[felix240]

Similarly, how do you regard artists whose idiosyncratic recording style is essential to their musical expression? I think of Jandek, for one, where the hiss and tin are actually as much music as the voice/gtr/whatever. Or Royal Trux, who used effects with a kind of historical and theoretical sophistication...I mean, isn't recording as straight up documentation kind of like a painter limiting himself to portraiture? Isn't any tool useful in the right hands?