Not the "Post music here thread"...

So the "post music here thread" got me thinking...what are some albums that you have enjoyed and stood up that by todays recording standards might be considered complete rubbish?

"The Lamb Lies down on Broadway" comes to mind...one of the worst mixing jobs I've ever heard but man what a concept album, I played it non stop in college...

Less older albums I think have great content, would be Patty Griffins "Living with ghosts" album...it barely rises above a demo reel (but does actually) there's one track you can hear a police siren bleeding into, etc...

More recent would be Nils Frahms "Screws" (which he simply gave away digital versions of as a birthday gift to his fans)...he had broken his thumb and he made it during recovery so he was basically tentative and was not concerned with proper recording etiquette...the title refers to the 9 screws placed in his hand and thus nine songs...lots of noise in that but it actually adds to the album...one of my favorites...


Others?


Correction, the 9 songs refers to the nine fingers he used, there were only 4 screws in his thumb...

"I think  Abbey Road is the best engineered, best mastered rock and roll album ever produced... except that I take exception to stereo placement." - Frank Zappa

Lots of music from the 60s and older.

Some of the audio flaws become iconic after repeated listening to the vinyl, like the pre-echo on Led Zepplin's whole lotta love.

No doubt from master tapes being stored tails out and recorded hot, with maybe a little heat transfer involved.

JR 

pucho812 said:

"I think  Abbey Road is the best engineered, best mastered rock and roll album ever produced... except that I take exception to stereo placement." - Frank Zappa

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+1... lots of experimental stereo tricks... 

On white album, if you perform L-R on song "Birthday" the instruments drop out and all that remains is them shouting out the vocal part acapella .... 

JR

JohnRoberts said:

+1... lots of experimental stereo tricks... 

On white album, if you perform L-R on song "Birthday" the instruments drop out and all that remains is them shouting out the vocal part acapella .... 

JR

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I basically learned to play guitar from the white album when I was 15...bought my first "Chord book" and started playing with the album...but I have never L-R "Birthday" so now...I need vinyl...

pucho812 said:

"I think  Abbey Road is the best engineered, best mastered rock and roll album ever produced... except that I take exception to stereo placement." - Frank Zappa

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Personally I thought Abbey Road was quite poor. It was their first use of an 8 track recorder (3M I think) and its sonics are clearly different. My favourite would be Revolver.

Cheers

Ian

Some of the audio flaws become iconic after repeated listening to the vinyl, like the pre-echo on Led Zepplin's whole lotta love

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Also wondered if this could have been caused by the preview head on a playback tape deck during mastering to a lathe. 

Beatle records in America all have lots of L-R track info.  I’m sure a lot of you know that George Martin’s mono mixes were supposed to be the mixed released.  But American record executives wanted the multi tracks to release their mixed version that could fit American taste, which was just B S.  But I grew up hearing those stereo records and always missed the hard left right sounds when Martin released the proper English versions in a cd  of Beatles singles version. 
Whatever you hear as a kid stays with you the rest of your life.

fazer said:

Also wondered if this could have been caused by the preview head on a playback tape deck during mastering to a lathe. 

Beatle records in America all have lots of L-R track info.  I’m sure a lot of you know that George Martin’s mono mixes were supposed to be the mixed released.  But American record executives wanted the multi tracks to release their mixed version that could fit American taste, which was just B S.  But I grew up hearing those stereo records and always missed the hard left right sounds when Martin released the proper English versions in a cd  of Beatles singles version. 
Whatever you hear as a kid stays with you the rest of your life.

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This is why I am always distracted when I play my iTunes library through my Soundcraft...XLR out of iTunes /Apogee into channel-1 Soundcraft is always reduced 2 mono...2 mono the sun will come out 2 mono...its that childhood history of listening on JBL headphones at night...same with Whole Lotta Love...which was a trippy song for a preachers kid to go to sleep to...

fazer said:

Also wondered if this could have been caused by the preview head on a playback tape deck during mastering to a lathe. 

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Sorry my own speculation... I'm sure the truth is out there but I'm too lazy to look it up.

Beatle records in America all have lots of L-R track info.  I’m sure a lot of you know that George Martin’s mono mixes were supposed to be the mixed released.  But American record executives wanted the multi tracks to release their mixed version that could fit American taste, which was just B S.  But I grew up hearing those stereo records and always missed the hard left right sounds when Martin released the proper English versions in a cd  of Beatles singles version. 
Whatever you hear as a kid stays with you the rest of your life.

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I recall lots of old recordings with dubious sound quality, but as they say "it was in the grooves"  so they worked.  There were even some albums that intentionally mimicked  low fidelity as an effect (like eric burdon and the animals but plenty more, Tull Aqualung, etc).

JR

JohnRoberts said:

Lots of music from the 60s and older.

Some of the audio flaws become iconic after repeated listening to the vinyl, like the pre-echo on Led Zepplin's whole lotta love.

No doubt from master tapes being stored tails out and recorded hot, with maybe a little heat transfer involved.

JR

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Tails-out is what you want. Heads-out is what would give you pre-echo.

And of course how hot could they have gone to tape back then? The formulations wouldn't take what modern formulations would take. Maybe the tape itself was thinner back then, making the print-through easier.

JohnRoberts said:

Lots of music from the 60s and older.

Some of the audio flaws become iconic after repeated listening to the vinyl, like the pre-echo on Led Zepplin's whole lotta love.

No doubt from master tapes being stored tails out and recorded hot, with maybe a little heat transfer involved.

JR

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There was also some console crosstalk involved

There was this band "People" that had one big hit with a remake of a Zombies song "I Love You." I remember the whole almost 5 minutes of it from the Atlanta Undergreound FM station WPLO. I ran across a 45 of it a couple decades ago and played it, and I was amazed how inconsistent the guitar volume was over the track. But "other than that" it was a pretty good song.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TnVpGezJqI

benb said:

There was this band "People" that had one big hit with a remake of a Zombies song "I Love You." I remember the whole almost 5 minutes of it from the Atlanta Undergreound FM station WPLO. I ran across a 45 of it a couple decades ago and played it, and I was amazed how inconsistent the guitar volume was over the track. But "other than that" it was a pretty good song.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TnVpGezJqI

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Way cool, don't tell Quinten Tarantino...it'll end up in some Kill Bill slasher blood letting movie...

benb said:

Atlanta Undergreound FM station WPLO.

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WPLO was the predecessor to GSU's WRAS, wasn't it?  That's a few years before my time, but I seem to remember reading that somewhere.

When I was VERY young (born 1957, this was early-mid 60s) I vaguely recall hearing WPLO-AM and/or WPLO FM. The AM station (from reading historical accounts) was alternately, or both, a country station and a top-40 station, the FM station sometimes simulcast the AM station. The Georgia State involvement was apparently around 1968, and I may have been listening around that time. By the end of 1968 Ed Shane was the manager, it became what is now called "Underground FM", and Ed ran it that way until about 1975, and this was the time I was a dedicated listener and heard many wonderful things there, and if there was a longer album version of a top 40 song on their playlist, they played the longer version (OTOH, around that time even many top 40 stations played longer songs such as Grand Funk's 9-minute "Closer To Home").

Is there a way to get playlists during that time? I'd sure like it.  I do know it included EVERY SONG from the albums "Court of the Crimson King" and "It's A Beautiful Day" as I recognized them all when many years (decades?) later I got them on LP or CD.

Here's some history pages featuring Atlanta stations. I especially remember the early to mid 1970s WRAS "Album 88" played whole album sides six times a day, at 1:30, 5:30 and 9:30 AM and PM.

https://leachlegacy.ece.gatech.edu/radio/warp/1968.html
http://wras.org/about/history/

While I'm here, #savewras

benb said:

When I was VERY young (born 1957, this was early-mid 60s) I vaguely recall hearing WPLO-AM and/or WPLO FM. The AM station (from reading historical accounts) was alternately, or both, a country station and a top-40 station, the FM station sometimes simulcast the AM station. The Georgia State involvement was apparently around 1968, and I may have been listening around that time. By the end of 1968 Ed Shane was the manager, it became what is now called "Underground FM", and Ed ran it that way until about 1975, and this was the time I was a dedicated listener and heard many wonderful things there, and if there was a longer album version of a top 40 song on their playlist, they played the longer version (OTOH, around that time even many top 40 stations played longer songs such as Grand Funk's 9-minute "Closer To Home").

Is there a way to get playlists during that time? I'd sure like it.  I do know it included EVERY SONG from the albums "Court of the Crimson King" and "It's A Beautiful Day" as I recognized them all when many years (decades?) later I got them on LP or CD.

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I saw King Crimson as the opening act for the Doors in concert, a while ago...  8)

JR

Here's some history pages featuring Atlanta stations. I especially remember the early to mid 1970s WRAS "Album 88" played whole album sides six times a day, at 1:30, 5:30 and 9:30 AM and PM.

https://leachlegacy.ece.gatech.edu/radio/warp/1968.html
http://wras.org/about/history/

While I'm here, #savewras

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benb said:

When I was VERY young (born 1957, this was early-mid 60s) I vaguely recall hearing WPLO-AM and/or WPLO FM. T

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Thanks for this account.  I started listening as a young teen in the early punk/New Wave days.  I still listen in the evenings when I'm in my car, & I'm still ticked off about the NPR takeover.