I know that this is not a band that people around here have a lot of love for...but if you really want to hear the evolution of a band and a producer together, the discography to listen to is Electric Light Orchestra.
The early ELO albums show Jeff Lynne finding himself as a producer, and the result is a sound that echoes the charming clumsiness of what ELO was trying to be. But Lynne was a fast learner. The first three albums show immense improvement from one to the other as far as production, but there was still a lot of rough edges. For me, the spot where he got it right was the second set of three albums. Eldorado, Face The Music, and A New World Record are produced just right. Things are cleaned up just enough, and Lynne seems to have become the right man to produce himself. As with all ELO albums, there's plenty of filler, but the sound is right where it shoulld be.
Problem is, Lynne was never satisfied with where he was. He always wanted more, and that meant sacrificing what his band was about in the process. He found that it was easier to produce a 3-4 piece band with no string players than it was a seven piece outfit. He discovered that he could make things even slicker and more perfect, which had the effect of basically sucking the soul out of his music. He was downsizing on Out Of The Blue, and by Discovery, Time, and Secret Messages, he was making music so void of soul and personality that it was, outside of a dwindling line of hit songs, as much fun as polishing a post-it note.
What happened with ELO was that the production kept getting better, and in order to make that work, the method of making music in the group got gradually simpler until the band, which had once been an experiment of using strings and rock instruments together equally, had become a bland and lifeless studio project that consisted of Lynne and Richard Tandy on keyboards. The production had gone from rough and adventurous and listenable to over polished and squeaky clean in just over a decade. And when Lynne ended ELO in 1986, it had gotten so bland that nobody cared that the ELO name was done. It took 15 years to go from amateur production and an interesting dynamic to a dead over produced shadow of what they once tried to be.
To me, ELO is a great example of how delicate the balance can be between the right production, not enough, and too much. _________________ I'm leaning on the threshold
Of her mystery
And crashing through the walls
Of dying history
was played. Someone said that they had problems enjoying it due to the production, as his voice sounds much higher quality than hers. It's not something I'd ever really noticed, to be honest, let alone had any problem with. There's also this tune:
which I adore, in part due to the production choice of the drum, where it's sort of like being hit right in the back of the head. But a lot of people I know are rather adverse to the drum production on this, I think I even dropped it in whatever the pre-Dubtrack Dubtrack was and it was pretty handily disliked because of that production.
I guess my only point in pointing this out is that different people will find different things good/bad/distracting in production that other people will feel differently about. _________________
production is an inextricable part of how recorded music is presented as an experience. there are a lot of people who claim to be able to listen "past" production, but that makes as much sense to me as listening "past" drums or "past" guitars or "past" vocals - you're choosing to ignore a part of the music to highlight something about another part of the music. from the avant-garde to popular music, this was kind of made formally clear in the '60s. i think the vinyl hiss on 78 RPMs is as much a part of the experience of listening to that music (somewhat muffled, maybe even a bit tinny, the feeling of opening a little special alternate world, etc. vs. the clean modern production sound). i think the placement of microphones in a live bootleg contributes. electronic or the most minimal of folk musics should be held to that same standard unless you're listening with your own ears in a live setting. composers used to compose for orchestra or chamber ensemble or whatever. now they also compose for radio, CD, vinyl, cassette, and mp3.
Damn Satie... every sentence you write has so much depth to it. Very good writing skills.
Your last sentence reminds me. My brother studied music and now teaches it, and he was telling me the "ironic" John Cage 4:33 was written to be performed in an area that had a lot of nature (rural New York, like Red Hook or Woodstock or something). So on top of the other stuff that 4:33 is supposed to accomplish (not knowledgeable enough to articulate it), it was also a tribute to the sounds of nature... I thought that was pretty cool.
So very good point to remember "venue" of what it was written for.
The other side of that is simply they didn't have anything better/limitation on resources. A punk record is equally purposely recorded that way, but mostly because it was that DIY attitude and well, they didn't have the $500k for an amazing studio... it was like some dude's basement.
Or for Leadbelly, it was a little of both - technology and money/resources.
I know that this is not a band that people around here have a lot of love for...but if you really want to hear the evolution of a band and a producer together, the discography to listen to is Electric Light Orchestra.
The early ELO albums show Jeff Lynne finding himself as a producer, and the result is a sound that echoes the charming clumsiness of what ELO was trying to be. But Lynne was a fast learner. The first three albums show immense improvement from one to the other as far as production, but there was still a lot of rough edges. For me, the spot where he got it right was the second set of three albums. Eldorado, Face The Music, and A New World Record are produced just right. Things are cleaned up just enough, and Lynne seems to have become the right man to produce himself. As with all ELO albums, there's plenty of filler, but the sound is right where it shoulld be.
Problem is, Lynne was never satisfied with where he was. He always wanted more, and that meant sacrificing what his band was about in the process. He found that it was easier to produce a 3-4 piece band with no string players than it was a seven piece outfit. He discovered that he could make things even slicker and more perfect, which had the effect of basically sucking the soul out of his music. He was downsizing on Out Of The Blue, and by Discovery, Time, and Secret Messages, he was making music so void of soul and personality that it was, outside of a dwindling line of hit songs, as much fun as polishing a post-it note.
What happened with ELO was that the production kept getting better, and in order to make that work, the method of making music in the group got gradually simpler until the band, which had once been an experiment of using strings and rock instruments together equally, had become a bland and lifeless studio project that consisted of Lynne and Richard Tandy on keyboards. The production had gone from rough and adventurous and listenable to over polished and squeaky clean in just over a decade. And when Lynne ended ELO in 1986, it had gotten so bland that nobody cared that the ELO name was done. It took 15 years to go from amateur production and an interesting dynamic to a dead over produced shadow of what they once tried to be.
To me, ELO is a great example of how delicate the balance can be between the right production, not enough, and too much.
I know nothing about this band, but that is pretty cool to see it reflected through their records and a musician trying to find that balance, if that indeed was his intent.
Yeah that is interesting. I mean one thing I liked on the live version was the energy and the organ (don't remember that being on the first).
It's the energy, man.
Probably.
I wouldn't label it as shallow, why ? I guess it's all about our listening experience. My first major music love were 1980s Polish punk bands recorded with crappy equipment in crappy studios, which is probably the reason why I have a soft spot for crappy sound quality.
How about Joy Division ? I don't think the music on Closer (my overall #1) would be rated this high had it not been for production.
I guess my only point in pointing this out is that different people will find different things good/bad/distracting in production that other people will feel differently about.
Totally agree. I suppose it just like someone said early, equally part of the songwriting.
I find the word 'overproduction' a little misleading because it implies that putting a lot of work into the recording/mixing/arrangement automatically dilutes the song in some way, and the term is associated with what could more accurately be described as poor production choices, overcompression, cluttered arrangements, etc. An extended production process very often culminates in a final product that's very stripped down and has found some kind of informed simplicity through trial and error. Better to look at it in terms of appropriate/inappropriate production rather than 'amount' of production. If a song is thoughtlessly compressed and automated resulting in an ineffective production style then surely that would be best described as underproduction rather than overproduction?
Also a lot of music that's thought of as "raw" has been very meticulously designed that way.
I find the word 'overproduction' a little misleading because it implies that putting a lot of work into the recording/mixing/arrangement automatically dilutes the song in some way, and the term is associated with what could more accurately be described as poor production choices, overcompression, cluttered arrangements, etc. An extended production process very often culminates in a final product that's very stripped down and has found some kind of informed simplicity through trial and error. Better to look at it in terms of appropriate/inappropriate production rather than 'amount' of production. If a song is thoughtlessly compressed and automated resulting in an ineffective production style then surely that would be best described as underproduction rather than overproduction?
Also a lot of music that's thought of as "raw" has been very meticulously designed that way.
Very good point... not that the amount of notes=raw, but it reminds me of a quote that I don't remember where it comes from, but "choosing what notes not to play is just as important as choosing which ones to play" comes to mind on the choice of raw.
I also posted this earlier in the thread because I realized how simplified the term over-produced is... yet people use it all the time.
I dig this record and would love it more if I could hear the bass on it. It's like super super faint. Thing is he's doin' pretty cool runs and stuff and would enhance the song well.
I get it's garage rock or whatever and that's what it is... but that's not what it sounded like live.
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