The best mastering engineer in the world cannot save a shitty mix. "You can't polish a turd" :slanted:
If the UK majors were to sign another grime artist (thats a big if), they should send the album to whoever mixes Lil Jon, Ying Yang Twins, Dipset etc. If that happened, people might even start listening to it.
But they're so scared to invest over here.
I dunno. A lot of people who work in pro audio, from engineers to producers to programmers, turd polishing is what they do every day - and they are fucking good at it, to be fair. I don't think it's about technical expertise or the cost barrier to accessing that, because we have great technicians in this country: people who have been mastering dance music for decades. Dubstep producers don't have $$$ to throw around either, but there's nothing wrong with thier mastering. It's more of an attitude thing with grime that stops it measuring up against US hip hop I think.
Turd polishing ain't quite right because for a lot of those guys - and the American R&B producers epitomise this - it's a technical discipline, about getting that sound, that hit track that sounds good on the radio, and they don't really give a toss about the artist's agenda. You can slag that approach off from an indie/underground persective (indeed, Steve Albini's made a second career from it), but the bare facts are that from early R&B through motown and disco to hip hop now, it produces killer tracks time and time again. There's nothing more thrilling than a producer on a roll, hoovering up shit like J-Lo and churning out gems on the other side.
The thing about grime is that if the artists really want to crack it, they have to submit to that logic, lock stock and barrel. Pop isn't about getting precious about your creative process, it's about what works and what doesn't. So if a producer you barely know tells you to cut a verse you've been honing for weeks, or that's maybe personal to you, because the track needs to be shorter, you just have to do it. Not many personalities can deal with that when push comes to shove, so a lot of people stay in the underground.
I kind of think that grime needs someone like Rza to come through, who understands how to translate the subculture into a mainstream phenomenon in terms of sound and image, without losing the power and thrill of it. Then again, Rza and Genius had both fucked up on majors prior to the Wu Tang and used the knowledge they got to make the clan strong, so maybe it's just about some of the grime artists who got burned on majors taking some time out to reflect before coming back with something.
swear the show finished like ten mins ago.