My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy Won The Loudness War

My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is a hot mess, certainly. Well, right? I mean, Nick Southall — noted and voluminious writer on audio fidelity, and no slouch at criticism either — said so. And one of my primary beefs with 808s and Heartbreak is that it sounds terrible. Now, if I want to argue that My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is better, then doesn’t that argument meet with the same swift and obvious rebuke? I thought so, but you know what, now I don’t think so.

It’s certainly one of the big party lines: My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is one of the hottest (as in mixed loudest) albums. But, come on, look at how loud 808s and Heartbreak is. Virtually every song hits the ceiling. Somehow, though, even the songs that don’t always hit peak loudness still clip. Clipping is that crackling sound you hear all over 808s and Heartbreak, like someone wadding up an empty bag of chips. Every drum hit on “Amazing” clips. Just about every moment of “RoboCop” clips. Parts of My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy clip, too. On the first track, when Nicki Minaj says, “Zip it. Listen.”, the “z” is accompanied by clipping. There are other instances of clipping, too, but — and this might be mere opinion, but it’s incontrovertible to me — the clipping isn’t as consistent or distracting as it is on 808s and Heartbreak.

Clipping sucks. It’s distracting, sometimes it hurts your ears. Albums these days clip all the time. But you know what other album clips? Enter The Wu-Tang: 36 Chambers. Even though it is mixed significantly quieter, parts of it definitely clip. You notice this because, since it’s quieter, you turn it up. And then the loud parts are, yes, loud.

Illmatic, a year after the Wu’s debut, does not really clip. It’s a very pretty album. Spotless. You hear everything. I feel like these two albums represent two modes of rap production. There’s the eternally spotless Illmatic, which showcases beautiful productions, and then there’s 36 Chambers, which also has beautiful production — but it’s engineered to sound gritty. My main argument for My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy and against 808s and Heartbreak is that the former is an album in the 36 Chambers vein — it’s supposed to be gritty, for the most part. 808s and Heartbreak should not be gritty. It should be spotless and clear. You can spotlessly and clearly present close conditions and claustrophobia, certainly. Again, look no further than “N.Y. State Of Mind”: one of the classic beats of all-time. Very dark, very claustrophobic. That’s how 808s and Heartbreak should have sounded.

“Gorgeous” manages to clip all over. It is mixed fucking loud, and there’s virtually no dynamic range. It’s ridiculous, egregious, worse than anything on 808s and Heartbreak. I also think it’s supposed to sound like this. Or at the very least, it’s enhanced by sounding like this. Cudi and Kanye have screwed up vocal effects on, Kanye’s rapping about not only his but his whole culture’s world falling in on itself. It sounds like destruction and chaos. (And it’s not the self-centered, small-minded version of “Woe is me Kanye” from 808s and Heartbreak. “Gorgeous”, despite sounding ugly, is gorgeous. That’s a fucking genius-level move by a sound-conscious musician!

“Runaway” is another song that’s ridiculously loud. No dynamic range in the mix — except for the quiet part, which is fucking necessary and supposed to be there, clearly. You will also notice that “Runaway”’s gigantic drums — unlike every giant drum on 808s and Heartbreak — does not clip. It’s a little squashed, but it presents as big, an irregular heartbeat. It’s fucking beautiful and sounds beautiful.

“Monster” is yet another song that has no range. It has clipping on Rick Ross’s vocals, and on the “Kanye West sample”. This is not good. This whole song is kind of a mess, and shows where just a little headroom would have made a big difference. But still, I’d say that I’d rather have clipping on the vocals — which are already processed and overdriven at times — than on the fucking drums. Leave the drums alone. They’re my favorite part of any Kanye West song. 808s and Heartbreak butchered the music and the drums.

Look, I told you from the beginning that my only qualifications for writing about music is that I sit in a chair listening to it all day on big headphones. The sound of My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy works for me, and 808s and Heartbreaks’s doesn’t.

Here’s a final, very subjective, point. I will be perfectly honest with you. I do not believe in ‘listener fatigue’ or ‘ear fatigue’ or whatever it is: the phenomenon where music listeners have to take breaks or get tired from listening to ‘loud’ albums — with one exception. That exception shows me reasonably well that the phenomenon must exist. Like how when I was twenty-two, I didn’t believe in hangovers, it’s probably just a matter of time before I, too, get listener fatigue. But right now, I can, have, and do sit here and listen to My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy all day long. I’ve listened to “Gorgeous” about thirty times in a row. I have never not wanted to listen to this album.808s and Heartbreak is the one exception to listener fatigue: I can’t stand to hear it for more than one play through at most. So while I’ll concede that parts of My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy clip, and that the whole album is hot, maybe too hot, it 1) doesn’t bother me, and 2) seems like the right aesthetic choice for the album.

One Week // One Band January 20, 2011