Great songs ruined by small production/arrangement touches.

twentysixdollars · Post by **twentysixdollars** » Sat Dec 13, 2003 3:52 pm

Alright, let's dance away from the Worst Songs Ever thread and into somewhat tamer waters. Howsabout a list of the best songs most egregiously wounded by some small detail (in production, arrangement or performance) in the most famous recordings.

1> MC5's I Want You Right Now - spoilt by the mouth-noise midsection.
2> The Verve's The Sun The Sea - spoilt by the insistent beepBeepBEEP on the right channel during the second half of the song.
3> Lou Reed's Perfect Day - spoilt by the string section.
4> Ike & Tina's River Deep Mountain High - also spoilt by strings.
5> The Beatles' Across the Universe - spoilt by silly phasing effects.
6> The Byrds' Child of the Universe - spoilt by that stupid downtuned kickdrum.
7> The Velvet Underground's Head Held High - spoilt by the quiet mix. This was supposedly deafening in the studio.

Comments on these and others welcomed!

mazza · Post by **mazza** » Sat Dec 13, 2003 4:12 pm

"UNCLE DESMOND" BY LEE "SCRATCH" PERRY - THE COUGHING FIT 3 QUARTERS OF THE WAY THRU IT DOES MY TITS IN. BUT I LOVE THE SONG.

appledelphy · Post by **appledelphy** » Sat Dec 13, 2003 6:02 pm

"weÂ´re all normal people and we want our freedoom" at the end of red telephone by Love. It makes the whole album feel goofy...

anorthernsoul · Post by **anorthernsoul** » Sat Dec 13, 2003 7:10 pm

no! don't say that. go and see arthur live and have a listen, it's fantastic that bit, arthur on about five different tracks chanting freedom ...

slim · Post by **slim** » Sat Dec 13, 2003 11:34 pm

The stupid laughing bit in Every little Counts (last track on Brotherhood) by New Order.

The Fall reissues, the ones remastered from vinyl, obviously bought in a second hand shop. Pops and skips are fine if you playing a vinyl single but not a CD.

Does the production job on "Give'em enough Rope" count as small? Although it wasn't and should have been!

twentysixdollars · Post by **twentysixdollars** » Sat Dec 13, 2003 11:36 pm

I disagree too. The whole nursery-rhyme feel, and Arthur's ending impression of a Southerner, all add to the eerie insistence of the track. If it were more serious it wouldn't work nearly as well.

Post by **BzaInSpace** » Sun Dec 14, 2003 3:28 pm

Prince - 'The Rainbow Children' - musically this is red-hot.... yet is ruined by continually having Prince's slowed-down voice speaking over the top(verses from the Mormon Bible I beleieve).... certainly a brave arrangement but I find it irritating.
As an intro it would be great.... but it just keeps going on!

Hey, Ive always thought the strings on the original 'River Deep Mountain High' were integral to the song, its almost too much in the mix.

Just started downloading the Saints version of RDMH which should be cool!

a beautiful noise · Post by **a beautiful noise** » Mon Dec 15, 2003 8:26 pm

I don't know $26 dollars and no cents, sorry had to use that once, I like the string section on Perfect Day, but I agree about the low mix on the V/U track. A couple of tracks come to mind from V/U that had bad production on them.

xxxshonnxxx

twentysixdollars · Post by **twentysixdollars** » Mon Dec 15, 2003 9:06 pm

Quite true Shonn. Run Run Run is another one that's poorly mixed. Actually virtually all the tracks on the stereo version of the first album have something that doesn't quite flow: the celeste is mixed too high on the right channel on Sunday Morning, the piano is panned too far left on All Tomorrows Parties, the drums are too faint on Heroin and European Son, etc. The mono version corrects everything except Run Run Run and is far superior.

a beautiful noise · Post by **a beautiful noise** » Mon Dec 15, 2003 10:24 pm

Absolutely $26, all the so-called remastered Velvets albums are horrible. I picked up the Legends Collection or some shit like that, and the album is mixed so high, all the gain and treble is at 11, same with the Hendrix collection from the same company, I''m scared to try the Jackson 5 album.

xxxshonnxxx

twentysixdollars · Post by **twentysixdollars** » Mon Dec 15, 2003 10:52 pm

You're completely right, Shonn, and over the years Verve and its various owners have badly buggered up reissues of the Velvets' first album to the point where I don't think there's any version on CD with worthwhile sound in stereo. The new expanded mono edition is worthwhile but not at the price they're charging. But the remasterers aren't to be blamed completely for this state of things. The tapes, it would appear, sound lousy regardless of what techniques are used in restoring them (although Bob Irwin has done some astonishing things with old masters, I'm not sure if the state of the first VU LP has ever been as good as the tapes he's had at). There's plenty of blame to go around, including: Andy Warhol for recording half the songs dirt-cheap in the collapsing Scepter studios; Tom Wilson for making the awful and omnipresent stereo mix; and the Velvets themselves for not bothering to mix it in stereo in the first place.

Oddly enough the recent (1996) Verve reissues of White Light/White Heat and the third LP sounded pretty good to my ears, considering, and the Peel Slowly box, from the same masters, is sensitively mastered as well. We may be stuck with a substandard VU & Nico stereo master till the mono one is issued on a single CD, which may never happen. The current stand-alone disc from 1996 is no better or worse than the terrible first try in 1987. The latter disc is at least still in print and very inexpensive, and is the one I'd recommend if you're only buying one VU disc and are on a limited budget.

a beautiful noise · Post by **a beautiful noise** » Mon Dec 15, 2003 11:13 pm

Hey $26, I am always impressed with your vast knowledge and in depth details you posses. So, I just bought a very very strange Spiritualized bootleg. Its from the Queens Hall, Edinburgh Festival 8/14/98. It states on the back cover "Full live show including a collaboration with Steven Martland and rarely performed tracks." It is caled FLUX, please shed some of your god-like knowledge onto this subject. Thanks $26, I owe you one.

xxxshonnxxx

twentysixdollars · Post by **twentysixdollars** » Tue Dec 16, 2003 3:18 am

Well, no need for godlike knowledge here Shonn. My information comes from having heard this boot, where most of the people here probably did, at Tom Meade's site - http://home.earthlink.net/~tmeade/spiri ... sound.html . Actually I think most of the boots floating around originated from that source, which is a testament to how good Meade's tapes are (if they're his) and how great a site he has.

Martland arranged the odd dissonant choir "filler" between proper Spiritualized songs. He's often referred to as a 'serious composer' but from the records of his I've heard he's simply an electronic pop performer that wants to be more important than he is: a sort of younger, more pretentious, significantly less talented Eno, if you will. His 'avant-garde' qualifications - Steve Reich soundalike bits, tape experiments - are no more serious or broad-based than Jason's.

digital jesus · Post by **digital jesus** » Tue Dec 16, 2003 5:02 pm

WORST PRODUCTION: stooges "raw power" lp.
on some level i enjoy the appalling production quality. but overall it does detract from the songs. gimmie danger and penatration suffer severly. both are awesome tracks, and somehow come out the other side remaining great.
also bad/but great is the stooges' metallic k.o. live album. genius but horrendous recording quality.

a beautiful noise · Post by **a beautiful noise** » Tue Dec 16, 2003 5:17 pm

Thanks $26, but being unable to ever download anything off the net, I think the version that I have is a bit different. Their is only, if memory serves me, 3 SPZ tracks. An interesting album none the less. Wish I could have heard it before I bought it though!!

xxxshonnxxx

mh · Post by mh » Tue Dec 16, 2003 5:53 pm

My copy of The Stooges "Funhouse" is just plain mud. Plus, of course, I have major problems with all currently available versions of TPP.

a beautiful noise · Post by **a beautiful noise** » Tue Dec 16, 2003 8:55 pm

Another spot on example, all of the Stooges that I have been replacing from vinyl to Cd are fucking horrible. But I really really want to hear them in my car.

xxxshonnxxx

P.S. But the re-issued My Bloody Valentine and Primal Scream on 180 gram vinyl are like tits on a cow. (tits on a cow = dogs bollocks)

twentysixdollars · Post by **twentysixdollars** » Tue Dec 16, 2003 9:12 pm

mh wrote:Plus, of course, I have major problems with all currently available versions of TPP.

Very true. I whined about this a great deal on the older message board. Apparently the problem is something akin to those Lou Reed albums (Street Hassle, etc) that had been dolby-interpreted but not dolby-recorded or mastered.

will this do? · Post by **will this do?** » Wed Dec 17, 2003 11:10 am

Metallic K/O is just bad/bad.

I got Raw Power remastered which sounds great - I've heard about the original, but never heard it (all). All I know is versions of Search & Destroy that sound like they were recorded on a dansette in a biscuit tin factory, and the version I own that sounds like heavy metal thunder.

mh · Post by mh » Thu Dec 18, 2003 10:42 am

a beautiful noise wrote:P.S. But the re-issued My Bloody Valentine and Primal Scream on 180 gram vinyl are like tits on a cow. (tits on a cow = dogs bollocks)

Are they? Must search out some of them then.

Actually, my first Stooges album sounds wonderful on CD, really snotty and snarly, sound is clear as a bell.

mh · Post by mh » Thu Dec 18, 2003 10:44 am

twentysixdollars wrote:Very true. I whined about this a great deal on the older message board. Apparently the problem is something akin to those Lou Reed albums (Street Hassle, etc) that had been dolby-interpreted but not dolby-recorded or mastered.

Yeh, me too. Does me head in that the same songs on Translucent Flashbacks sound so wonderful too. I'd love to hear the full album sounding like that.

a beautiful noise · Post by **a beautiful noise** » Thu Dec 18, 2003 7:01 pm

MH - I just bought Loveless, I don't think I can listen to the Cd version again. The vinyl sounds very warm, I would recommend getting them before they are gone.

xxxshonnxxx

telliott3 · Post by **telliott3** » Sat Dec 20, 2003 1:43 am

Roger McGuinn's feigned southern drawl on "Sweetheart of the Rodeo". Gram Parson's vocals were withdrawn on several songs due to some kind of contractual snafu. Reconstructed with Gram's vocals, a nearly perfect album.

Post by **runcible** » Mon Dec 22, 2003 10:33 pm

What about any of John Lennon's songs with Yoko Ono singing? Her horrid screechy vocals are a real ear grate. I work in retail and am having to put up with no end of very testing Christmas songs. Happy Christmas War Is Over is one of the better ones but Yoko's shrill fingernails-down-a-blackboard style is a real trial.

slim · Post by **slim** » Tue Dec 23, 2003 11:27 am

runcible wrote:What about any of John Lennon's songs with Yoko Ono singing? Her horrid screechy vocals are a real ear grate. I work in retail and am having to put up with no end of very testing Christmas songs. Happy Christmas War Is Over is one of the better ones but Yoko's shrill fingernails-down-a-blackboard style is a real trial.

... but the test is, would you take Yoko over "the Idols"?

Normally I'd be with you all the way R, but I'd have to take the screech over the smulch, wouldn't you?

helm · Post by **helm** » Tue Dec 23, 2003 3:42 pm

... but the test is, would you take Yoko over "the Idols"?

i think in a fight between yoko and michelle from pop idol i wouldn't fancy the japanese ladies chance's much. reckon she'd kick the crap out of sam, though.

twentysixdollars · Post by **twentysixdollars** » Thu Dec 25, 2003 3:03 am

In light of the earlier discussion of Love it occured to me that I forgot a bit of a big one. Pretty much all of Da Capo (in the stereo version) is mixed miserably, with the rhythm section on the left and the melody instruments in the right. There's even a section about two minutes long on the record where there's no sound whatsoever on the right channel - the very definition of a production don't. "Revelation" in particular is pretty badly damaged by this. In mono it's fairly interesting - maybe not all-the-way-through-19-minutes interesting (that would be something like "unfairly interesting") - but interesting nonetheless. That highly distorted harmonica break sounds like something out of Sister Ray in mono, and so does Arthur's guitar solo (left channel - after the harp and after Johnny's more Byrdslike one).

Great songs ruined by small production/arrangement touches.

Dullest thread ever?

Great songs ruined by small production/arrangement touches.

no!