Incredible songs that are recorded poorly

Katy lied steely Dan, terrible muddy blurred sound.Shame because it's a very good album.

 

I think half the posts in this discussion have misread incredible SONGS for incredible ALBUMS...just sayin'

 

GBV

 

It's my favorite Moody Blues song, but I didn't know it was one for a long time because it sounds so different from the music we associate with The Moody Blues. Still, a great song.

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Returning to the topic, I have a greatest hits album on CD by The Righteous Brothers that I wish could be re-recorded since it was recorded using The Wall Of Sound Technique (SOWT) that doesn't sound very good on modern audio equipment. From what I understand SOWT was intended to make music sound good on pocket AM radios (please correct me if I'm wrong).

 

*sigh*
You're so right. It's always disappointing when I lower the needle on 'Village Green...' and hear how such incredible songs sound so ...bleh.

 

Cardboard box drums at all.
Add "Listen to What The Man Said" and most of Venus and Mars to the list of poorly recorded McCartney songs.

It is amazing how good his first album sounds that was recorded in 1970 in a home studio.

Then in major production studios the quality progressively gets worse until Wings at the Speed of Sound.

 

I think that song from Flowers In the Dirt actually sounds good. Might have to disagree with you there.

 

"In The Year 2525" - Zager & Evans
"A Whiter Shade Of Pale" - Procol Harum
"Please Please Me" - The Beatles
"Do You Wanna Dance" - The Beach Boys

 

I swear, the title track is the worst recording from a band I've ever heard.

 

What's the deal with Please Please Me anyways? The Anthology 1 version sounds fantastic! I think it's just all that stupid reverb slathered all over the released version.

 

Ah, but that song is not incredible, now is it

 

I always felt that my favorite album of all time, ELP's Brain Salad Surgery, is horribly recorded. There were two recording engineers but my favorite part is the 1st half of the 1st impression of Karn Evil 9; that track was the only one recorded by Chris Kimsey. He botched it but he did a much better job recording Marillion's Misplaced Childhood. Geoff Young did the rest of BSS and I still feel it was recorded with unusually low volume and with suspect equalization.

 

With all due respect, I completely disagree with that assessment. It is true that the record was recorded with a lot of reverb and there are some that are put off by that. However, it gives that record a sort of a mysterious ambiance that serves that record well. After all these years(50), I can't see myself listening to it any other way. To say it sounds like it was recorded under water does not do it justice.

Some of these older recordings are judged by those hearing them based on more modern recording techniques. Over the years there is much rewriting of history(including the artists themselves) to say that they didn't approve of what came out of the production. I personally don't buy much of that. Someone at the time must of thought that it sounded good and approved the final product. Why would they not say something about it?

There are a lot of recordings from that same time period that don't sound that great. However, Surrealistic Pillow is not one of them in my opinion.