brownreasontolive wrote: Tue May 25, 2021 1:06 pm

jason_from_volo wrote: Mon May 24, 2021 1:32 pm

kokorodoko wrote: Mon May 24, 2021 12:42 pm
You crazy?

New Day Rising is the last of their records that wasn't in some way ruined by the production...

Uh... I think nostalgia and memory are competing here. Their albums all sound terrible.
On Flip Your Wig they ditched a lot of awful guitar sounds, and you could start to make out the vocals, but I could hardly say anything got better or worse at any point in their catalog.

Off to the C/CRAP section!

That's not shitty production - that's Bob Mould's shitty Flying V.
New Day Rising sounds like a tractor crushing your skull and that's GOOD, it suits the record just fine. Never once have I been listening to New Day Rising and thought, "Hmm, great album but you know what it really needs? Better fidelity."
Warehouse is a fantastic collection of songs but it sounds like the engineer set the levels on the first track then took a nap for the rest of the session. So it's not exactly ruined, just boring after a while.
Workbook's production initially turned me off to the entire album. Then I saw Bob on that tour and holy shit. All those nice cello/acoustic 12 string ditties got stomped to fuck and burned alive by the core trio of Bob, Anton Fier and Tony Maimone (Chris Stamey was a bad fit and ultimately disposable onstage). The bonus disc on the reissued Workbook (containing the same Metro show I was at) will prove this.

Iron Maiden's first record.

I guess the Beatles stereo mixes are too obvious to mention?

Rabies by Skinny Puppy sounded very bad in its first incarnation. Sharp, unpleasant high end while both drums and basses seemed to lack any punch. Fascist Jock Itch was an awesome song, but a torture to listen to. Kind of astonishing considering the people involved, but I suppose they might have been very high. The remaster seemed to fix those problems.

Frontline Assembly's Caustic Grip has quite high pitched slamming drums all over, which is part of its charm, but even as a younger one I remember feeling it tiring for long listens. But that's also kind of a thing of some 90s music, Fear Factory and so on. I'm less of a fan of that aesthetic than I once was (and I was not much).

There was a certain kind of thin, snappy drum sound very popular in early 00s hip hop, all those Aesop Rocks and Atmospheres and so on that made them unlistenable to me. For an example listen to "Candle Chant" by DJ Krush (which is a great song). I've heard some stuff by Krush that is superb, but most everything from that era is ruined for mentioned reason.

brownreasontolive wrote: Tue May 25, 2021 1:06 pm Uh... I think nostalgia and memory are competing here. Their albums all sound terrible.
On Flip Your Wig they ditched a lot of awful guitar sounds, and you could start to make out the vocals, but I could hardly say anything got better or worse at any point in their catalog.

Off to the C/CRAP section!

I never had an issue with the guitar or vocal sounds on their albums, for me the main sticking point has always been the drums. New Day Rising is when they started drifting from "dry-but-serviceable" drum sound territory into "buttcheek" drum sound territory, and Flip Your Wig was the first all-buttcheek album (listen to "Find Me" and beatbox the drums as "butt-2-3-cheek-5-6" and you'll start to hear how the trend continues into the next albums).

I mean, at least they never drifted into "douche snare" territory (and as much as I love Bowie's Scary Monsters, that album is probably the most responsible for that particular sound).

Pedantic point: Bob played a Rocket Roll Sr., not a Flying V.

speedie wrote: Tue Jun 01, 2021 2:41 am Iron Maiden's first record.

What?! Why? I love the sound of this record!

ErickC wrote: Tue Jun 01, 2021 2:19 pm

brownreasontolive wrote: Tue May 25, 2021 1:06 pm Uh... I think nostalgia and memory are competing here. Their albums all sound terrible.
On Flip Your Wig they ditched a lot of awful guitar sounds, and you could start to make out the vocals, but I could hardly say anything got better or worse at any point in their catalog.

Off to the C/CRAP section!

I never had an issue with the guitar or vocal sounds on their albums, for me the main sticking point has always been the drums. New Day Rising is when they started drifting from "dry-but-serviceable" drum sound territory into "buttcheek" drum sound territory, and Flip Your Wig was the first all-buttcheek album (listen to "Find Me" and beatbox the drums as "butt-2-3-cheek-5-6" and you'll start to hear how the trend continues into the next albums).

I mean, at least they never drifted into "douche snare" territory (and as much as I love Bowie's Scary Monsters, that album is probably the most responsible for that particular sound).

Pedantic point: Bob played a Rocket Roll Sr., not a Flying V.

Hmm ... you are correct, that is an Ibanez Rocket Roll. Most live Husker Du footage and photos show Bob playing this guitar (except the Camden Palace 1985 show where he plays what looks like an Explorer). I'm not familiar with Flying Vs (I've been playing an SG for nearly 20 years) but I heard they generally sound like shit. Was this true of the Rocket Roll as well?

I dunno. I play a Flying V and, PTB circuit notwithstanding, it sounds almost exactly like my ES-125 but with more sustain (the 125 is hollow, obviously). Before I threw P90s on it and built my own circuit (hence the PTB system), it sounded like every other guitar I played with a 496R/500T combination*, which included, at one point, a Gibson Les Paul Classic. My King V was retrofitted with a 490R/498T and it sounds more or less like my other 490R/498T guitars. Bear in mind that Bob used a very specific combination of tube and solid state amps ("for the low end") to get the sound he liked, so that's probably got more to do with it than anything else. My understanding is that Super 70 pickups are fantastic, but I don't have the money to pick up a Rocket Roll to verify (basic Gibson Vs are cheaper these days).

*In other words, like crap. The 500T really is a shitty pickup compared to, say, a 498. Putting a 500T in the bridge makes the bridge position pointless because it will just sound like the neck position, barely any contrast at all.

M.H wrote: Sun May 23, 2021 4:30 pmFirst one that came to mind - Suffocation: Breeding The Spawn

I always assumed it hadn't been mastered, which was an epidemic in low budget death metal production around that time. Turns out it was, by a guy who mastered thrash albums, who presumably wouldn't have just thrown up his hands when confronted with the fast-and-heavy.

Pure (my favourite Godflesh record)

Pure and Selfless both have an extra dose of the 2-3khz pain frequency, I guess courtesy of the Duncan Custom into HM-2 into Marshall chain. Streetcleaner is still my favorite.

I find that Selfless sounds aeons better and more balanced than Pure.

Bernardo wrote: Mon Jun 07, 2021 6:24 pm I find that Selfless sounds aeons better and more balanced than Pure.

There aren't many better-sounding records than Selfless. It's pristine.