What makes indie films more appealing than so many of the huge Hollywood productions? What makes indie music more interesting than the slick big label big production records? What's the magic that disappears when you hear the studio-mix version of something you once heard live? Not that most of us have the problem of too big a budget for our own good, but still... maybe we should think about whether some imperfections might be a good thing. Maybe we should consider whether we're trying too hard to smooth all the rough edges.
I'm not even sure this applies to much other than music and movies, but it's definitely a big deal there. A couple examples:
David Gray
His breakout hit, Babylon, was on the album White Ladder -- an album he produced mostly in his apartment, using electronic sounds to back up his acoustic guitar and piano. One of the best parts of that record was the combination of cheesy drum machine sounds and the faint hint of traffic noise from the street below. It definitely had that home-made, soulful feel.
Fast forward-- he gets big and ultimately his last album was a big, slick, high production value studio recording that sucked the life right out of the music. (In my opinion)
Howie Day
If you had a chance to see this kid play live during the 2000-2001 time especially, you know what I'm talking about. I saw him at a small, used record store in Denver the first time in 2000, and he walks out with an acoustic guitar... and some strange foot controller devices. He constructs the songs in realtime, using looping and other effects to layer in percussion, other voices, different guitar parts, etc. It was captivating. But then his records--where he has an Actual Band to do the work--all sound like so much pop music crap. It lost the imperfections that came with building a song on-the-fly with one person and some gear.
I happened to see Thomas Dolby the other night, in the fantastic DeviantART show with BT, and Dolby also does a lot of his music through layering in pieces in realtime. I've never much cared for his music--certainly not enough to buy it and play it at home--but his show was amazing, and now I'm much more interested in his records. One of the really fun things in his show was his head-cam-- you get to see what he's looking at when he's fiddling the midi controls, switching rapidly between various input devices, etc.
If you happen to be near a city where the tour is (MD, PA, VA, NY are the remaining shows, I think), you should check it out. And the BT show will make your head explode in a good way.
I'm not sure how much this notion of overproduction vs. imperfection applies to other products, but I suspect it does, depending on how you define perfection. A typo in a book would be a mistage, not an imperfection that gives it life. But a more casual tone that occasionally violates your fourth-grade Grammar Rules might be just the imperfection it needs. I don't know. What do you think? Is there an "indie sensibility" that applies to other things besides music, film, and fashion?
