?

What do you call the effect on a song where the singer sounds like he's on a dodgy radio, far away.

For instance, Steve Earle -- "Ashes to Ashes", right at the beginning. Or the chorus of "NYC" from El Corazon. He does it elsewhere too but I'm not motivated enough to listen to those last couple of silly albums of his to remind me on which songs.

In my mind it is "stupid idiot studio trickery bullshit" but there must be a more precise term ...