One thing I need to clear up here. There was never an implication made that work in this style sounded poor. Some of the operators who gravitate towards it are immensely talented in their own right. My qualm was with why those records just sound like the one that was done last week... by someone else? It's all about originality, not necessarily quality.
Since so many are intent on bringing up names, let me say again that I didn't even intend to direct this thread at Joey. As far as I see it, he virtually 'invented' this sound, so being the pioneer.. the one that has done the most with it, ultimately makes him the most original and gives him the right to do whatever he wants with it. What ultimately made me sit up and take notice was how many people wanted to be straight up clones of him.
Now don't give me this thing about 'CLA and Staub both have signature sounds, that's why labels go to them'. Of course every engineer has his own aesthetic - that's unavoidable. But these records I'm talking about are straight up near 1:1 copies of each other, with the same presets loaded up, or the same amps, in the same positions, the exact same drum samples. Even if CLA were to do 4 mixes back to back in a week, they would all sound radically different to each other, compared to what these scenecore records are starting to sound like. It's almost like everyone has this one blueprint of a band and sound they all interchangeably want to aspire to. How can that sit well with people? I just can't understand why anyone not affiliated with the mechanism would defend it.
Sure there are issues across the broader music industry. Popular music has always been shit, and the industry exploitative. But I chose to talk about this topic, and not that. For all intents and purposes it's irrelevant.
You have a right to believe I'm jealous, arrogant, or whatever your perceptions tell you. It really doesn't bother me. I know my course, and I will stay it straight. Long has it been a time where people with their own voice got put down with personal attacks. Ultimately when someone has nothing constructive to say to you, they make a swipe at your character - I'm very familiar with this.
And you don't have to tell me that this thread is antagonistic, or passive aggressive.... but let me know, why did this thread get 80+ replies in a day, when most of us can barely get 1/8th of that on our hard work over on the 'rate my mix' forum, or when we try to communicate useful ideas to the forum? It's because people are knee-jerk. They will jump into threads like this and actually take notice. You will only feel passionate enough to respond to my viewpoint if I'm passionate enough to antagonize you directly, draw the lines in the sand, black and white. You think I wrote the topic in these terms because I'm 'emotional'? No, everything was calculated, much the same way as the industry attempts to prey on every facet of your existence, and market yet another product to it. Creating an uproar got this the attention it needed. So read my views in whichever way makes you most comfortable, because all the words, all the wrapping, are just BS to get the idea through to those who care.