Songs destroyed by bad mixes so badly that you can't listen to them

I asked Steve about some of Phil Spectors recordings being un-Specktored, I think he said it was impossible due to being on the tape.
I may have that wrong, ask Steve the next time you see him here.

 

The entire "And Justice For All" LP by Metallica. Great material, but the bass was completely mixed out so has no balls at all. Even the lead guitar was mixed down too low.

 

I gotta remember that one!

 

Maybe not shot, but definitely put in jail.

Oh wait.

 

A lot of producers/engineers in the sixties used to print echo right on to the multi-track but by the seventies with more tracks available ie: 24/16 machines there was no need because you could separate the instruments more and leave your options open so in the case of 'All Things Must Pass' I would imagine the tracks are dry.

 

I believe that George recorded the basic tracks and most of the overdubs before Spector came in to do the mixes. Same with John and the Plastic Ono Band album. Just like Spector's work on Let It Be.
The tracks were already recorded, he just came in and vandalized, er ... I mean mixed the albums. Sometimes did a few new overdubs.

 

Yes, to me it's a complete mess.

 

For me, that's the joy of it.

High fidelity, audiofile sound was certainly not the aim.

 

No.

 

Iggy Pop Raw Power what can you say, Iggy maxed it out, I wonder if Bowies mastering is any better, for those that have Bowies mastering is it worth seeking out? I do listen to Iggys master, surprisingly you don't have to turn it up much it's so in your face. It's a shame I like it and want to crank it but just cant.

 

That once happened to me in a pub where I discovered that Carl Radle's bass line on "After Midnight" is just hilariously bad when heard on its own.

 

I only have problems with a song in itself not the mix...

 

The mix of Higher Ground used on the Red Hot Chili Pepper's Greatest Hits cd is completely unlistenable to me.

 

There are many but the one which comes to mind first and foremost is Sway from Sticky Fingers..whenever I get in the mood to listen to the album all the way through (or at least all of side one), I have to muster a lot of patience to sit through the aural mess of this recording.

 

Bob Clearmountain's Free remixes. The word horrible springs to mind.

 

The problem I have isn't the Wall Of Sound. That I like. What I don't like about it is how so out in front Tina Turner's vocal is. It doesn't blend in very well.

 

Paul McCartney and Wings : I've Had Enough. Great song that sounds so small. Wasn't this recorded on a boat? The SS Minow?

 

The Velvet Underground's The Gift doesn't sound right to me. As mixed, the instrumental channel drowns out the vocal channel too much for my taste.

I have always turned the channel with John Cale's vocals up to approximately equal to the instrumental channel in order to completely enjoy listening to this song.

 

Pretty much all the mixes on the Janet Jackson Number Ones compilation.

 

Obviously Phil Spector's productions polarize opinion.

I love "River Deep Mountain High". (We Brits also liked it more than our friends across the pond and made it a Top 10 smash in the UK.)

It's gloriously noisy, mushy, messy etc. Possibly an audiophile's worst nightmare. But boy has it got some power.

I also like the stereo mix despite its questionable origins.

As for "Do It Again" by The Beach Boys, it would have been interesting to hear a cleaner mix, but we have to accept both of these tracks as products of their time.

I also wonder whether or not "better" mixes would have sold so well in an era where a portable AM radio was the way that most people first heard these tracks.

 

Yep. They recorded it in three hours and Jimmy and Joe must have lost on Gilligians Isle because they never made it back for the film clip.

 

I once tried to play Art Pepper Meets the Rhythm Section in a room that (unbeknownst to me) was set up to play only the left channel. It's almost silent in the 2/3rds of the album where Art isn't playing.

I take it you mean the soundtrack version with the two bridges and guitar solo to fade? The b-side version (just one bridge, no solo or fade IIRC) sounds nice.

The original single mix of "Lady Friend" is much worse, IMO. All the dynamics are sucked out of it and it's just a wash of sound. The stereo remix from the late 90s (not the one from the 80s with the new drums) is lovely.

 

That's the whole point.

 

It's been discussed on this thread, but needlessly fiddly stereo mixes bug me. Funkadelic's "Maggot Brain" is a good example, with phasing and effects flying all across the spectrum. I actually used Audacity to collapse it into mono so I could listen to it on headphones.

Also: all instruments left channel, all vocals right. Like Creeque Alley or Eve of Destruction or A World Without Love.

I have a set of Lee Perry's Wailers productions where many of the songs are like this. And there are instrumental solos and breaks where one channel is just completely dead for, like, a whole minute.