Music Production and acoustics
 

When listening to an album does the production have any significance for you? Does bad production spoil what could have been a great album or can you look beyond that and still appreciate the guts (if you will) of the album?

Does great production turn you onto an album or genre that you only had a passing interest in?

An example is a tinny snare sound on a real punchy Metal album. That really puts me off and the dynamic of the music is lost somewhat. What say you?

I prefer "crappy" production because it leaves a lot to the imagination. I really care about the composition more than the presentation. Really polished stuff isn't an automatic turn off though I'm not fond of it. However if there's a band I really like and I'm use to hearing a certain recording style and they all of a sudden clean it up that is kind of a turn off.

I have to say I do like my punk like it has been recorded in a garage. Real DIY sound.

Production is nothing, if the music is quality.
Like the old saying goes, "it's what's in the groove that counts."

I don't know if I can agree entirely with this. While the groove definitely does count, an album that sounds like it has been recorded in sand cerainly loses something in the process. Think of say Martin Hannett and what he did with Joy Division. Of course the raw sound has to be there in the first place but there is no denying that his production added another dimension to their music.

Production on albums from the sixties left a lot to be desired.
Certainly nowhere near as good as the production now, but it took nothing away from the musicianship.
Motown is a perfect example of the point I'm trying to make.
The recordings made back then (snakepit) added to the overall sound and gave it a feel and atmosphere all of it's own.
A sound that would be difficult to reproduce today.

^^
I agree about Motown. It had a sound of it's own which was encumbent on the inhouse musicians AND the production. Even though it was primitive by todays standard, it was distinctive and purposeful which says to me that production is a factor.

As you are a Northern Soul fan- was the production any different to it's counterparts or was it just a more slightly aggressive way of playing? I am not enough of an expert to compare but maybe the production was approached slightly different?

It depended on the label.
Some of them were subsidiary labels of larger ones, so the production was good for the time.
Of course some of the smaller independent labels put out their music on a shoestring.
Most of the soul adopted by the Northern Soul scene was taken mostly from the smaller labels.

Depends a lot on the album i'm listening to.

If i'm listening to something thats intricate , multi layered & detailed then obviously I want decent production to heighten those things.
A good example of this would be something like Radiohead's Kid A.

However if i'm listening to something thats more simple and is obviously based more on the songwriting rather than the music I prefer it done as raw as possible , such as something like You're Living All Over Me by Dinosaur Jr.

My opinion is basically Urban's. Something that always bugs me about the Smiths debut is how low quality the production is especially compared to the Queen is Dead but something that annoyed the crap out of about Bright Eyes's last album was how how quality and sleek it sounded, it just didn't work no matter how orchestrated they've become.