Albums You Wish Sounded Better

There are several albums that I really like, but I’m not wild about the sound of those records. (I’m not talking, however, about brickwalling, which is another irritant altogether.) These albums include Lou Reed’s debut solo disc, which was mastered, but not recorded, in Dolby, resulting in a dry, muffled sound.

George Martin’s production of Ultravox’s Quartet is too thin for my taste, especially on the album’s final track, “The Song (We Go).” I get a kick out of the composition’s opening and closing wordless vocals, which are like something from a 1960’s Italian movie, but the rest of the song sounds as if it’s several generations removed from the original recording. I dearly wish that Conny Plank had produced this album, which lacks the full-bodied sound he brought to so many great records.

The Rich Kids’ Ghosts of Princes in Towers is, as its TP entry states, an “audio bloodbath.” Working with Mick Ronson must have been a dream come true for the lads, but surely they can’t have been too happy with his production.

No producer is credited for Magazine’s Magic, Murder and the Weather, although Martin Hannett did the mix. This album has a noticeably thin sound--very much in contrast to the band’s earlier studio albums--which is a particular distraction on the last tracks on each side, “Come Alive” and “The Garden.” (On the other hand, the band’s TP entry faults their wonderful live lp Play’s production for “distanc[ing] [Howard] Devoto’s vocals from the music.” Play is one of my favorite live discs, and still sounds fantastic to me.)

Perhaps the most notorious example is Iggy and the Stooges’ Raw Power, in which the Ig recorded only three tracks out of a 24-track tape. It’s a great album, but what in the Sam Hill was he thinking? (I’ve not heard his 1997 remix.)

What are some albums that the rest of you wish sounded better?

Pretty much all the Prefab Sprout disks from the 80s. They have that twinkly 80s synth sound all over them, and I wish they were warmer and more organic. (Not knocking the sound itself - it's fine for ABC or Thompson Twins or whoever. Just wrong for Prefab.) But Paddy McAloon's writing is so strong they overcome the production. Which is how I feel about 99% of the records I dig that have production I wouldn't have chosen.

Here's an exception, using a non-TP band. British hard rock band the Dogs D'amour's first album sounds irredeemably awful, whether one likes the songs or not. The band hated the original mix, and put out a remix/remaster in 2003 - and it still sounds like it was recorded in a pillowcase with mics the next house over. It's really terrible. The songs are decent, pointing the way to what they'd become, but not so good that anyone with ears would put up with the terrible production. (They re-recorded the best one, the title track, for the next album In the Dynamite Jet Saloon, which I think of as their true debut.) They must have had a budget of about 3 pounds.

One could make the argument that the Husker Du records produced by Spot don't sound as good as they should. I know Mould has long wanted to reclaim the master tapes and remix/reissue them. But would fans accept a better, less muffled, less cloudy mix for those records? Like Raw Power, they sound like what they sound like, and have for decades, and I don't know if the production can be separated from the songs at this point.

Your marvelous comment about the Dogs D'amour's album "sound[ing] like it was recorded in a pillowcase with mics the next house over" reminds me that the Rolling Stone critic who trashed Adam and the Ants' Kings of the Wild Frontier complained that the disc "sounded like it was recorded with two Dixie Cups and a piece of string." Ironically, the same sound so impressed Michael Jackson and Quincy Jones that they rang Mr. Ant to learn how the band got the tom-tom sound on the album!

Almost all of Husker Du's albums. I love the songs but the production makes it sound like you are listening to them through a 1970s AM transistor radio.

Also, the Cramps early albums all sound like they are mixed to intentionally hurt your ears as you are playing them. It works for them though.

I have a bootleg of ZEN ARCADE demos which sound warmer and thicker than the official album. I wonder if Mould has access to better-sounding demos of the band's whole SST years.

Oh you beat me to it. I mean Warehouse Songs and Stories is one of my favorite albums of all time. But gosh almighty that tinny background noise, the first few times I heard it I thought I had a bad cassette tape. It was some sort of record store promo on metal tape, so I thought maybe that is what metal tape sounds like which is nuts. So I ran out and bought the album and low and behold same thing. My friend Mike says that it was due to Bob's hearing problems, no idea if that is true. I do it hear it slightly on some of their other recordings, all great in their own right. But nothing like Warehouse. I will say I know exactly who it is as soon as I hear them.

Warehouse was my first Huskers album (and still my favorite, as uncool as that is). I see what you're saying about the tinniness, but it never bothered me - I thought, to Bip's point, that's just the way they sounded. I worked my way backwards from there, and when I got to Flip and New Day, I was shocked at how "bad" they sounded, even though I dug the songs. Eventually I got over it, and accepted the production sound as part of the whole package.

No complaints from me about Husker Du. Warm pillows of sound, the antithesis of the ‘80s Big Drum Sound. Which actually worked fine on Peter Gabriel’s third, which supposedly invented that sound.

Stan Ridgeways’ early solo albums have the problems as the Prefab Sprout albums Toland was talking about. Great tunes, but yeesh, such a dated sound. I saw Stan live a few years ago with an electric band, and he gave those tunes a more raw Wall of Voodoo feel that had me jonesin for a live album.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/01/2020 02:57PM by MrFab.

I always wondered what the deal was with Fiction by The Comsat Angels. It's had just about any rough edge that might have existed buffed smoooooth. That said, I still love it and if you listen to the 2 albums that preceded it, each has totally different production. Perhaps they were just mixing it up (pun intended) to keep it interesting.

Also, I think my second-ever TP post mentioned a lack of bottom end on some of the early Husker Du releases, something I got jumped on for. Ironically, my first-ever TP post regarded The Comsat Angels.

Middle C Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> George Martin’s production of Ultravox’s
> Quartet is too thin for my taste,
> especially on the album’s final track, “The Song
> (We Go).” I get a kick out of the composition’s
> opening and closing wordless vocals, which are
> like something from a 1960’s Italian movie, but
> the rest of the song sounds as if it’s several
> generations removed from the original recording.
> I dearly wish that Conny Plank had produced this
> album, which lacks the full-bodied sound he
> brought to so many great records.
>
> No producer is credited for Magazine’s Magic,
> Murder and the Weather, although Martin
> Hannett did the mix. This album has a noticeably
> thin sound--very much in contrast to the band’s
> earlier studio albums--which is a particular
> distraction on the last tracks on each side, “Come
> Alive” and “The Garden.” (On the other hand, the
> band’s TP entry faults their wonderful live
> lp Play’s production for “distanc[ing]
> [Howard] Devoto’s vocals from the music.”
> Play is one of my favorite live discs, and
> still sounds fantastic to me.)


Wow, two titles I'm right with you on, there. Moving on from Conny Plank was a big mistake, in retrospect for Ultravox… as was reuniting with him for "UVOX!" As Plank was dying at the time, I don't blame him as the band were completely at fault for that farrago! And the intro for "The Song [We Go]" has always been my favorite 20 seconds of "Quartet!" Thanks for the shout out. Now I know it's not only me! The LP had the best balance for that sound. I have all of the CDs and I sill be forced to remix that track to boost the sound I want to hear more of in the mix.

Thinking for 1 minute, one producer I'd have liked to have heard produce "Quartet" was Zeus B. Held, who was making amazing leaps from analog to digital production at the time with Fashiøn. That record mixed analog and new digital tech yet sounded completely warm and rich; not muffled. But John Foxx beat his old compadres to the punch, and used Held for his "Golden Section" opus which came out roughly concurrent with "Quartet." Hopefully, we'll get a Steven Wilson remix for THAT one as I felt that Plank did nothing wrong on "Vienna." I will say that I am preferring Wilson's mix of the B-side to "Sleepwalk, "Waiting," which I got last weekend.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/02/2020 02:59AM by Post-Punk Monk.

I wonder if this has to do with your personality. I walk into our bathroom content there’s a toilet and a sink. My better half sees a disgusting hovel in desperate need of major renovation.

Likewise albums. I usually just am content to have the cards I was dealt. Hard for me to envision it sounding a different way. Cruddy or not, this is how it was foisted upon us. It’s how it was meant to be heard.

Can you think of a ‘remixed, remastered, re-released’ version of any album that became more popular in the national conscience than the original release itself?

But I do like the topic. Kinda wish I could think of some examples....!

> Can you think of a ‘remixed, remastered,
> re-released’ version of any album that became
> more popular in the national conscience than the
> original release itself?

Well, The Heartbreakers "L.A.M.F." caused scarcely a blip on the radar when it came out. I was a young teen fan of the CBGB crowd, but at the time, I didn't know about it. The Dolls, and Johnny thunders and Richard Hell achieved solo notoriety, but I literally never heard much discussion of "L.A.M.F.." It was always: Ramones, THeads, Blondie, etc. It seemed to be a semi-forgotten footnote to the Dolls legend. At least here way out west, where we never got to see the Heartbreakers live. But the "Lost '77 Mixes", and an excellent quality European pressing digitally cleaned up by some music bloggers have have given this album new life. Might it join the canon soon?

> Can you think of a ‘remixed, remastered, re-released’ version of any album
> that became more popular in the national conscience than the original release itself?

Thomas Dolby's The Golden Age of Wireless. Its original issue on Dolby's own UK label, Venice In Peril, hardly caused a blip on the British charts. The U.S. release on Harvest (a Capitol subsidiary at the time) was much loved by those of us who found it, but that wasn't a very big club either. Then Dolby hit pay dirt with "She Blinded Me with Science," and Capitol replaced two of the original album's songs ("Leipzig" and "Urges") with "Science" and its B-side, "One of Our Submarines." The label also replaced the guitar-driven version of "Radio Silence" with Dolby's original synth-pop rendition of the song. This "remixed, remastered, re-released" version earned Dolby a gold record.

I am laughing that so many of us immediately went to Hüsker Dü as the exemplar of bands with great records that sound awful. I actually love Warehouse and so many others, but yes, the tinny recording is kinda draining. Actually was thinking of the New Pornographers' Mass Romantic as a record that is really trebly and hard to listen at length, although I love the songs. But I have not listened to the original CD in awhile and I know it was reissued and remastered.

The Germs “G.I..”

I have a cd of pretty much the complete Germs studio recordings, and it often sounds great...until “G.I.” The later recordings sound better. Shame, some of their best songs were on their sole album.

Peter Gabriel's Security (fourth album). I love the album, but I've always felt it was lacking a little punch. Even with the remasters, there is just a little more muddiness than I think it was meant to have. Am I the only one?

mathmandan Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Peter Gabriel's Security (fourth album). I love
> the album, but I've always felt it was lacking a
> little punch. Even with the remasters, there is
> just a little more muddiness than I think it was
> meant to have. Am I the only one?


Maybe the muddiness was down to it being heavily reliant on the Fairlight, which was low bitrate, actually. Gabriel owned a Fairlight 1 which had specs that would be right there in the mud, sonically. A sample rate of 8-bit @ 24 kilohertz and a frequency response of ten kilohertz at most, so a sample rate had to be as low as eight kilohertz and a bandwidth of 3,500 hertz for longer sounds to be used. If you listen to early Fairlight tracks, the output was usually run through reverb or effects to disguise the aliasing. The Fairlight II came out the year that IV was released. But even that advanced model was far less than CD quality sound; 8-bit @ 32 kilohertz and a maximum frequency response of fifteen kilohertz. Plus, IV was an early full digital recording so the industry was still coming to grips with how to use the new tech.

PPM: Regarding Peter Gabriel IV, this could very well be the explanation. I never noticed sound issues on Art of Noise releases, also heavy on Fairlight, but theirs could have been a very different recording process.

If the Fairlight is the root of it, then no remastering will improve what I've been noticing!

mathmandan Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> PPM: Regarding Peter Gabriel IV, this could very
> well be the explanation. I never noticed sound
> issues on Art of Noise releases, also heavy on
> Fairlight, but theirs could have been a very
> different recording process.
>
> If the Fairlight is the root of it, then no
> remastering will improve what I've been noticing!

Trevor Horn and his Theam were expert in making a silk purse from a [digital] sow's ear! I used to have a Casio SK-1 sampling keyboard which cost about $89 in 1985 giving 8 bit @ 9.38 kilohertz and at the time [not knowing] thought that the Fairlight was 16/48 in comparison. In retrospect, I am more impressed with how Casio gave somewhat comparable sampling specs in what was basically a toy just five years later.

I'm a big Swervedriver fan, and I think their last album Future Ruins is really good. But it sounds kinda flat to me. I initially was disappointed in it based on how it sounded. I saw them live a few months after the album came out and came away more impressed with the songs. The heaviness and "snarl" doesn't come through in the recording. So, when I listen the CD now in the car, I really have to turn it up loud. If not, it sounds too tame.

Related to some recent posts in other threads, I culled my library by doing a deep dive into multiple editions I've kept of various albums, specifically reissues that revised an album with a brand-new mix. I knew there was likely only ONE version of an album that I really needed, but I wanted to let some time pass to be sure.

Generally speaking, I can do without most alternate mixes. In most cases, the albums either didn't need to be remixed or the remix was definitely NOT an improvement. But there were some welcome exceptions:

The 1997 mix of The Stooges' Raw Power, with the caveat that it's been mastered terribly on every CD. The only times it's been ever done right was when it was remastered for RSD double LP that also included the original mix (and I believe this was re-pressed at least one more time), and when it was remastered again for digital formats for its 50th anniversary. Unfortunately, most of Sony's remasters these days are for streaming and downloads with no physical release, so I purchased the 50th anniversary remaster as a download and just burned my own CD's. (I may be the last person I know with a disc burner. I actually acquired three of them just in case.)

The new mixes found on the Replacements' Tim and Dead Man's Pop box sets. (Ed Stadium remixed Tim since he was the mixer the band really wanted but was unavailable. Matt Wallace remixed Dead Man's Pop because he was the producer and had many ongoing conversations with Westerberg on what they should've done with the mix. He originally stepped aside when the label pushed for Chris Lord-Alge to mix it.) These box sets by design only had one and only one pressing, and the Tim box set went OOP in less than a year. This surprised Rhino because the other box sets for the Replacements are much older and have not sold out, so they're actually reissuing new two-CD and two-LP reissues of Tim that contain both the original LP mix and the new mix by Ed Stasium. I'm glad to have the box sets though because the accompanying bonus tracks are crucial. I never listen to Tim without "Can't Hardly Wait ("Tim" version)" and "Nowhere Is My Home," and I always listen to "Portland," "Wake Up" and "We Know the Night" when listening to Dead Man's Pop and often times "Date to Church." Should note these bonus tracks were also remixed for the box sets, so they'll sound substantially different from the 2008 Rhino CD's and the All for Nothing/Nothing for All compilation.

Omnivore's reissue of Richard Hell's Destiny Street has new mixes that are definitive IMHO, but unfortunately they didn't find all the multitracks, so several songs could NOT be remixed. The set also has the original album mixes and the "repaired" editions from 2009 that are essentially re-recordings, so it's really the only package anyone needs.

The 1997 remix for the Who's much-maligned Face Dances which finally rectifies the drum sound - they no longer sound like "pudding" (Kenney Jones's description of the original mix's drum sound). A few songs are still awful so the bonus tracks are helpful in giving you better alternatives to slot in.

Not a remix, but I really like the original "Devonshire" mixes for Nirvana's Nevermind that were put together by Butch Vig before they hired Andy Wallace. I listen to it just as much as the released mix so it doesn't actually replace it for me. One big caveat: the super deluxe box set doesn't really present the whole album in this form. To re-create the whole album's tracklist, you need to patch in the cold-start "Breed" from With the Lights Out as the super deluxe box set fades it in for some reason. (Covering up tape damage that happened in the interim?) You also need to add the Smart Studios rough mix of "Polly" from a different disc. And if you want the hidden track "Endless Nameless," you'll have to grab that from another disc too. I burned this on a CD-R and still have it as I sold off the super deluxe box set a while ago after I got the Blu-ray of the 1991 Halloween show.

Pearl Jam's Ten Redux is a big improvement IMHO, something the band pleaded for Brendan O'Brien to do for a long time because they never really liked the old mix. They basically wanted their debut to sound like the follow-ups O'Brien produced, and that's what you get. I'm not a big Pearl Jam fan, so aside from a compilation of their best stuff and one of their live releases, Ten Redux is the only Pearl Jam album I own. It also has the original album mix but I've yet to put it on again.

The Chills' Brave Words, which I mentioned in another thread. No comparison, so much better.

The Band's Live at the Academy of Music, a much better presentation of Rock of Ages which was never mixed well before. Even the remixes done for the box set A Musical History were a bit lacking.

The new mix for Bob Dylan's Time Out of Mind for The Bootleg Series Vol. 17: Fragments – Time Out of Mind Sessions (1996–1997) but like the alternate Nevermind mix, it doesn't replace the original album mix. At this point, I think I've listened to both with equal frequency.