Albums Marred by Over/Under Production
 

DISTANToblivion's post here gave me this thread idea. The question is simple - what albums do you think have suffered from over/under production or poor production in general? The words 'marred' and 'suffered' imply that the album should have some worth before production is taken into account so I don't want to hear any mention of Kenny G and his polished turds. :D


I like XTC's Skylarking but sometimes find it a bit overproduced and hard to handle. I'd prefer the production to be more akin to that of their earlier albums. Maybe I'm in the minority there? I feel that Black Sabbath Vol. 4 and Priest's Sad Wings of Destiny are a bit weak/thin sounding. And I'm not a fan of the production on Give 'Em Enough Rope (the Clash) either.

Californication is an example of a production disaster. I'm not a huge fan of the songwriting anyway (some good songs and some atrocities like Purple Stain but either way pretty run of the mill compared to the early stuff) but what the hell was Rick Rubin thinking when it came to the production? It's treble-addled, loud and annoying.

Speaking of treble, it can work sometimes... this album has possibly the harshest production I've ever heard (supposedly recorded on an 8-track in the forest) but I think it suits. Conversely, I don't think black metal necessarily demands crap production and I've always found Emperor to be underproduced since they have a lot going on but it's sometimes lost in the sound.


Unlike most, I'm not too bothered by the flat production of the Smiths' S/T. What do you guys think of the pristine production behind Steely Dan?

I could never really get into Big Black because I hated the production so much.

Ironic really because Albini has done some fantastic production with other bands. The albums he did with The Autuers sound absolutely gorgeous.

I disagree about Volume 4, I think the way it was recorded compliments Sabbaths sound brilliantly.

i think the talking heads' later albums were overproduced...i love the days of 77, it had a certain charm about it. not to say it wasn't good...but i usually conclude that i find something overproduced when i like the music better live...and that is definitely the case for talking heads.

The Cymbals on Mastodon's Crack the Sky is the first thing I think of. Everything else about that album is produced perfectly. The cymbals seem to have this phase distortion going on and are really articulated quite poorly.

I think it's fair to add that a huge problem with most studio production these days is an excessive amount of compression added in the mastering process. It's something that has become so ubiquitous that it's hardly noticeable anymore. Probably one of the most excessive and well know examples of this Is Metallica's Death Magnetic. It's practically unlistenable because of it...not that I would really want to anyways.

Muse's Black Holes and Revelations was quite poorly produced. It's really noticable too, because their first two albums were produced by John Leckie and he's a master of his craft.

A lot of raw black metal can be TOO "raw" and distorted that it just sounds like noise. I have too many examples to post. Sometimes it works unbelievably well though like in Sortsind's Sår and Brenoritvrezorkre's Vasagraebe Eakr Vatre Brenoritvrezorkre.

http://static.open.salon.com/files/t...1236466578.jpg

instrumentals cut within four hours. thin production, under-engineered and made to sound as amateurish and hurried as possible, probably the last thing the Magic Band wanted. there's a reason Moonlight on Vermont and Veteran's Day Poppy sound so good in comparison to the rest of the album -- they were recorded and engineered at a completely different session with a different set of studio engineers. contrast this to say, something like Lick My Decals Off, Baby and the difference is palpable.

Frank Zappa, in all his wisdom, pretty much fucked over the album from the beginning.

Suede's Coming Up.
Blur's The Great Escape
Far too 90's for my liking and somewhat overproduced.

Most OVERPRODUCED Albums Of All Time?
 

Classic example is the Ramones End of the Century with Phil Spector producing. Putting his wall of sound on top of the most basic rock group ever was a disaster. You can't hear the group amid all the strings and brass, the sound is muddled, a mess.

who thought this would be a good idea?

Phil Spector I guess.

'Tis aw a muddle.

I think the title goes to Bob Rock and his work on the Metallica Black album. Now that was over produced.

Phil Spector was pretty produced, but his was more of a style.

Anything by Phil Spector, basically. Let It Be is a classic example, but also All Things Must Pass, which would've been a terrific album if it wasn't for the wall-of-sound technique.

A thread exists on this subject from a few months back, but I can't find it because "overproduced" is not in the title. I don't remember what it was called. Anyone?

John Lennon's Mind Games. I've always liked this album, but it was overproduced by John himself. He was insecure about his voice so he swathed it in reverb, and the arrangements are a mess. Some good songs were marred and lovely melodies smothered as a result.

I read somewhere that John always had that vocal effect, he wouldn't sing without it, when the producer of a Beatles record tried to turn it off, John stopped until he turned it back on. I always thought he had some kind of effect on every vocal performance he delivered.

For another album, maybe we can put some blame on U2's Pop for being among the albums that encouraged over-production.

Now to my defense for End of the Century. The Ramones needed to break away from the "First Four Albums" sound, and while the work with Spector was not as great, sometimes it was a perfect match and not as bloated as usually thought - The Wall of Sound vs. The Wall of Guitars with both sides influenced by the same Pop greatness. It works a little better if viewed as what could have been The Joey Ramone Show as it was clear that Spector wanted to really focus on the singer (The only reason why something like the cover of "Baby, I Love You" would wind up there), and while the techniques did cross the line (The always-mentioned version of "Rock and Roll High School" which to my ears was good with the Wall of Sound), in the end it was a good diversion that was inspired in concept but flawed in execution which still resulted in a few gems ("Do You Remember Rock and Roll Radio" and "Danny Says" especially).

Phil Spector may have turned into one of the unforgivables, I'm still going to have to look back on his work with The Beatles as sometimes great. In the defense of The Wall of Sound for Let It Be, "Across the Universe" and "I Me Mine" alone stand well for his intrusion, although I do agree on those who thought that "The Long and Winding Road" was turned into ultra-mush. Siding with John, he did take what was about to be a failed project and did the best he could with it.

Spector's Sound worked it's best with his greatest hits and the Ronettes, but it did however hit a very over-produced bump in the road with what many consider as one of the Greatest Singles of all Time - "River Deep, Mountain High" by Ike and Tina Turner, which had one majestic performance by Tina that was swamped by an orchestra with an heavy amount of Reverb. I have yet to hear Spector's Post-Beatle/Pre-Ramones work, but I fear that those records are even more doses of hitting The Wall too hard.

I'm guessing you meant this thread? I completely forgot I made it until you mentioned that :D

Anyway, I have another to add to the list. Most of R.E.M.'s 90s material is overproduced. Monster... ewww!


I'd say this song features some of my favourite black metal production. Drenched in fuzzy guitar but well-produced enough to have audible bass, raw enough to be sinister and demented, but not so raw that you can't hear what's going on, and not as hard on the ears as that Ulver song I posted.


Behemoth is an amusing case because they started out with production that was raw even by BM standards and then evolved into a DM band with some of the most sickeningly slick production I've heard in a metal band... seriously, how many times are the vocals layered in this song?

I like hearing what metal can sound like with intense production. I can see how a disaster might occur, but this album is freaking great.

I agree that it is a good album. I haven't listened to it in a while but Xul used to be my fav track. Maybe I went overboard with the sickeningly slick part because it's only really the vocals that bother me - they just sound horribly overproduced.

Yes! Thanks. :thumb:

I agree with you there...the one flaw with the album is the vocals. I didn't really pay attention to how produced they were at first because I prefer grittier/higher pitched growls in my metal. The really low growl is my least preferred style. Now that I'm paying attention to the vocals, they really are crazy produced. It doesn't hurt the album too much, though...just a minor annoyance.

^Behemoth has put out one solid album after another, but Nergal does sound like he's got a mouthful of sawdust as he spits out verses on Demigod. Still a powerful modern recording that benefits Behemoth. On the other hand, I hate the production on the new Immortal album. Tagtgren makes the tremolo guitar riffs so frikin harsh, dense and loud, that they rip my eardrums to shred every time I listen to "All Shall Fall". Makes me appreciate the old-school low-fi black metal production approach even more.

I did a similar thread regarding production but I can't remember what I called it either!

Pfffffffffftt. It IS a terrific album, wachoo talkin about?

I agree very much about his production of Let it Be, though he only uses the wall of sound method for 3 songs. But his wall of sound production on All Things Must Pass is absolutely teriffic, I think Harrison kept his ego in check and made sure it didn't compromise his songwriting. Which is usually the main issue with Spectors production method, it often seems like he's trying to outperform the musicians.

I have mixed feelings about Hatebreed's Under The Knife. It's the first Hatebreed album I ever bought, and I was very disappointed upon the first few listens. It was obviously recorded at somebody's house. But through further inspection and with a growing knowledge of underground music, it lends a certain charm in the fact that an album with such crap sound quality sold so many copies, continues to sell copies and got Hatebreed's foot in the door and led to their success.

I just tried to listen to a copy of The Nihilistic Spasm Band that my sister's boyfriend sent me. I'm not sure which album it is, but it sounds like ****. I had to turn it off after a few tracks.

I also heard terrible things about the over-production on Chris Cornell's Scream. Personally, I haven't listened to it, and I don't intend to. Just wondering if any of you have any opinions on it.

The Civil Surface by Egg is a solid prog record, though it suffers from the percussion being mixed way too damn high. Totally in need of a remaster that corrects this problem.

The production of All Things Must Pass does sound a bit overpowering in retrospect but I find it actually adds to songs like What is Life which benefit from being blasted in all their glory.


Anyway, as much as it deviates from the purpose of this thread, I feel I have to post this. Look no further than Fat Freddy's Drop for FANTASTIC production. Seriously, how do they manage to sound so good?

I find that most blues albums up to the 80's show little appreciation for a neat production/mixing. The proposition that "the blues is one take" is not valid for me.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51NDZGVZM6L.jpg

Electric Hellfire Club—Burn, Baby, Burn!
At it's core this is a pretty good faux-satanic, somewhat psychedelic electro-industrial album, but unfortunately the production blows. This is a type of music that really requires terrific production but this album is muddy as hell. There is no sparkle to the high-end whatsoever, the beats are flat sounding, the guitars sound like they were recorded in a bathroom, the vocals lack any kind of crispness and the samples are completely buried under everything else.

Boris by Yezda Urfa.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_5cVyPU93ih.../Picture+2.png

Excellent folky/symphonic prog album (Yes being the strongest influence), marred only by awful production, it sounds like it was recorded in an outhouse, verry muddy, thin and hissy. It was recorded in 1975 but the production quality makes it sound like it could have been made in the late 50s. Though this was an album that never evolved from the demo stage (the band never managaed to finish it) which is the big reason for it's poor audio quality as it's not technically a finished album, in fact it was not officially released until 2004 when it was remastered but even then it still has a very tin can sound.

Though some might say that gives it raw authenticity and indie kids may dig it but dammit this is prog, and prog is supposed to be grand and this is an album where the excellent music is there, so it deserves hi fi treatment.

The reissues have bonus tracks and for some reason the production quality is WAY better than what's on the actual album.