The thing with a lot of Metal bands "back in the day", or the Eighties if you prefer, is that they wanted to have a better production sound but couldn't, not just because of costs but because a lot of the average studio engineers at the time just didn't understand the kind of music more extreme Metal bands were doing. Bathory's "The Return", for me when it came out, ushered in a new way for Metal to sound, but I'll bet cash money that if Quorthon had the wherewithal at the time it would have sounded a lot different and a lot less memorable. It was common in fanzines at the time to read about people in bands complaining about the production of their albums. Hellhammer were sledged to the stars with their demo releases and the production became a by-word for "bad" for a lot of zinesters at the time (that and the music of course).
With punk, though, that wasn't supposed to be an issue, or at least that's how I remembered it. Punk was supposed to not give a fuck. Pretty much typified, for example, with the weak-arse production of a lot of Oi! albums from the Eighties (early The Buisiness, early The Oppressed, there's loads of examples as I think about it). They still went down well but the tinny guitar and thin production used to get on my nerves.
And I can't help but see a connection with new PE/Noise projects that bang on about being "filthy" and "dirty". I'm not complaining, just seeing a connection.
Thing is, people actually have a choice now. And faux "authenticity" is a choice. To be honest I don't mind.
