep end Smiths vibe."
Swift responded quickly to the news, responding excitedly to journalist Hasief Ardiasyah's tweet about Adams' covers. "I will pass out," she wrote. Adams confirmed it for her and was complimentary of how the songs hold up even when stripped down. "Badass tunes, Taylor. We're sandblasting them, and they're holding steady," he replied.
Swift responded to Adams directly, still excited about the album. "I'm not gonna be able to sleep tonight or ever again, and I'm going to celebrate today every year as a holiday," she wrote. In response, Adams teased a clip of his moody "Welcome to New York" cover.
Members of the Smiths have yet to respond to Ryan Adams using them as a mold for his Taylor Swift covers, but Morrissey recently shared some harsh words for Swift's presence at the Brit Awards. "In the guise of serving the public, the Brit Awards have hijacked modern music in order to kill off the heritage that produced so many interesting people, to such a degree that we could not imagine anyone who has ever truly affected the course of British music to be on stage at the O2 [Arena] collecting a deserved award," he wrote on his fansite True to You back in February. "The maximum trimmings divert your attention from the fact that Taylor Swift has nothing to do with Coventry or Wrexham."