Voice compression, noise limiting, echo, reverb, a little digitally enhanced sustain, cleanup of a muffed syllable, you name it, every note has been processed somehow. Fatboy Slim, praised in this column a couple of months ago, and the barely-distinguishable labelmates Bentley Rhythm Ace, are just a couple of the new breed. And the driving beat gives a familiar ring to Americans raised on the hip-thrusting rhythms of everyone from the Rolling Stones to Pearl Jam. Formally speaking, there's absolutely nothing new in any of these acts. And it's just that difference that the marketing moguls want to exploit.
Business is business, after all, and record companies have to sell records.
More power to them. It's the handful of bands that, although they've received some excited critical attention, keep cranking out their genre-exploding experiments without sizzling sales figures to pump up their bank accounts. It's the casual shrug they give when asked the inevitable genre question. The current technology makes matters a bit simpler, maybe, but the gadgets are basically incidental to the musical ideas. It's not the first time the music establishment has been confused, even hopelessly clueless, in the face of a new tide of sound.