Originally Posted by Conan

Early Overproduction

Johnny Cash said it himself. He sounded best with as minimal accompaniment as possible - just him and his guitar. Present in the 1960s but prevalent in 1970s was the notorious overproduction of singers and singer-songwriters. Big sappy string sections, flutes, barber-shop quartets, harpsichords, horns, oboes... none of which used in moderation and serve only to distract you from any talent the artist is displaying. Phil Spector ruined the Beatles send-off album Let it Be
by indulging in such techniques. Due to whatever weird reason people like Spector and Jack Clement were successful, throughout the 60s and 70s producers sought to imitate such styles. This resulted in big chunks of garbage records from otherwise talented musicians.

Who knows why the concept of minimalism is such a difficult one to grasp for some people. I can just imagine the mindset, however - stuff a tune with as much "good sounding" stuff as possible and it's bound to sound better! Right?

Wrong.