J Cole’s new album KOD just won the Dynamic Range Day Award 2018.
(The award is given every year to a great-sounding, successful album that also has great dynamics)
And it’s the most streamed album in it’s first week ever, AND it went straight in at Number 1 in the Billboard album charts !
So - remind me - why exactly is a super-loud master supposed to be 'required' for success and sales again ?
...right.
And here’s the thing - this is just the latest example in a building trend. More and more rap, R&B and hip-hop artists are taking advantage of the benefits of dynamics in their sound, and people love it.
Let’s start with a low-key example like - oh, say: Drake.
Right, the Drake - the one who regularly holds multiple Top 10 positions in the global streaming charts simultaneously. To be that successful, surely your music has to be ridiculously loud, right ?
Well… no.
Drakes recent single God’s Plan has 469 million views as I’m writing this, and the integrated loudness measures… -11.7 LUFS. Hardly the -8, -6 or even -4 numbers some people like to tell you are 'needed'.
Or how about “Process”, by Sampha, also nominated for the DRD Award, and which won the Mercury Prize here in the UK last year ? The album overall measures -10.4 LUFS.
Now don’t get me wrong, both these numbers and albums are still loud - but they’re not “loudness war loud”, in the way so many are.
And that’s the point.
Users don’t care about loudness - they care about music.
Some of the biggest artists in the world are mastering their music with more dynamics - let’s hope everyone else follows suit.
Soon.
I'll be interviewing Glenn Schick, who mastered KOD for J Cole, on the next episode of The Mastering Show podcast. Subscribe now to make sure you catch it - and, listen to my interviews with previous DRD Award-winners Matt Colton and Bob Ludwig, while you wait !
