Albums badly hurt by botched production

Cheap Trick - In Color (what the hell was that with "I Want You to Want Me"?)
Television - Adventure (still a good album, but the production sapped a lot of life out of it)

 

George Harrison's All Things Must Pass suffers quite a bit from Phil Spector's excess.

 

Microdisney's The Clock Comes Down The Stairs.

Live versions of Birthday Girl and Genius are way better than on the album, for some reason they were played (or varispeeded) too slow on the album and simply lack the pace they should have. Also Birthday Girl's drums sound very synthetic.

The reason it's so strange is that, the band took an entire year writing the songs and playing them live before recording them. The album versions sound like demos.

 

xtc - oranges & lemons

 

every album recorded in the '80s?

 

Nothing tops The Doctor.

 

Pearl Jam - Ten

 

Before somebody mentions Let It Be - I actually think Phil Spector did a damn good job with that album. Maybe The Long and Winding Road is a little overproduced but most of the problems with that album in my opinion were not to do with Spector.

 

I think that George just wanted to get away from The Beatles sound as much as possible but, as he indicated, he came to regret most of it later.

 

"Hotter Than Hell" - KISS

I knew it was crappy sounding album when I bought it at age 12

 

I think Spector did some good stuff on it--I Me Mine, Across The Universe, the chatter but I think he made the mistake of including Dig It and really dislike what he did with Let It Be and a couple of other tracks. It's a mixed bag for me. I prefer the version of Naked.

 

It's too bad XTC never reconnected with Steve Lillywhite, the only one of their many producers who produced more than one of their albums.

 

Adventure is a classic, I wouldn't change it, it's darker Ying to Marquee Moon's Yang.

 

Another example is the George Harrison Cloud nine - It's beyond me how a producer can achieve a drum-machine sound all over this album, using one great drummer (Jim Keltner), one great percussionist (Ray Cooper), plus Ringo Starr.

 

I kind of wish they had gotten along better with Todd Rundgren and done a other album with him.

 

Black Sabbath - Born Again must be the poster child for this kinda question...

Agreed about All Things Must Pass... I've never been a fan of Spector or his brickwall of sound...

 

Really? I think the production on Hotter Than Hell helped the album...Gave it a darker, heavier, garage type of sound that fit early KISS very well.

 

Bruce Springsteen - Born To Run
The Cure - 4:13 Dream

 

Although many have tried, there isn't any version of Katy Lied that I am happy with. The sizzle of the cymbals, especially, just isn't right. The DBX encoding/decoding got screwed up and it could never be brought back into what it should have been. They used some of the best equipment available during the production and then the final results were trashed.

 

So, so wrong! heres 3 masterpieces that sound great: "Power Corruption & Lies" by New Order, "Graceland" by Paul Simon, "Infected" by The The, I could give you 100 more where they came from.

 

Laughing Academy by Punishment Of Luxury, awful muffled production & of course every brick walled piece of junk today!

 

Soft Machine's Third. Not botched, but marred somewhat.

 

Oh that is a prime one, sounds awful. Very disappointing at the time after 'Skylarking'.

 

I dare say McCartney's "Press To Play". It was a brave step to try a new producer (Hugh Padgham) and a new bunch of musicians (Carlos Alomar, Phil Collins), but the result sounds cold and synth-y. Pity; some of the songs were quite good!

 

'Born To Run's almost mono, claustrophobic sound is part of it's charm IMHO.