The sound of a decade

[curtisstetka]

I've got a CD holder doodad for the car and periodicially I swap around discs for it. Last night I put in a bunch I hadn't listened to in a while.

I tried to listen with some fresh ears mainly for production properties rather than evaluating the musical ideas necessarily.

Not knowing much of nuthin about sound engineering it's hard to articulate exactly what I heard other than that there's just a distinct thumbprint for each era of recording I listened to.

Fer instance, I gave a spin to Bonnie Raitt's "Luck of the Draw" which is a fine album musically. I just haven't ever LOVED the way it sounds. Some of the guitar tones are tasty but overall there's something that feels cold about the production. Most music recorded in the 80s hits me this way. I recall even feeling this way back in the 80s. Maybe it's the love affair with the chorus effect, I dunno.

The best example is ol' EC. I can't stand the stuff he did in the 80s. Of course, musically I think it's some of his weaker material but it also has a lot to do with the overall... feel? tone? spirit? of the recordings.

Then I gave a listen to Alanis Morisette's "Jagged Little Pill". The album just rocks. Her contrived singing mannerisms get old quickly and somebody should have had the good sense to take the harmonica from her but overall the album just has a vivid energy to it. The guitar sounds jump out and sound full and exciting. It's hard to articulate exactly why. I just think the CD's got some very good production.

One of my all-time favorite albums is CCR's "Cosmo's Factory". Man, you can practically smell the amps cooking. Fogerty's solos have always seemed like roller coasters to me - you think you're going to go flying off the tracks at any moment but somehow you make it through. The engineering on that album makes the whole thing crackle with electricity.

What's going on here? Fezz, GJ? What say thou?

[chuckocaster]

up a little late aye curto? cough medicine kicking in yet?

people do the bad stuff to this day. for me it's trying to make the guitar sound too clean, and i don't mean distortion wise. a guitar should sound a little rough around the edges for me to like it. this applies to drums and everything else in the mix. bass direct bores me cause when i play bass i'm plugged into an amp that makes speakers move.

i'm sure someone else can give you a better reason for why stuff sounds bad.

[demioblue]

i'm sure someone else can give you a better reason for why stuff sounds bad.

I think a lot of it had to do with the fascination of new technology back then. Synthesisers were the main culprits. Stuff like Yamaha DX7, KORG M1, etc etc... Nevermind EC. Just look at bands like Duran Duran, Howard Jones, even Def Leppard was getting a bit mushy sounding. Gone were the old days of analog recordings, and hello digital mixers. Bands that made good effetive use of such equipment were Spanday Ballet, U2, Tears For Fears, etc etc... Even Level 42 was a bit cold.

Today, I think things are still the same, but we've just learnt to use the technology better.

Yes, some of EC's 80s albums weren't that good sounding on the ears, but when you listen to the same material played live on 24 Nights, the songs really kick ass and sound more organic...

[Kap'n]

I think a lot of it had to do with the fascination of new technology back then. Synthesisers were the main culprits..

Early drum machines sucked too. Give a listen to Let's Dance album for an example.

As bad as that album sounds, SRV makes it worse. Like painting a moustache on dogs playing poker.

[boobtube21]

I think it's just trends. Like, whatever "sound" the kids start going crazy for, either because it's different or futuristic, or a band with actual talent popularizes it, every recording now needs to sound just like it to stay in the game, for better or for worse.

That's my theory anyway.

FWIW I like 60's and 70's recordings the best. Some of my favorites are actually low-fi punk rock from the late 70's:

Misfits, "Static Age"
Descendents, "Milo Goes To College"
Bad Religion, "How could Hell Be Any Worse"

The Misfits one is absolute crap by any self-respecting engineer's standards, I'm sure, but it has a nice huuuge sound, and it's mixed well. Really not bad for being recorded in 2 or 3 nights, I think. A little rough around the edges, but Glenn Danzig's voice and the Rickenbacker bass really do it for me.

The Descendent's album has great sounding instruments all around, and a very clean mix, almost no reverb, and I'm pretty sure no effects. SPOT was the man.

The Bad Religion album is reverb-washed-out bliss. Plus how can you go wrong with a Gibson Explorer into an original blackface deluxe?

:2cents

[refin]

The '80s was a decade of overblown production,over-indulgent playing and image-conscious artists....outside of that,it was okay.

The production and mixes were too stiff and strict---they didn't breathe,like the aforementioned CCR.Also,alot of our fav artists were selling out to the corporate MTV idiots,writing and recording drivel.
I listened to "Fortunate Son " by CCR the other day,and that recording smokes the '80s for the most part.

[Gravity Jim]

I think what you're hearing the is just the change in technology, and with the early digital stuff, people really didn't know what they were doing... still finding their way.

As a result, rock music might have suffered. But plenty of other styles found a new dawn in the 80-s. I think jazz opened up and a lot of recordings sounded really great, also a lot of acoustic music. AS for pop/rock, The Nightfly showed everybody just how far you could take 16-bit. Sure, the samash hits werepretty lame, but they're really lame now. Snow Patrol? Excuse me? Is that supposed to be interesting or something?

But I'm the wrong guy to ask. I hate Jagged Little Pill with a bottomless passion: both the production and the godawful material. I'd put on the new Toby Keith album first.

[chuckocaster]

i always have thought that most of the CCR collection sounds great. nothing pokes out more than the other stuff. i hate recordings where it's loud vocals and drums and barely anything else.

[Kap'n]

But I'm the wrong guy to ask. I hate Jagged Little Pill with a bottomless passion: both the production and the godawful material. I'd put on the new Toby Keith album first.

Wow, that's harsh.

I like production that doesn't lock itself into any particular time period, except a very few late 60's psych records.

[rudutch]

forgery's newer stuff is recorded very well, Dejavu is excellent

[NeoFauve]

There are a lot of 70's records where I can't stand the way the drums. The have a dead thud, pounding on a couch kind of dynamics.
Like "Hotel California," or one of my favorite albums Darkness On The Edge Of Town. Love the song and the preformances, but the drums sound claustrophbic.
Real drums recorded in a life-sucking way, to my ears, anyway.

On the other hand, I recall reading credits for "drum programming" on Michael Penn's first album, March (when was that?. '89?).
I still love the sound of that record.
Maybe it's the contrast of new-tech drum sound against the old-tech sound of the Chamberlin keyboard?
Maybe it's just that it was all thoughtfully used to make the songs come to life, rather than "this is the hot new sound, everybody's using it" approach.

But, yeah, a lot of 80's stuff has a swishiness to it that doesn't always hold up well.

[Don]

I just downloaded the 2006 re-master of ZZ Top's Tres Hombres, one of my favorite albums.

Previous CD releases of this album are a good example of technology used for evil.

I'm surprised at how much I love it compared to the previous CD version (which I also own). The drums sound like drums and the bass sounds like bass!

[Kap'n]

There are a lot of 70's records where I can't stand the way the drums. The have a dead thud, pounding on a couch kind of dynamics.
Like "Hotel California," or one of my favorite albums Darkness On The Edge Of Town. Love the song and the preformances, but the drums sound claustrophbic.
Real drums recorded in a life-sucking way, to my ears, anyway. .

At least they were subdued. Was less annoying than the drum cannon snare of the 80's. See Born in the USA, anything by a hair-metal band, etc.

Or it's evil twin, the reverse cannon snare, as found on the third (post-solo) verse of hair metal songs.

[Offshore Angler]

Look at the older disks. Some are AAD, some ADD and some are DDD. The older stuff that was originally trasnfered from tape was rushed through the remastering process since there was sooooo much material that needed to be packaged in disk format when the CD players came out.

I'll bet if you take some of the 80's stuff and hear it on the original vinyl you might change your mind.

[Rickenjangle]

One of my fave albums is Cosmo's Factory. What an atmosphere! I have it on vinyl...

[NeoFauve]

I initially purchased "Darkness On Edge Of Town" on cassette. (At Caldor, when I briefly worked there.)
I returned it, because I thought there was something wrong with it.
I guess the homemade copy I first heard, on low-bias tape, and the boombox my buddy played it on in his father's Catalina accentuated the highs, or more likely, left out enough mids and lows to make it sound a little crisper.

It's a wierd sensation, because Bruce's guitar is pretty damn bright at time, the organ and piano etc, sound great, but then there's these drums in a pillow.
The LP was a little better. The CD's about the same, but no hiss.
I haven't heard a remastered version, if there is one.

[Kap'n]

Look at the older disks. Some are AAD, some ADD and some are DDD. The older stuff that was originally trasnfered from tape was rushed through the remastering process since there was sooooo much material that needed to be packaged in disk format when the CD players came out.

I'll bet if you take some of the 80's stuff and hear it on the original vinyl you might change your mind.

That's true of some stuff, but as the others said, not all. Some stuff just plain sounds bad, per the taste of the times.

A perfect example of what you're talking about is the original CD issue of Elvis' Armed Forces. It sounds as though somebody took the RIAA-EQ'ed master, and just ran that straight to disk. Just about all you can hear is plate reverb.

The initial CD issues of the ZZ Top stuff sound as though somebody tried to 'fix' the original mixes, and make them sound more like current-at-the-time ZZ product. Fake drums and all. Even worse than the CD 'fix' of FZ's We're Only In It For the Money.

[boobtube21]

Yeah, a lot of the 70's stuff, even some of the underground punk stuff had the *thud* drums. Steely seemed to have a lot of that too, but I actually like the sound of it. Call me crazy.

[chuckocaster]

i only listen to zz top on vinyl after buying those dreaded cd's. i serioously took tres hombres out of the player and tossed it out the window i was so pissed about what they did to it sonically. i think i'll need to check out the new releases of those albums, sounds like they "fixed" the problem...

[Don]

i only listen to zz top on vinyl after buying those dreaded cd's. i serioously took tres hombres out of the player and tossed it out the window i was so pissed about what they did to it sonically. i think i'll need to check out the new releases of those albums, sounds like they "fixed" the problem...

Check them out. Now!