It seems the main reason that the pro's "get it wrong" is when the think-they-know-it-all artists step in with their bright ideas or insist on mixing it. Metal is infamous for this, with the illusion of musician as auteur and image of DIY.
I'd pick on more punk music, but anything worth listening to has iffy production because it was made prior to 1990. The modern day "punk" sonically can sound good... but what's the point of that??? Plus, vapid pop-punk is for the pre-teen crowd and where's the fun in listening to that?
Note that I'm not including small budget albums which, by their very nature, often sound compromised prior to recently. It's just not fair to bash on "Killing is My Business" because it was recorded for 4,000 bucks in 1984. That's a crappy budget by today's standard for a full album!
Worst sounding pro albums:
Megadeth "So Far, So Good, So What" - Dumbass Dave fires a string of engineers and producers because he can do it "better." If this is the proof, the proof is not in the pudding this time around. Overly reverberated mush meets dry as toast drums with a weak, buried low end. There is so much delay on this album that I'm surprised the opening chords aren't still ringing out when the album is finished playing.
Metallica "St. Anger" - Literally an abortion forced to unlife. This album should have been shut down by A&R as a total waste of time and money. Nobody seemed really committed to recording or writing this album. It's hard to blame any one member of the Metallica camp for allowing this audio travesty to be born: Bob Rock is guilty because he knows better than this, Lars is guilty for single-handedly forcing the album to get done and having the principle of "abstract and lofi" guide the album as an attempt to be "real"... yeah whatever--with all the hardcore editing the album is about as far from real as it gets.
Korn - Every album of theirs is dominated by horrible clicky drums that sound like they were samples from "...And Justice for All" combined with a scooped bass sound that is all low end mush and poppy clicks, with over-eager guitars eating the entire audio spectrum. Horrible, horrible decisions by the artists that insist it sounds this way.
Thursday "War All the Time" - This is a great album but it sounds like ass. Overly compressed drum overheads, a dull overall texture, a snare that's lost in the mix and lack of clarity mar this otherwise landmark album. Albums like this should be cited as prime examples that being "all analog" does not equal "great sound" even if you have top of the line Neve consoles and great 2" tape machines. Give me John Feldman's ProTools'd to hell and back mixes over this any day of the week.
Pantera "Vulgar Display of Power" - Vulgar Display of Triggering is more like it. All Pantera sounds like crap, but this is the worst. Ultra thin production with the crappiest, fizziest high end imaginable. The drums sound faker than Pamela Anderson's tits, the guitar has the worst buzzy, too much high-end tone imaginable (yet every metal douchebag wants this sound). The entire mix sounds like it was ran thru a BBE Sonic Maximizer set to "kill." Wretched, vile.
Megadeth "Rust in Peace" - Cold and sterile sounds lie within. Absolute lack of balls. Everything seems overly calculated and precise. Sounds ProTools'd to death *before* ProToolsing things to death was cool (or even possible). Not as bad as most on the list, but not a pleasant listening experience.
Eminem - Anything by him or Dr. Dre sounds like crap to me. It was obviously mixed for crappy boom boxes. My teenage brother played it on my 10,000 dollar stereo and it made my hifi system sound like dog piss. Clunky sounding, without even a hint of lofi sampler coolness that most bad hip hop productions have. Sterile. Obviously a product designed to be an self-consciously and unfriendly unit shifter.
Winger "Winger" - God this album sucks on every level. First off, it's goddamn Winger, and secondly it sounds like wheezing anemic pap. Takes the lifetime achievement award for sounding overdone and over-processed. More fake than Paris Hilton (in both body and spirit). Yet another production that sounds like it was put through an aural exciter set to "11", but then it was bussed to a Lexicon reverb unit for good measure. Vomit inducing.
Flotsam & Jetsam "When the Storm Comes Down" - While their first Electra release sounded pretty kickin', this 1990 release should be legendary for badness on all levels, especially songwriting and production. Suffers from too much glossy production and a buzzy guitar tone. While some great sounding albums ("Appetite for Destruction") suffer from too much cowbell syndrome, this album definately suffers from too much guitar syndrome. The shrill high end on the clean guitars will take your head off, so be careful when listening.
Def Leppard "Pyromania" - Okay, this album sounds brilliant except for one little thing--the drums feel like crap. Granted, they sound excellent but the manner in which Mutt Lange decided to record them, namely one *drum* at a time in seperate takes to a 'click track' drum machine line absolutely mars the feel of the drums. Lesson learned: sometimes feel is more important than sonics. A lesson he obviously learned when it came time to record "Hysteria" as that is one of the best sounding productions I can think of.
Metallica "...And Justice For All" - James and Lars also decide they can mix it better than anyone else and decide that the bass guitar should be set to 0 on the mixer. Kirk's leads are sour sounding and lack any kind of organic tone (goddamn ADA MP1 as usual--the leading guitar anti-tone device of the late 80's). The drums are thinner than Kate Moss on a coke-induced hunger strike. This album set the template for crappy sounding metal (and guitar) for years to come.
