base talk Popular songs seem to be recorded in poor quality

[theoghon]

Early 2000s RnB especially... weird that nobody mentions it

[wastedpotential]

I've always said that the production on Born This Way (song) sounds like Gaga put a couple of forks in a washing machine, put it on the spin cycle, and held up her 2009 Dell laptop microphone, recorded it, and pitch corrected it to form a lot of the sonic filler 

 

The vocal take is clear, though 

[Keter]

3 hours ago, Futile Odds said:

 

The production on this song isn't poor overall, but the random beat skip here (for like a split second) has always bothered me. It sounds like such an obvious glitch to me.  It's on Spotify like this too. 

 

More generally, some tracks on Back to Black intentionally have that '60s distortion/clipping, which can become a little grating after a while (as much as I love that album).

I always thought this was an intentional staggered/clipped effect. 

[Chaos Angel]

Crazy in Love - her vocals are behind the beat and too quiet

 

Hips Don't Lie - the vocals are too loud