Worst production values in a recording

[Enforcer]

Bob Welch's Ebony Eyes is playing on our overhead right now. Wow, this is about as bad as it gets. It just sounds like sh**.

[Underhound]

Anything produced by Jeff Lynne.

Case in point:

Once in the early '90s I heard a song on the radio that I assumed was ELO. The lead vocal sounded slightly different but I thought I had heard they were reuniting without Lynne.
It turned out to be "Learning to Fly" by Tom Petty.
To me the worst quality of a producer is making another artist sound like himself. There is a certain characteristic about Jeff Lynne's production that tends to sap the soul out of everthing he touches, leaving this heinous cheesy, chirpy sound that I despise.
He has ruined records by George Harrison, Dave Edmunds and Roy Orbison.

Very Un-minty!

[Root Doctor]

Originally Posted by Underhound

Anything produced by Jeff Lynne.

I'll second that. His Dave Edmunds productions are horrifying.

Larry, no amount of studio savvy is going to make Bob Welch sound good.

[Enforcer]

True about Lynne. I remember hearing his George Harrison record back in the late 80s and being stunned at how it sounded. The twist is that Lynne's own music often sounded like circa-1966 Beatles, and here he was stamping that sound all over the music of George f**king Harrison. I wonder if George wondered what he was getting into during the production of that thing...

Larry

[stonemonkts]

When I was a freshman in college I was dragged to a concert of...ugh..Bob Welch AND Foreigner.

Then I had to listen to my date sing "Cold as Ice" all the way home.

Welch wore a hot pink jumpsuit. What a dildo.

[graypencil]

I submit that the inclusion of Celine Dions' vocals on every Celine Dion CD constitutes a production value faux pas that rivals rhinocerous feces in the creme brulee in its ghastliness..

[Root Doctor]

Originally Posted by graypencil

I submit that the inclusion of Celine Dions' vocals on every Celine Dion CD constitutes a production value faux pas that rivals rhinocerous feces in the creme brulee in its ghastliness..

Celine is known in my family as "the screaming stick."

[Root Doctor]

Originally Posted by stonemonkts

Then I had to listen to my date sing "Cold as Ice" all the way home.

I hope the song wasn't prophetic, Stone. That'd be insult to injury.

[Enforcer]

Fantasy version of stone's date: Instead of imitating the singer's vocals, she feels the urge to somehow adopt the "hot pink" aspect into her drive home with stone.

Larry

[AntManBee]

Although Jeff Lynne rarely produces albums by artists I like very much, I agree that his sound is dreadful. But for me, Daniel Lanois is much worse, as he from time to time messes up albums by artists I happen to like. Like Lynne, Lanois hijacks the album by whatever artist and unsympathetically turns it into his own.

That said, I think his sound works rather well on the Dylan albums he did. Mysteriously enough.

[stonemonkts]

Root 1, Larry 0.

Nice call there, Doctor.

[Gentle Giant]

Compare pre-We're an American Band Grand Funk to the Todd Rundgren productions (WAAB and Shinin' On) and you can see what a boon he was to the band.

[Jazzooo]

I know this flies in the face of GG's reviews, but Brian Wilson's new solo CD sounds terrible to me, sonically. The voices (about 25-30 of them on some tracks) are huge and harsh, and the drums are waaaaay in the background. No punch, no presence. Everything's drowning in reverb.

It didn't help that I was exactly knocked out by the songs, either.

[Dr Dave]

You guys don't know nuthin' about bad production values.

Click here. If you dare!

[Chris D]

Man, I love Lanois' sound. He can gauze up things too much -- e.g. the Neville Brothers' "Yellow Moon" -- but I also think he's very sympathetic to the artists with whom he works. Emmylou Harris' "Wrecking Ball," for instance, is the most refreshing, listenable album of her career, if you ask me. And I loved "Pieces of the Sky" and "Quarter Moon in a Ten Cent Town."

I don't particularly like Steve Albini's rub-'em-raw approach. I thought he brought out the worst in P.J. Harvey.

[Jazzooo]

I don't really like Albini's approach either, but I enjoy reading his comments whenever I see 'em.

I call Jeff Lynne's approach to producing "Lynncinerating the music."

[Tanager]

Originally Posted by Jazzooo

Everything's drowning in reverb.

This seems to a trend of some rock reissues. ZZ Top comes to mind - when I heard "La Grange" with those echo-chamber drums, I almost puked. When did everyone fall in love with fucking reverb?

[john williams]

Whoever produces Elton John albums.



I like Albini though.


However, I can't stand Phil Spector who's revered as some kinda production god but his so called wall of sound just irritates me.

[Gentle Giant]

Originally Posted by Jazzooo

I know this flies in the face of GG's reviews, but Brian Wilson's new solo CD sounds terrible to me, sonically. The voices (about 25-30 of them on some tracks) are huge and harsh, and the drums are waaaaay in the background. No punch, no presence. Everything's drowning in reverb.

It didn't help that I was exactly knocked out by the songs, either.

I assume you meant wasn't. Well, as this thread has shown so far, people have different ears for this kind of thing (except that we all agree that Jeff Lynne blows; he produced a track on BW's first solo album and it's thoroughly Lynncinerated). I think Soul Searchin, the title track, Fairy Tale, and Don't Let Her Know She's an Angel (which I've loved since I heard it on the bootleg of his second, still unreleased solo album, Sweet Insanity) are truly strong tracks.

Like Lynne, Todd's also been accused of making all his outside productions sound like him, but if it's a working formula, what's the problem? There's even a compilation of hits from Todd-produced albums out (An Elpee's Worth of Productions). It spans everything from Meat Loaf to Steve Hillage.

[Dr Dave]

Originally Posted by Tanager

This seems to a trend of some rock reissues. ZZ Top comes to mind - when I heard "La Grange" with those echo-chamber drums, I almost puked. When did everyone fall in love with fucking reverb?

Because good reverb, in the days of tubes, was hard to do in the studio. That's why.

For an instructive session in drum sounds, listen to "La Grange" and then to "My Head's In Mississippi." How do you like your Frank Beard? Analog or digital?

[Dennis Gonzalez]

I've gotten really tired of Bill Laswell's productions. How about what he did to Motorhead?

[Tanager]

Originally Posted by Dr Dave

Because good reverb, in the days of tubes, was hard to do in the studio. That's why.

So...when it suddenly got easy, reissue producers crapped reverb all over everything? ugh. (I actually asked when, not why, but I think you answered my question implicitly. )

[Underhound]

Originally Posted by Gentle Giant

Like Lynne, Todd's also been accused of making all his outside productions sound like him, but if it's a working formula, what's the problem? There's even a compilation of hits from Todd-produced albums out (An Elpee's Worth of Productions). It spans everything from Meat Loaf to Steve Hillage.

Maybe I'm not very perceptive, but I don't hear that in Todd's productions. There are some gimmicks he uses on his own stuff that he mercifully spares us from hearing on other peoples records. Like when he sends everything through that awful flange effect. And a lot of his metal-ish stuff sounds like pure mud. But I've never thought of XTC's "Skylarking" as Rundgrenesque and there's certainly no evidence of Toddness in the James Cotton album he did. I can't say I hear it in Grand Funk or the Loafy One either.
The Pursuit of Happiness? that's another story. Quite Toddish.

By all accounts he does seem like a dick to work with though.

[graypencil]

Originally Posted by Dr Dave

Because good reverb, in the days of tubes, was hard to do in the studio. That's why.

tube amps, natural chambers = good
live players in studio = good as well

sampled, sequenced ,protools manipulated, cheeze whiz tracks with all the fly shit meticulously removed, moved, pitch corrected, time stretched, and nitpicked beyond belief over musical materials worthy of only being relegated to the circular file= very bad

Stuff, Booker T, the original Motown crew = priceless

[Enforcer]

Originally Posted by Dr Dave

For an instructive session in drum sounds, listen to "La Grange" and then to "My Head's In Mississippi." How do you like your Frank Beard? Analog or digital?

Doc! One of my great pet peeves. The pre-remastering ZZ Top was earthy and flawed, and I liked it. Then, they digitized their sh** and Beard's drum sound is no longer listenable for me. I don't know when it happened, but it was some time in the 80s. I was really glad to hear an old, pre-remastered version of La Grange the other day. One local radio station must still have a copy of it. Much, much better.

Larry

[Tanager]

Larry, I think it happened when they remastered all ZZ Top's hits for a greatest hits CD - you've got the timeframe about right, I think (I'm too lazy too look on AMG). I am not sure if, were you to buy the actual albums themselves on CD, you'd get the pre-crap or post-crap versions.

[Gentle Giant]

Originally Posted by Underhound

Maybe I'm not very perceptive, but I don't hear that in Todd's productions. There are some gimmicks he uses on his own stuff that he mercifully spares us from hearing on other peoples records. Like when he sends everything through that awful flange effect. And a lot of his metal-ish stuff sounds like pure mud. But I've never thought of XTC's "Skylarking" as Rundgrenesque and there's certainly no evidence of Toddness in the James Cotton album he did. I can't say I hear it in Grand Funk or the Loafy One either.
The Pursuit of Happiness? that's another story. Quite Toddish.

By all accounts he does seem like a dick to work with though.

I don't necessarily agree with the charge, either, but I definitely hear the Todd in Skylarking and his influence makes the album a clear departure to what XTC had done before (which was excellent, don't get me wrong). In fact, the level of his involvement was the source of his butting heads with Andy Partridge, who I perceive as being a much bigger dick than Todd. But even Partridge now agrees that it turned out to be a great album.

[Gary Sisco]

Bah. Jamaican producers had reverb down pat in the tube days. Hard to do, sure. So's anything worth doing.

My great pleasure in life is being able to honestly say I've not heard 99% of the music mentioned so far in this thread. Lanois, Laswell, and Spector are the only names I can put together with music I've heard. Thank goodness.

[Chris D]

You've probably heard Albini, too, Gary. He produced Nirvana, the Pixies, P.J. Harvey, among others.

[Gary Sisco]

I didn't pay much attention to Nirvana, Chris. I was so deep into reggae in those days I could barely raise my head above that horizon (apart from jazz, of course). Ditto, the Pixies. I've only heard Harvey's first album or second -- whichever was her first big hit. I didn't like it much.