The only reason there's anyone around here (namely me) pushing the "I love shit production" wagon to the forefront is because quite frankly, it feels like some set of metaphysical scales need balancing here.
The main point of view on this forum is that everything should be edited to fuck, quantized, sampled, re-amped 5,000 times, must have a tube screamer in front of a dual rec, etc etc etc or it's not good enough, the people who disagree with such things are in the minority here.
And it's not about it sounding like ass. Maybe YOU think it sounds like ass, but maybe to me it sounds absolutely heavenly.
All this modern production legitimately not only hurts my ears but a part of me that I really can't explain with any human language. It's too loud, there's fuck all dynamics and it all sounds exactly the fucking same.
It reminds me of being in College. You have to analyse interesting, original, unique works of literature but you're not actually allowed to write in a unique, original or interesting style. You have to fundamentally re-tread the same old ground or it's not good enough and you either suck it up and do it for the sake of a piece of paper with some grades on it or you don't and leave or get kicked out.
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas couldn't have been written by a college student, for example. Not just because a college student more than likely wouldn't have experienced such things or had such thoughts, that's just an aside, but for the sake of demonstration, the writing style, the use of language, the structure, flow, mood, feel.. These are all things that would be "wrong" to the institution but they made the book a truly unique piece of art.
It's exactly the same way mixes get treated here. If something is unique like that Zao mix or Shellac or some dirty death metal mix or something, it gets panned because it doesn't do it the same way as everyone else. You know how many pieces of music I've heard on this forum that have really stuck out to me as being something unique? Very, very few. Not one of them has been from the pod/slate/amp sims/quantization/blah crowd.
It's like all these bands chase success and don't realise that the only way they're going to be truly successful is by being unique, otherwise they'll simply get 5 seconds in the limelight and then dissapear from people's collective memory. Look at Bullet for my Valentine for example. There was a time when they ruled the goddamn roost and now all that's left is some shambling corpse trying to re-invent itself vicariously through a dozen other shitty bands all trying to do the same thing.
And the people here that share any of these viewpoints, be it small points or the whole goddamn thing are completely, COMPLETELY outnumbered by those who think I'm talking absolute horseshit.
And yeah, you can do larger than life things with modern mixing, but why is larger, better, etc... well.. better? The most powerful music I've ever heard has been musicians in a room pouring their souls out into their music. But then I guess some people want to see fancy light shows and the musical equivalent and some people want something more reserved, genuine and honest.