Barry Diament. Odds are, you’ve never heard of him— or think you haven’t. The truth is, though, that if you have albums or CDs by Bad Company or Hoodoo Gurus or Led Zeppelin or Linda Ronstadt, you could have some of his work in your collection. Diament, you see, has mastered or remastered albums by those and many other musical artists. What is mastering? According to Hoyle (erm, Wikipedia):
The first time I ever heard The Beach Boys was at a birthday party for a friend of mine. She received the album and a new stereo. She put the album on and I was listening to it and by the time it got to “Catch a Wave”, the third track on the first side, I was freaking out. I didn’t want to have anything to do with the birthday party anymore. I just wanted to sit with my ears glued to the speakers, listening to this great music. I saved up my allowance and that was the first album I ever bought.
— Laurie Biagini
This will not be like any other column I will write for DBAWIS. I will sound different and write differently and will, in all probability, mimic the style of one of the most influential people in my life outside of my immediate family. That style may seem outdated in this world of soundbytes and visual chicanery, a world in which you have seven seconds to catch a potential reader/viewer’s attention. It is solid and straightforward enough but would be looked upon certain pundits of pop culture as dull and outdated. Seven seconds. For most music programmers for the chains of radio stations gathered under the ever-growing corporate umbrellas, that is how much time you have to make your case. It would be enough to make Edward R. Murrow‘s eyes roll back in his head, though I am pretty sure they never did. Roll back in his head, that is. Murrow was never surprised, or didn’t appear so onscreen. And he was seldom caught off guard.
Bullseye Records of Canada
