Usually in a situation like this (unlimited access to studio time & equipment) the answer is something along the lines of too much money turning the mix to shit with extraneous bells and whistles. In his case he has his anti-Midas-touch due to his day job at a radio station (CKNW).
Spoken word is a tenuous beast -- difficult to translate to the page, but surprisingly similarly so to capture in recording. Ambiance and body language, it turns out, are more important than I might have thought. I have a whole stack of mediocre recordings from killer artists. (Shane Koyczan's first CD is virtually unlistenable!)
Oh, he's got a radio job? I actually did think that it sounded very radio-like in some segments (even when not mocking the medium, that is). So now it becomes all clear.
There was far too much voice distortion in there, amongst other things.
But really, a lot of the text itself doesn't make much sense, I felt... it's very disjointed.
Anyway. Thanks for spoken-word-to-disc analysis =]
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branchandroot
Rowan, why is R.C. Weslowski's CD so terrible when his spoken word is so funny?
Date: 2005-02-21 03:55 am (UTC)Spoken word is a tenuous beast -- difficult to translate to the page, but surprisingly similarly so to capture in recording. Ambiance and body language, it turns out, are more important than I might have thought. I have a whole stack of mediocre recordings from killer artists. (Shane Koyczan's first CD is virtually unlistenable!)
Re: Rowan, why is R.C. Weslowski's CD so terrible when his spoken word is so funny?
Date: 2005-02-21 04:22 am (UTC)There was far too much voice distortion in there, amongst other things.
But really, a lot of the text itself doesn't make much sense, I felt... it's very disjointed.
Anyway. Thanks for spoken-word-to-disc analysis =]
Re: Rowan, why is R.C. Weslowski's CD so terrible when his spoken word is so funny?
Date: 2005-02-21 04:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-02-22 12:16 am (UTC)I like them because they're totally different than his live performances.
no subject
Date: 2005-02-22 10:52 am (UTC)I put it in the garbage yesterday, but I can fish it out if anyone wants it...