Unfathomable Production Choices

[Vernon Signpost]

So, "Are Everything" by the Buzzcocks just came up on shuffle a few minutes ago and very smashing it was too.

However, there's a completely bizarre/terrible piece of production towards the end of the single version*. The song is quite happily fading out for 20 seconds or so and is about to disappear pleasantly into pop perfection. Then, all of a sudden - and seemingly quite arbitrarily - the SONG VOLUME GETS SHUNTED RIGHT BACK UP as if the producer/engineer/random passer-by had decided, "hey, I was quite enjoying that" and jammed all the sliders in the booth back up to the top. The hook then runs on for another 40 seconds until the song finally fades out at the second time of asking.

I know the short answers as to why the band thought it sounded fine are "punk" and "drugs" but it's a weird one all the same. I suppose it's related to the false ending, but those to tend to be more STOP! ...wait for it... GO AGAIN! than this mess.

Are there any other examples of this "slowly fade-out but - Ah, fooled you! - the volume is going back UP and the song will CONTINUE" piece of bizarro production? I have a nagging feeling that there's a Smiths song where a similar thing happens but I can't think which one offhand.

I guess the topic could be extended to include any song that has a jarring, bad or just downright bizarre piece of production in it. I'd be interested to hear about them all, especially if it's in an otherwise pefectly decent track. Sorry if such a thread already exists!

What say you, Chewers?



*At 3:20 in if you happen to have Singles Going Steady handy.

ETA: I've changed back to Reggie, just for you, Judas!

[Judas Booth]

Zebra has a song called 'Take Your Fingers From My Hair' that kinda does that too. It's fading out nicely when it kicks into a rocking instrumental breakdown that can be surprising if you're not expecting it. This isn't a complaint towards the song, however; indeed, the song has already spent a good portion of its running time alternating between slow acoustic and fast electric, so the instrumental at the end forms a nice 3rd act. It's actually one of my favorite songs.

eta: I miss the Reggie Perrin avatar, Vernon.

[Jeb]

Pretty much the same thing happens on the album version of the Beach Boys' "Help Me Rhonda," where the volume is amped up very artificially for every chorus, then dropped back down again.

Elvis' (still amazing) "(You're So Square) Baby I Don't Care" sounds as though he and the musicians were recorded with a single mike, but in separate rooms.

Today we'd assume they had cut the tracks on different coasts, but even that is usually blended more effectively.

[Paul C]

Help Me Rhonda was the first thing that came to mind for me as well - silly gimmick that almost spoils the song. Good job they fixed it for the single version.

On the other end of the popular music spectrum, even though My War is easily my favourite Black Flag album, musically speaking, I wish they handn't felt the need to trade in the clear, crunchy sound of their earlier records for that muffled, muddy, trebleless sound like they did.

But the winner for me has to be any sixties record that does that stupid thing of sticking the drum tracks entirely in one ear and the vocals in the other. Did that *ever* sound good?

[Jeb]

Originally Posted by Fritz Chrome

But the winner for me has to be any sixties record that does that stupid thing of sticking the drum tracks entirely in one ear and the vocals in the other. Did that *ever* sound good?

Nope, and if that is somehow corrected on the Beatles remasters coming out this year, I'll spring for all of them again.

[Jeb]

Originally Posted by Fritz Chrome

On the other end of the popular music spectrum, even though My War is easily my favourite Black Flag album, musically speaking, I wish they handn't felt the need to trade in the clear, crunchy sound of their earlier records for that muffled, muddy, trebleless sound like they did.

Agreed, but in the history of bad production mismatches, I can't imagine topping David Bowie's evisceration of Iggy's Raw Power, though Sandy Pearlman's gimmicky production of The Clash's Give Em Enough Rope runs a pretty close second.

Oh, wait, I'd (mercifully)forgotten Michael Wagener's pissing all over X's Ain't Love Grand. I thought "Burning House of Love" was a bad late-BOC outtake until I heard it live and realized what a great fucking single it could have made in someone else's hands.

[Phil]

Originally Posted by Vernon Signpost

I have a nagging feeling that there's a Smiths song where a similar thing happens but I can't think which one offhand.

"Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others" does this, but at the front. Song starts and immediately starts to fade, then comes back.

[Vernon Signpost]

Originally Posted by Jeb

Nope, and if that is somehow corrected on the Beatles remasters coming out this year, I'll spring for all of them again.

Lady Madonna was the bane of my fucking life when I was poor, teenaged and in possesion of a walkman which had only one working headphone!

Also, the Smiths track I was thinking about in the first post was Hand In Glove, but I'd misremembered as the song actually begins with a fade-up, which is in itself pretty unusual but it actually works really well.

Edit: Just saw your post, Phil. That's exactly what I was thinking of. I knew they'd pulled the fade-down trick somewhere!

[Keith F]

I guess it's along the same lines, but gotta love the albums that are actively trying to startle you with their loud and abrasive first tracks. If you have your volume turned WAY up in anticipation they can hit you like a ton of bricks.

Faith No More's "Collision" from Album of the year does this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IaAK9eLi79g

Alice In Chains "Them Bones" from Dirt was also an offender:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_qRTMKDqXA

[Paul C]

Another good Patton related production trick was on Mr Bungle's Disco Volante. I'm going to put it behind spoiler tags for fun: It starts with a really heavy sludgy metal track mixed disconcertingly low so you're forced to raise the volume really high to make it sound right, after which point the whole album stays at that comfortable volume until, at the end of the track The Bends, there's this slowly building eruption of white noise that ends up blowing your head off with the sheer volume.

[rabigjb]

Elvis' "Suspicious Minds" has one of those fake-out fade-outs. And I'm pretty sure he even recreated that aspect in some live performances.

Matthew Sweet's "Divine Intervention" has a fade-out followed by a fade-in.

Husker Du's "Ice Cold Ice" gives you a nice jolt after the fade-out.

[Judas Booth]

Originally Posted by rabigjb

Matthew Sweet's "Divine Intervention" has a fade-out followed by a fade-in.

Queen played around with fade-outs/ins on alot of their early albums. 'In the Lap of the Gods' from SHEER HEART ATTACK featured a really noticable one.

[Vernon Signpost]

Originally Posted by Fritz Chrome

Another good Patton related production trick was on Mr Bungle's Disco Volante. [/COLOR]

Funnily enough, my ex-room-mate put that album on near my head and left the house while I was asleep one morning. Good times!

I suppose this is reasonably related, then. The Monty Python Album, Matching Tie and Handkerchief, has two parallel grooves on side two of the original vinyl. So there's two 20-minute tracks and the one that plays entirely depends on where on the surface you first place the needle. Have any bands pulled that trick?

[Richard Dickson]

"Strawberry Fields" does the fade-out/fade-in thing too.

[Nexus-7]

The final bits of the KMFDM album Xtort will blow your speakers, or eardrums, if you're not careful. Annoying.

I've heard several metal albums where it's obvious the band wasn't too concerned with having near-deaf people mix their album. A lot of these people can't hear in the lower registers, and you end up with tinny albums. That my theory, anyway.

[Jake]

QOTSA's "Feel-Good Hit Of The Summer" does this with the vocal track at the end, right? I don't have any of their stuff loaded on my mp3 player at the moment.

[cheftournel]

Originally Posted by Vernon Signpost

Funnily enough, my ex-room-mate put that album on near my head and left the house while I was asleep one morning. Good times!

I suppose this is reasonably related, then. The Monty Python Album, Matching Tie and Handkerchief, has two parallel grooves on side two of the original vinyl. So there's two 20-minute tracks and the one that plays entirely depends on where on the surface you first place the needle. Have any bands pulled that trick?

You may be implying this and I'm too thick to see it, but that exact trick was used on the vinyl edition of Disco Volante.

[Vernon Signpost]

Originally Posted by cheftournel

You may be implying this and I'm too thick to see it, but that exact trick was used on the vinyl edition of Disco Volante.

Blimey, that is a coincidence. I've only ever heard it on CD and honestly didn't have a clue that the vinyl had a split groove.

[BubWilliams]

Originally Posted by Nexus-7

The final bits of the KMFDM album Xtort will blow your speakers, or eardrums, if you're not careful. Annoying.

I've heard several metal albums where it's obvious the band wasn't too concerned with having near-deaf people mix their album. A lot of these people can't hear in the lower registers, and you end up with tinny albums. That my theory, anyway.

It's the loudness wars, for some reason the bands/producers like to compress the shit out of their albums.

Just check out this waveform from the last Metallica album, compared to the version from Rock Band/Guitar Hero. It's a fucking horrible thing going on.

[Ben W]

Originally Posted by Keith F

I guess it's along the same lines, but gotta love the albums that are actively trying to startle you with their loud and abrasive first tracks. If you have your volume turned WAY up in anticipation they can hit you like a ton of bricks.

Faith No More's "Collision" from Album of the year does this.

I nearly ruined a set of speakers about 10 years ago when I my cd changer switched discs and that song started to blare at a very high volume.

[Sebastian OB]

The production choices on every mainstream pop record from 1982 to 1988 are largely unfathomable. "Hey, I've got a great idea! Let's put gated digital reverb on EVERYTHING!"

[Kyle Reese]

The mixing of the drum machines on Pure by Godflesh makes the album nearly unlistenable for me, despite the music itself being amazing. It sounds scientifically tuned to irritate the ear, at any volume, on any pair of speakers. I've tried it on some big old Altec Lansings (good, but a little muddy and mid-range centric), various sets of headphones and earphones, and now my nearly perfect sounding B&W studio monitors. It still sounds like absolute shit. The kick drum, especially, has the effect of a dentist's drill.

It's not the repetitive nature of the drum machine beats themselves, I was into them on the previous album Streetsweeper. That album certainly sounded dirty and cheap, but somehow the follow up Pure sounds twice as bad.

I was under the impression Justin Broadrick was a bit of a stoner. I cannot imagine him stoned in the studio, mixing the album, thinking "Yes, yes, the glorious pain of these drum machine frequencies, stabbing my inner ear like a sowing needle...it hurts more and more the more stoned I get!". Or, was he in such a dark place at the time that he wanted to punish himself and his listeners?

[Nexus-7]

Originally Posted by BubWilliams

It's the loudness wars, for some reason the bands/producers like to compress the shit out of their albums.

Just check out this waveform from the last Metallica album, compared to the version from Rock Band/Guitar Hero. It's a fucking horrible thing going on.

I think DaveB wrote about this very thing on the boards a year or two ago. How albums keep getting louder, while they lose the "little things"(horrible way to put it, but anyway). The subtle sounds are gone, somehow.
I'm a big fan of making "best-of" CDs of bands I enjoy, and with the volume discrepancies, it's very tricky. I have to edit the volume levels in Soundforge, etc.

[cheftournel]

Somewhere in an alternate universe exists a version of the Peppers' 'Mother's Milk' without the horrible compressed eighties-metal production. It sounds like a marvel.

Seriously, some of their best songs, ruined and dated by that sound. At least they got it right on Blood Sugar. God how I still love that record!

[Ray Abed]

I'll never understand why the production on Metallica's ...And Justice for All chose to obliterate the existence of Jason Newsted's bass.

It's a shame, too. The songs themselves are pretty killer, but could've been taken to another level with a ferocious bass line.

Pearl Jam's Binaural is another offender. I appreciate the layered and nuanced production the band was going for with some of the tunes, but, unfortunately, it managed to bury the music's visceral punch and energy.

[Justin Clark]

The drums on St. Anger.

....yeah.

[Sebastian OB]

Originally Posted by Ray Abed

I'll never understand why the production on Metallica's ...And Justice for All chose to obliterate the existence of Jason Newsted's bass.

I have always wondered about this. Was it some weird way of honoring Cliff Burton? Of hazing Newsted? All of the above? What gives?

[BubWilliams]

Originally Posted by Ray Abed

I'll never understand why the production on Metallica's ...And Justice for All chose to obliterate the existence of Jason Newsted's bass.

It's a shame, too. The songs themselves are pretty killer, but could've been taken to another level with a ferocious bass line.

Hetfield's reasoning for that was basically because Jason was doubling all of his parts, and that it wouldn't matter all that much if the bass wasn't there.

I'm still holding out hope that one day there will be a remix/master of that album.

[Kyle Reese]

Binaural actually sounds pretty cool on my monitors, with the subtleties of the drums managing to punch through the murk. This surprised me, as it sounds like crap on most other speakers. Don't even try listening to it in your car. Most people would probably be better of with live versions of those songs.

The Woods by Sleater Kinney is another big offender. I almost want to slap Dave Fridmann for what he did here. Dave seems to have the opinion that an overloaded, crackly needle-in-the-red recording signal sounds good. It doesn't, Dave. It works for dramatic effect occasionally, like when Nine Inch Nails ends a song with it. It's doesn't work for making the guitars sound "louder" for nearly the entire album. It just makes it sound like shit.

The worst example is Modern Girl. It's a very lovely song. It starts out sounding normal. You almost forget for a minute that Dave has been shoving his distracting distortion fetish in your face for the entire album. Then, he turns it up gradually over the course of the song. The drums come in, adn they sound really really crackly. I don't know why. I would love to hear him explain this to me. Is there a person on the earth who thinks this sounds cool?

Normally things like this wouldn't upset me. I can accept bad production as long as the performance manages to shine through. But when it seems like a producer is deliberately doing all they can to fuck with me, I don't like it.

[Pop Zeus]

Pet Sounds in in mono. What's up with that?

[DaveB]

Originally Posted by Kyle Reese

The Woods by Sleater Kinney is another big offender. I almost want to slap Dave Fridmann for what he did here. Dave seems to have the opinion that an overloaded, crackly needle-in-the-red recording signal sounds good. It doesn't, Dave. It works for dramatic effect occasionally, like when Nine Inch Nails ends a song with it. It's doesn't work for making the guitars sound "louder" for nearly the entire album. It just makes it sound like shit.

The worst example is Modern Girl. It's a very lovely song. It starts out sounding normal. You almost forget for a minute that Dave has been shoving his distracting distortion fetish in your face for the entire album. Then, he turns it up gradually over the course of the song. The drums come in, adn they sound really really crackly. I don't know why. I would love to hear him explain this to me. Is there a person on the earth who thinks this sounds cool?

*raises hand*

Okay, I'm not crazy about all of the distortion, but even with the occasional needle-in-the-red moments, it's probably the best sounding of their albums. I love how gigantic the drums sound, and it's the first time that it wasn't just a matter of the songs being so good that you didn't miss the bass; you literally couldn't put bass on it if you wanted to. It would be too much.

To me, the distortion is just a side-effect and not the point. The point is that thick sound that pushes you back against the wall more than anything they'd produced before. In some ways, it's the closest they ever came to capturing their live power.

[DaveB]

Originally Posted by Jeb

Oh, wait, I'd (mercifully)forgotten Michael Wagener's pissing all over X's Ain't Love Grand. I thought "Burning House of Love" was a bad late-BOC outtake until I heard it live and realized what a great fucking single it could have made in someone else's hands.

I first heard a bunch of Ain't Love Grand songs on Live at the Whiskey-A-Go-Go and figured Ain't Love Grand had to be some kind of overlooked masterpiece from the middle of their career (since I already had and loved Los Angeles and See How We Are*).

When I finally heard it, I was able to appreciate it as an 80s pop album (especially the really obvious attempts at radio pop, like "My Soul Cries Your Name"), but there's no doubt that the real rock songs like "Burning House of Love," "Around My Heart," and "What's Wrong With Me" were done a terrible disservice. And what Wagener and the band did to "Wild Thing" is still the low point in the X catalog - far worse even than the 90s reunion albums.

* See How We Are sometimes gets thrown in with Ain't Love Grand, since it, too, has relatively clean 80s production and the songwriting continued to move away from their punk/rockabilly roots. I love it, though. It's an X album that could probably fit on the radio between Springsteen and Petty on classic rock radio (maybe it's Benmont Tench's fault?) in the best possible way.

[Mangy]

I've always hated the tinny snare drum sound of Soundgarden's Badmotorfinger. If the drum sound from Superunknown had been transferred to that CD, I'd probably like it 10 times better.

[DaveB]

Originally Posted by Mangy

I've always hated the tinny snare drum sound of Soundgarden's Badmotorfinger. If the drum sound from Superunknown had been transferred to that CD, I'd probably like it 10 times better.

I remember an interview with Kim Thayil where he was ragging on that production choice, too. He said it sounded too much like Rush.

I kind of like the cleanness of it, but it doesn't quite do Matt Cameron justice as the heavy hitter he is.

[radical friends]

Originally Posted by Vernon Signpost

I suppose this is reasonably related, then. The Monty Python Album, Matching Tie and Handkerchief, has two parallel grooves on side two of the original vinyl. So there's two 20-minute tracks and the one that plays entirely depends on where on the surface you first place the needle. Have any bands pulled that trick?

The Dillinger Escape Plan have a live 7" that does this. Side A has the parallel groove thing, and Side B has one song that plays from the outside in and one that plays from the inside out.