5 Albums That I Wish Had Better Production
There are some albums that for various reasons were done grave injustices by the awful production. The material and the performances on an album have to be REALLY good to shine through when the sound is so muddled or botched that you can barely digest it, and there are indeed a handful of these that are my all time favorites even though I’ve never heard them clearly. Attempts have been made with a few of them to remaster and restore the sound to a listenable level but these LPs either seem like a lost cause or no one has bothered to try to clean them up. I would maybe understand for a debut - still developing as a band, low budget / small label etc., but the demo I cut with my own first band was done in a couple hours at a studio in Ann Arbor and it sounds better than most of these, NONE of which are debut recordings so I just don’t get it - it shouldn’t be rocket science. Either way let’s get to it:
Hotter Than Hell - Kiss
The story on this sophomore effort goes that Kiss felt that they wanted to capture the power and the feel of a live Kiss experience and they wanted to make it heavy. It backfired. This album just sounds…..muddy. I’m dating myself here but if you used to make cassette mix tapes back in the day this album sounds like when you would crank up the input levels on a “normal bias” blank tape a little too high and get that muddled feedback as the recording hits the tape’s sonic limit. To make matters worse when they issued it on CD for the first time a strange screeching sound on the pressing ruined Watching You. They fixed that when they finally remastered the album, but the remastering didn’t fix the overall sound. I don’t think it can be rescued and that’s a shame because it’s absolutely a top 5 Kiss album. “Watching You”, “Parasite”, “Got To Choose” - all three of them are in my top 10 Kiss songs of all time, and “Strange Ways” is an Ace/Peter masterpiece - one of the heaviest Kiss tunes ever with a ridiculous Ace solo and just a deliciously evil vocal from Peter to close the album. I would say this one is so good that I barely notice the crappy production and that would be mostly true, but what I wouldn’t give to hear it cleanly….
…And Justice For All - Metallica
No idea what happened here. Ironically the previous covers EP Garage Days Re-Revisited is labeled “not very produced” by Metallica, and yet it sounds better than the “produced” masterpiece …And Justice For All. What I DO like about this album is it’s dry, and it’s sounds like they are playing right in your living room. No echo or reverb really at all. The problem which has been well documented is there is no bass. You can’t hear Jason Newsted like, at all. People complain about the thin snares a little as well but that doesn’t even bother me. Actually the production isn’t anywhere near the problem that it is on Hotter Than Hell, and I like the way James Hetfield’s vocals (often doubled to my ears) aren’t so out in front of the mix which is a problem for me on every single subsequent Metallica release, but at the end of the day these songs might be better served if there was some bottom to them. I don’t like the “Black album” that much, and I like what it represents even less (i.e. selling out - hard) but a song like “Sad But True” does weigh 10 tons because of the bottom. If only “Harvester Of Sorrow” was given the same care.
Louder Than Love - Soundgarden
Louder Than Love actually makes Hotter Than Hell sound good… I don’t understand how anyone played this back and felt it was good for release. EARLY Soundgarden doesn’t sound great, but this was their 2nd full length album and 4th release overall when you include the Screaming Life and Fopp EPs. So, why is the production so AWFUL? Not to mention that it’s their first major label release, so I just don’t get it. I initially thought I had a bad copy on cassette but nope - it’s just that bad.
Hell Awaits - Slayer
A leap forward artistically from the debut full length Show No Mercy if you believe what you read, but I’m not so sure just because Show No Mercy has some classics on it in its own right and it just sounds better. Hell Awaits gets a little lost in the reverb. The echo makes it sound like they’re playing in a well - which I guess could have its own appeal per the album title (ha), but I wish the production was a little dryer like every Slayer album that followed this one. I wish they could strip some of the echo away and bring the sounds forward in the mix - kind of like what Pearl Jam did recently with the Ten “redux”.
Wretch - Kyuss
The first full length Kyuss album (if you don’t count the Sons Of Kyuss recording which sounds better then Wretch) has a few songs that I feel are a little weak, but “Son Of A Bitch”, “I’m Not”, “Big Bikes”, and “Stage III” are AWESOME. And the album sounds like some home demo - a bad one. Ugh…
Are there any I missed? Let me know in the comments!
M10 Social is owned by Doug Cohen in West Bloomfield, MI and provides social media training and digital marketing services from the Frameable Faces Photography studio Doug owns with his wife Ally. He can be reached there at tel:248-790-7317, by mobile at tel:248-346-4121 or via email at mailto:doug@frameablefaces.com.
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