best produced redord

  • Thread starter Thread starter WEBCYAN
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Ooh, if we're talking '80s, I think you'd have to throw in stuff like Unforgettable Fire, Joshua Tree, pretty much every Smiths album...

Duran Duran's self-titled album from the early '90s sounds terrific, too. That's the reference album that I used when I was auditioning my stereo.
 
my favorite record

The Verve - Urban Hymns

Just listening to "Bittersweet Symphony" makes me want to go find some girl and rock her world.
 
I, as a general rule, frown on anything produced by the corporate factory-labels... as to my ear, they all sound the same.

So... here's my list, for what its worth.

Jawbreaker - Unfun (recorded in 1989) many would listen to this and immediately notice the rawness and perhaps the "amature-ish" production... but listening to this on a good system (flat response) is amazing. It just has that "present" sound... and well... IMHO... you can't go wrong with Jawbreaker :)

Rodan - Rusty. I think the whole session was recorded with 3 mics... at least that's what it sounds like. No close mics on the drums (prolly just 2 overheads and a room mic) and the vocalist screaming into the mic from about 5 feet away. Very open sounding, very raw and damned entertaining

Misfits - Static Age session... for those who have heard this original master piece in classic late-70's american horror-punk would agree that this production is amazing in its grit, dirty completely vintage recording

Liz Phair - anything, she is a genious as far as I'm concerned... her sessions have that mixture of home-studio intimacy and commercial-studio quality.

That's all I can think of right now... of course this all my opinion and therefor means nothing

./dave
 
HEEEYYYYYYYY!!!!

Cyrokk said:
I'll have to disagree on Kravitz' drummer sounding like Bonham.. nope.. don't hear it.. The only ones who could pull off John's sound in a blind hearing test would be Bonzo himself, his son, or Bruce Springsteen's drummer who somehow miraculously pulled an exact duplicate of "When the Levee Breaks" out of his kit when demonstrating rock styles on a pre-Kathy Regis show some 15+ years ago.

Cy
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Let me Clarify my statement.....

Keep in mind im talking drum SOUND alone... not playing ability, nor comparing to Bonzo's actual technique.....He was a god!

Just the SOUND of the drums....

BG
 
AJA and GAUCHO by Steely Dan. How they did what they did to get the clarity.......Its amazing.
 
king for a day- faith no more is as solid as a rock, beautiful sound

but i just heard the new "cure" compilation album right, its a two cd set the first a regular best of, the second is a real quick studio job of all the songs in a semi-acoustic form, it sounds realllllly rushed, you can hear smith talking between verses, obviously to be edited out later but they forgot or something, and shit like picking up guitars and stuff...but it is the most refreshing approach to production i have heard in a long time, it kinda sounds like a demo tape made with $500,000 worth of gear (if you catch my drift)...

but alot of the art of production is dead (or dying) if you know some of the stories about led zeppelins mobile studio stuff then you would know what i mean...
 
AJA Nothing Can touch that.

Two against nature does come close.


Gary katz is the best ever. The most tasty sounding tracks put together tasefully using only the most Anal Jazz musicians in existance.
 
Garbage's first album is incredible
REM "Automatic 4 the people" rules
NoFx "Punk In Drublic"
the Muffs "Alert today, alive tomorrow"
NoUse For A Name "More Betterness"


The production on any later Monster Magnet is absolutely fucking amazing, Check out "Dopes to infinity" and "Powertrip"
 
Although I hate them, the Backstreet Boys' "I Want It That Way" is one of the finest engineered, produced and recorded songs out there. The pop crap music aside, the production on this track is spectacular. Makes for a great reference CD.
 
Kill Me If I ever consider listening to the backstreetboys or n'sync.

For I would only be a pod at that point controlled by the Borg.
 
"The Wall"(Bob Ezrin,I believe),fucking masterpiece!Along the same lines,"Dark side of the moon",Alan Parsons.And of course,"Abbey Road",George Martin and those other guys!
 
Toto's records sounded great. I'm thinking of the singles "Rosanna" and "Africa" in particular.

Every instrument is perfectly clear and pristine and in its own sonic space. And yet, the crescendos really have a lot of power.
Listen to where the cymbals and organ kick in, in "Rosanna", at 0:36. Awwwww yeeeh!

You know, it makes me think about current records... There's a bit of a rant about this over at the Digital Doman (digido.com, I believe?) - about how often, older records are quieter but they sound so much better, while newer records are compressed to the point of having no dynamics whatsoever.

I never fully understood what he was talking about until recently. I had to review the new Britney Spears album, a few weeks before it came out. (It's a tough job, but somebody's gotta do it. ;-) ) The first thing I noticed was how LOUD the record is. It's louder than the current releases by N'Sync and Michael Jackson, to name a couple of her contemporaries.

The thing is, it's so massively compressed, that in the songs that are supposed to be hard slamming dance tracks, the beats just don't slam at all. They thud. No power, no excitement, just THUD. I blame it on the compression. It's too bad.

Whatever happened to dynamics? To "light and shade"?
 
beezelbubba said:
"The Wall"(Bob Ezrin,I believe),fucking masterpiece!Along the same lines,"Dark side of the moon"
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Oh, yeah. Just about ANYTHING by Pink Floyd, say DSOTM and after.
 
Ooh, I forgot some pretty glaring omissions...

Who's Next and Quadrophenia by the Who, and All The Best Cowboys Have Chinese Eyes by Pete Townshend.
 
My favorite productions
1. The last three Stereolab albums
2. Most anything Steve Albini has put out especially Pixies Surfer Rosa.
3. Tortoise: Millions Living will never Die
4. Sunny Day Real Estate: Diary and the Pink Album
5. Metallica: And Justice for All
6. Every Tools album

Rodan's Rusty is a great album
 
quote:

best produced, I'd say something like Sgt. Peppers or Pet sounds. by today's standards, not the best sounding albums, but two of the best nonetheless.

Mike

______________________________________________

Uh-oh. Can someone explain the difference between "best produced" and "best sounding"? I'm sure it's just my ignorance, but how would they be different?

Thanks,

Mark H.
 
Kitwell said:
My favorite productions
1. The last three Stereolab albums
2. Most anything Steve Albini has put out especially Pixies Surfer Rosa.
3. Tortoise: Millions Living will never Die
4. Sunny Day Real Estate: Diary and the Pink Album
5. Metallica: And Justice for All
6. Every Tools album

Rodan's Rusty is a great album
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Awsome... I included Rodan's Rusty on my list... and how could I have left out something from the Pixies!

Tortoise is amazing... they are my "at work" selection They have that classic (yet more recent) Quarterstick sound (very open, very raw, yet refined)

Tool... especially the first album... the little spoken-word break with Rollins was genious :)


Sunny Day is great... but I found the drums in Diary sometimes suffering from an almost "proximity" effect... and the snare was a little "hot" in the mix... it could have been backed off...

I know they are becoming mainstream now... but how about Jimmy Eat World?

I also really dig the production on most The Promise Ring stuff.

Great selections!

./dave
 
hmm... sounds like you guys have been listening to a lot of different music. Would you shout and scream at me if I suggested:

Blood Sugar Sex Magic - Chili Peppers

I think that the instruments sit really well in a lot of the mixes, and also the use of subtle instruments (Jaw harp in Give it away) makes it a well produced album.

The bass on the album also sounds good. Although everyone knows thta Flea is one hellava bass player, i think Rick Rubin (the producer i think) did a good job of putting it well in the mix, and making sure that, even if you had a crappy hifi - you'd still hear the bass well enough.


just an opinion.:cool:

Rochey
 
best production

i think aerosmith's "rocks" is one of the best productions...its one of the few albums from that era that still sounds good by todays standards. Also, lynyrd skynyrd's "street survivers" is a great production. i'd have to agree on the chili peppers "blood, sex. sugar.majic". i liked the production on nirvanas "nevermind" too
 
Mark H. said:
quote:
Uh-oh. Can someone explain the difference between "best produced" and "best sounding"? I'm sure it's just my ignorance, but how would they be different?

Thanks,

Mark H.
Click to expand...

Mark, I think you've shown that you're hardly ignorant. :)

Jimmy Page and Phil Spector come to mind. Jimmy Page was the first guy out of the gate doing a lot of things - reverse echo, the "guitar army", or that famous drum sound on "When The Levee Breaks" - all of those things are pretty amazing, and people are still trying to duplicate a lot of his sounds today. But Led Zeppelin's albums don't sound good! I used to think they did, until I compared Zep's albums to other albums that came out around the same time (such as IV vs. Aqualung and Who's Next, as I mentioned earlier).

I guess it's a question of what's aurally pleasing versus what's high fidelity. Why do so many guitarists prefer point-to-point soldered tube amps, versus solid state? Solid state is more electrically sound, more hi-fi. There are also lots of guitarists who prefer humbucking pickups to single-coils, despite the fact that they're muddier.

I don't particularly love the way Led Zeppelin albums sound, but I still enjoy listening to them whenever I get into that "cock rock" mood - but crisp production makes things even better. I'm very thankful that Glyn Johns made one of my favorite albums, Who's Next, sound so amazing.

In my opinion. :)

It's so subjective. Somebody brought up Steve Albini - he produced one of the Nirvana albums, right? In Utero, I think? I remember thinking that sounded good, but I have the album that he did with Jimmy Page and Robert Plant - Walking Into Clarksdale - and it sounds horrible. On the single for "Most High", there's a song called "The Window", which Robert Plant's regular bassist (and son in law), Charlie Jones, produced. It puts Albini's production to shame, and makes me wonder if the album would have been more successful with a production that didn't make the music sound like it was coming out of a shoebox.

And what about the "Wall of Sound"? Could that even be done with today's more hi-fi equipment?

Speaking of hi-fi, I have to wonder what George Martin was using for playback when he was producing the Beatles. Once I upgraded my collection to CD, I could clearly hear John Lennon chewing gum on so many of those songs...

The funny thing is, it doesn't really bother me. I guess it's just John being John.
 
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