The Music Has Changed??

Ha. That is a battle that is being lost by grammarians. It's slowly becoming acceptable to say "less" in situations where "fewer" used to be demanded.

There are bigger battles to fight now. My local major paper published a headline about someone becoming "a actress." A actress!

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BasvanS@reddit

I think we’re experiencing more mistakes, not less. Or fewer.

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The_Wicked_Ginja@reddit

1 million percent this. That mofo weasel messed everything up!!

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Euphoric_Evidence414@reddit

… weasel?? In the hadron collider? brb

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DrawingTypical5804@reddit

Could be your hearing. As you age, it’s normal to lose some frequencies. Might be a sign to get your ears checked out.

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FormidableMistress@reddit

Yeah I second this. I recently realized my hearing loss has increased. I've got an appointment scheduled. I need to brush up on my ASL.

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DrawingTypical5804@reddit

Hearing aids have come a long ways. Most connect into iPhones and adjust accordingly to your surroundings. They work with Androids, but not as well.

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I had hearing aids around 2010 ish. I hated them. It sounded like I was hearing everything through a tin can and they picked up every background noise at an equal level to whomever I was speaking to. I was born with some mild hearing loss and I'm also autistic, so hearing everything all at the same level was overwhelming.

I also had an issue with them fitting in my ear canal. According to the audiologist I have very narrow ear openings, what she described as "birdlike" and the aids were too wide and hurt. She even shaved that part in question down some but any more would have compromised the integrity of the tube.

I'm hoping they've advanced enough to be useful to me or I can at least try a different style.

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DrawingTypical5804@reddit

My mom has the good kind. They take a mold of your ear and fit the parts inside the custom casing. Mom hasn’t complained of the tin can thing, but I know she has a bunch of different custom settings she can switch them to, depending on the situation, like being in a movie theatre or in a noisy cafe. They’ve come quite a ways.

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FormidableMistress@reddit

That was the one I had and it was too big. I'm hoping I can tolerate them this time around.

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djsynrgy@reddit

So, FWIW, in addition to other plausible explanations here...

Major labels converted their assets to digital decades ago, for security. (Tape degrades over time, etc.) But, the thing is, Hard disk drives have a shelf life; they average about 10 years.

One of my buddies from high school made his way out west and eventually landed a day job as an archivist for a few of the major labels. (AND EPITAPH!! 🤘🏼)

They send him the masters, he pulls those into Pro Tools, and saves the project to a new drive. Rinse and repeat, track by track, for every album in the label's catalog.

I presume there's digital degradation occurring throughout this process; a copy of a copy of a copy, and so on, ad-infinitum.

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ughyoujag@reddit

I’m not saying this to be glib, but my mom was hear different frequencies and strange noise effects before she got diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor. Tell your doctor if it keeps happening.

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Rainbow4Bronte@reddit

Maybe dumb question but, is your mom? Ok?

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ughyoujag@reddit

Sadly, no. She died three months later. It was fucked.

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djsynrgy@reddit

I see you. Lost my mom in '02. Sometime this year I'll be older than she ever got to be.

Solidarity, friend. ♥️

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ughyoujag@reddit

gif

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Rainbow4Bronte@reddit

I’m so sorry for your loss and for her pain.

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ughyoujag@reddit

Thanks. I appreciate you

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taleofbenji@reddit

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit

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Academic-Bar5300@reddit (OP)

Thanks! I appreciate the lookout!

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nonexistentnight@reddit

Are you listening to the same copy in the same manner as before? There's a ton of reasons a copy on a streaming service might sound different. One thing to check for is if you have any kind of normalization turned on. It's often on by default. That tends to flatten out the dynamic range of a song and could definitely result in what you're describing.

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Academic-Bar5300@reddit (OP)

Sort of. I first heard it on the same vinyl. Then the same cassette. Also radio, which played whatever they played. Then the same CD. I would say the last 10 years ish has been entirely streaming, pandora then spotify. So im not format hopping, but given how long ive been hearing Ms. Houston, formats have definitely changed.

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UptownJunk802@reddit

On the radio? They speed it up two percent.

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SpareMeTheDetails123@reddit

Wait, really?! All songs or when they’re in some sort of time crunch?

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post_blast@reddit

Get through the songs faster and you have more airtime for ads.

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stephsco@reddit

That's so gross

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BulimicMosquitos@reddit

This is it. Ain’t got no time for artistic integrity when the dollars be on the line.

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Northern_Lights_2@reddit

gif

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orange_avenue@reddit

Yeah I’ve noticed this since the early 2000s. It’s obnoxious.

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miranym@reddit

I noticed this back in the 90s and at first I thought I was going crazy.

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Lobos3@reddit

It feels like it could be a lot of different things. Our hearing changes over time.
The sounds we hear get prioritzed by our brains differently How sound is recorded, saved and compressed changes The speakers we use today at baseline are probably has better than what we had as kids.

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neuro_space_explorer@reddit

I remember listening to Stairway to Heaven and swearing I had heard it before, I searched everywhere and I have quite a history of music in my head, but I ultimately came to the conclusion that it was just an brain error this one time I listened to it. They say Deja Vu is the memory center of your brain storing what you hear before your conscious mind hear it. I figured that’s what must have happened.

Maybe it’s something similar. With how complex the brain I’m always one to assume Occam’s razor is true rather than delve into the possibility I crossed parallel universes.

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buttery_orc@reddit

You may have been right: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/oct/06/plagiarism-case-ends-led-zeppelin-stairway-to-heaven-taurus-spirit-us-supreme-court

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jtriomino@reddit

I've had this issue with amazon music. Things don't sound right, or they are like B side versions. I keep yelling: No, Alexa, play the original! And Alexa is like: this be it. (I see someone else posted legit technical reasons but it's been driving me nuts too.)

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Milkweedhugger@reddit

I uploaded a bunch of music cd’s to iTunes about 20 years ago. Over the years, due to OS updates and new devices, Apple has replaced my original downloaded files with weird iTunes versions of many of the songs. It’s freaking infuriating to play a song you know every note by heart, and find it’s been replaced with some weird bastardized version.

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kmmccorm@reddit

Weird how?

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Milkweedhugger@reddit

They’re not radio edits, and they’re not the album versions. They’re random remastered versions that suck. One of my Madonna songs, Borderline, was replaced with an 8 minute long dance edit. I just tried played the Sponge song, Molly, and the opening was completely different. It was so horrible I ended up deleting the song.

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Background_Title_922@reddit

I hate that. My songs sometimes replaced with “anniversary” remasters. In some cases I haven’t been able to access the original album at all.

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ResumeFluffer@reddit

Compressed

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team_lloyd@reddit

that is completely insane that they’d do that. I’m surprised I haven’t heard of it until now and that someone didn’t try to take some legal action about it.

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FoppyRETURNS@reddit

It's is deranged how art is being rewritten in real time

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sertraline_dreams@reddit

I HATED this and is the reason I will never go back to iTunes/Apple Music.

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Affectionate_Yak8519@reddit

I fell like you have some option clicked on your phone or something because this hasn't happened to me and I have stuff I ripped over 20 years ago.

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Insomniac_80@reddit

Never put it in Itunes, old school MP3s on an old school flash drive!

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orangina_it_burns@reddit

Some songs were altered to play on the radio . They could be sped up for time.

They could use a weird mix that wasn’t released… there’s a mix of “possession” by Sarah McLachlan that I love that was never released on any single, etc., that I could ever find, that is the one that the radio station played in my market.

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sarithe@reddit

There is a Stone Temple Pilots song, can't remember which one specifically, that my local rock station plays a weird version of sometimes. I actually called the station one time because it was bugging me and my wife and the DJ told me that it was a special mix that was sent as a promo version to radio stations before the album came out in the 90s. Most stations changed to just use the album version once the album dropped, but he personally liked the weird mix so when he's on air he plays that version.

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jonasgrimms@reddit

This is probably not what you are looking for, but Rabbit in the Moon did a banger remix of Possession. Have to mention it.

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Sufficient_Turn_9209@reddit

Just pulled it up. The only way that wouldn't piss me off is if I were at a "party" in the late 9 0s. Lol

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Verbull710@reddit

there’s a mix of “possession” by Sarah McLachlan that I love

Yes I also love every mix of that one 👍

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AmyGranite@reddit

I might have some of these songs recorded on tape, from the radio.

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Academic-Bar5300@reddit (OP)

This would drive me nuts!

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Embarrassed_Ad9166@reddit

Were you streaming the music? Listening via a Bluetooth device? The quality is different versus a CD or hardwired connection.

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Academic-Bar5300@reddit (OP)

I was streaming. The weird thing is, ive definitely streamed it before. It was like the instrumental at the beginning was tinnier? More electronic or synthesizer? Her vocals were exactly the same.

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AggressiveWin42@reddit

Oh! I remember this from the documentary about Spotify! The quality is crap in the beginning while it buffers so it starts faster. Basically part of the song loads and starts playing instantly while it loads the rest of it.

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Exciting-Argument-67@reddit

Oh man. You just saved this person's day.

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Academic-Bar5300@reddit (OP)

THANK YOU. This makes sense!!!

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IpeeInclosets@reddit

Couple things to note--you are not crazy

Tracks via streaming services are different from radio or album tracks

There are long play, short play, and extended plays of a given song

Compression formats can alter replays

Streaming services generally speed up, snip, and truncate tracks. And they can and will sound altered. I suspect they utilize some sort of AI model to detect and remove.

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bikeonychus@reddit

That reminds me, I trifted an old stereo last year with a tape deck. I got all nostalgic and bought the Dookie album off discogs as a cassette (My kid has independently discovered Green Day, and I wanted to share the nostalgia). It was the first time it sounded right since I had it on tape 25 years ago - not great, because it's a cassette on an old stereo, but it sounded as I remembered it.

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Cyclibant@reddit

It might be a radio or album edit when you're used to hearing the opposite. Not a remaster - just another recording done the exact same way, which never sounds exactly the same. I've noticed this about one of Heart's songs from the mid-'80s.

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JFish3d@reddit

Music doesn’t sound the same when streamed. CDs, MP3s, etc. sounded so much better than what we hear on Spotify, etc.

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FoppyRETURNS@reddit

This is why I never migrated to spotify. Sirius does not have an alternate mix.

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FoppyRETURNS@reddit

Innocently it could be an alternate "mix," some 28 year old DJ or music programmer may not be familiar with the proper mix.

My personal theory is that when files get copied and pasted enough times, the data erodes. Now we're dealing with 20 plus year old data with thousands of generations.

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Optimal_Sherbert_545@reddit

Does anyone remember how there were two versions of the big Jewel songs in like 96… You were Meant For Me and Foolish Games I think? It drove me crazy that the ones on the album were not the ones they played on the radio. Then that happened with My Heart Will Go On a few years later, ahhh

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lostcosmonaut307@reddit

Artists have also been messing with songs on streaming because they can. SOMEONE (and I can fully guess who’s narcissistic ass it was) changed the version of Graduate on the self-titled Third Eye Blind album, so now to get the proper version that doesn’t sound like ass you have to find it on some greatest hits album separately. Totally ruins the flow of what was an awesome album.

Stephen Jenkins can just blow it out his ass.

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SeaSkimmer2@reddit

I’ve noticed that some songs are played slightly faster than the original, making it sound a little sharp in musical terms. Maybe just a bad rip or a bad playback.

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BasvanS@reddit

I heard You’re so Vain recently play on a radio at 90% of the speed. It was really weird and I have no idea why it played so slow.

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Starkravingbrie@reddit

Sometimes it’s too slow. Sometime it kinda lags on words randomly. I thought I was the only one that noticed!

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ResumeFluffer@reddit

I've had to report songs to pandora for this lol

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ssaall58214@reddit

Streaming services play the cheapest version. Sometimes the album cut or alternate cut to the radio cut we all remember.

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jadethebard@reddit

I don't know if this is the explanation for your situation, but as you age you actually lose the ability to hear some sounds. I can't remember what it's called but there are some sounds only teenagers can hear. Also, our hearing can just get a little wonky as we age. He'll, I got a blood blister in my ear canal from using a single Qtip a couple months ago when my ear was itchy. Bodies fall apart. lol

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FooFightingManiac@reddit

https://youtube.com/shorts/t0M9SPNtV8c?si=kSEbfSbVN_waulhn Would this be an accurate description of what you’re talking about?

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Academic-Bar5300@reddit (OP)

Sort of, but with instrumentation instead of vocals

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FooFightingManiac@reddit

Speeding up a track will distort all sounds, instruments included

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unlovelyladybartleby@reddit

Radio edit vs album version? Technotronic Move This always got me because the radio edit said "move this" and the album said "move this, move that"

Or you could be losing your hearing, stuffed up and having lack of sound resonance in your head, or slight cognitive decline due to a combination of age and being tapped out with a busy life

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udonbeatsramen@reddit

What service were you streaming on? Apple Music has Dolby Atmos mixes that make the song sound different from what you might remember, especially through AirPods

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alwaus@reddit

Its the tone.

80s was more bass than today, made for car audio, modern is for streaming over devices thay cant do bass so its toned with more treble.

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Insomniac_80@reddit

There are songs which had previous releases, we might not have heard the first time around. Was someone playing Dolly Parton's version of I Will Always Love You, the original Killing Me Softly?

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CypressRootsMe@reddit

There’s a radio station in a rural area that we were in that would play some songs sped up a little and some songs slowed down. No idea why but it would definitely mess with my mind. My husband tried to call the station to ask about it but never got anywhere.

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Academic-Bar5300@reddit (OP)

Now thats a conspiracy I could get behind!

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-VoidAmethyst-@reddit

maybe your ears are just tired of hearing it the same way all the time haha

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Daylight-Silence@reddit

Maybe it was a live version, or you're used to a live version?

I have this problem every time I listen to the actual studio version of Jane Says. "Something is terribly amiss"