Good Enough Doesn’t Mean What We Think it Means
Generally when we describe something as good enough, there’s an air of resigned disappointment about the phrase. A weary shrug of the shoulders, as if all the lofty ambitions had failed to be achieved and we were somehow settling for something which, contrary to the literal meaning of the term, was inadequate.
I suppose it’s a language thing, but ‘good enough’ rarely seems to actually mean ‘good enough’. It tends to mean ‘not as good as we expected’. There’s an interesting article on Wired at the moment describing this exact phenomenon. They cite a number of example, from the Flip camera to unmanned combat aircraft, and online alternatives to Microsoft Office (Google Docs being the most obvious and successful). The term they use as a catch-all for this general trend, whereby high-quality, high-fidelity and feature-rich products are suffering at the hands of their bare-bones brethren is “The mp3 Effect”.
I have heard countless arguments amongst audiophiles about labels using high-quality mp3s or FLAC or AIFF files to reclaim territory lost to illegal downloaders and I really think they are making a mistake. Some people will care about that, but most simply do not give a shit. There are studies, albeit somewhat off-the-cuff ones, referenced in that article which show users are actually growing to prefer the lossy, compressed sound of an mp3 file to its higher fidelity cousin. Personally, I really don’t give a shit 95% of the time, either.
The whole Meursault album has been released on (not-particularly high bitrate) mp3s. Neil’s rationale: it was never supposed to be a high-fidelity record. It wasn’t recorded like that, so why should it be released like that? He’s right of course, but there is always the more practically expedient question – had he pushed for something more high-quality, requiring more expensive equipment, maybe studio time… well, it all just makes it increasingly unlikely to happen, doesn’t it. What’s more important to you, that it be perfect or that it happen.
I often ask myself this question with this blog. Is a timely review of a live show more important than the writer figuring out exactly what they want to say? Are the Toad Sessions much better – in terms of production values, depth of content and so on – than they need to be? Would you rather twenty quicker, easier, more cut-and-shut Toad Sessions in a year or eight ones with a lot more work put into them?
Now, I do appreciate a high quality recording played on shit-hot equipment, but honestly, the vast, vast majority of the time I just wouldn’t notice. I also appreciate quality writing and great production values on internet video, I appreciate all kinds of very very nice things, just not very often. Most of the time, and I doubt I am alone here, I just want good enough. It’s fair enough to blame idiots for the rise in reality TV or mediocre chick lit or banal blockbusters or poor sound recordings or crappy convenience food or low quality pictures posted on the internet or pretty much any proliferation of ‘not as good as we expected’ in a field we care about, but I think we are all like that most of the time. When you watch telly do you wait for something good, or do you just fancy emptying your brain for a bit and just make do with whatever you can find, most of the time?
I really can’t face the idea of convenience food… doesn’t mean I never eat it though. How much time, in all honesty, do any of us have to appreciate real quality most of the time? I love music, and I am perfectly happy with mp3s 98% of the time. I love eating well and we cook a really decent meal no more than a couple of times a week. Real quality generally needs a degree of attention to be truly appreciated and how much of our life can we really devote to that kind of proper indulgence? Kids, jobs, admin, chores, there just isn’t room enough in everyone’s lives for ‘good enough’ not to make up 97.36%* of our requirements for pretty much everything.
Like all good ideas, it just seems so bloody obvious when someone points it out to you, but the idea of making something just good enough rarely gets past the drawing board in most places because people always seem to take it mean slightly less than good enough.
Bruce Springsteen – My Best Was Never Good Enough
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*Warning: Approximately 88.6% percent of statistics in this post were made up on the spot.
