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Best engineered / best sounding album


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I'm wondering what people think are the best engineered / best produced albums out there. Learning (or stealing) is always more fun when your teachers are the best
:thu:

Albums that come to mind for me are:

Tom Petty -- Wildflowers

or anything produced by Mutt Lange (def leppard, ac/dc, or shania twain or whatever)


So what are the albums that you listened to that made you want to run around and tell everyone how freakin awesome they sound?



Most Beatles, Beach Boys, Stones, Floyd, ELP, Genesis, Sabbath/Ozzie, a lot of '80's synth pop, Hank Williams, Alice In Chains, Prince, newer chain saw rock, get idears for production from everywhere ;):wave::lol:

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Neil Young- Harvest
Foo Fighters- The colour and the shape, one by one
Coheed and Cambria- No world for tomorrow, Good Apollo I'm burning star IV
Weezer- Pinkerton
Matthew Good- The audio of being, Avalanche
Counting Crows- August and everything after
NOFX- So long and thanks for all the shoes, Punk in drublic
The Smashing Pumpkins- Siamese Dream, Mellon collie and the infinite sadness
Panic! At the disco- A fever you can't sweat out
Refused- The shape of punk to come

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Obviously Floyd's "Darkside ..." and plenty of the Beatles LPs are up there.

A couple that I personally love are Lanois works: U2's "The Joshua Tree" is the masterpiece of their career. I just bought the 20th anniv release on 180-gram vinyl, remastered from the original masters. Wow.

Someone else also mentioned Emmylou Harris' "The Wrecking Ball." Lanois again, and as a fan of both him and a lifelong worshipper of Emmylou, that record is total ear and mind candy for me. He captured her voice at its most expressive (I read somewhere he insisted they track the voice late at night after she had had many cigarettes and a few glasses of wine). It can bring tears.

Put on the headphones and drift away....:love:

PS: +1 on the Waterboys!

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.. but no mention of the masterpiece ear candy from Roxy Music: "Avalon"

A few others that come to mind:

"Ray Of Light" by Madonna (William Orbit at his best)
Vince Gill's "These Days"
"So Long, So Wrong" by Alison Krauss
"Possibilities" by Herbie Hancock
"Brand New Day" by Sting

Thanks for the many clues for some new listening! Keep it up.:thu:

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Chris Goss - Mark Lanegan and Queens Of The Stone Age. Rated R is so wrong in all the right ways... and Bubblegum is beautiful.

 

Dave Jerden - Alice In Chains and Jane's Addiction. Ritual De Lo Habitual contains some of my favorite moments ever recorded.... specifically Then She Did...

 

Those are just the ones I hadn't seen mentioned much in this list...

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"Wildflowers" - Tom Petty +1000 :thu:

Also...
"Love Over Gold" - Dire Straits
"JT" - James Taylor
(Also, his new live "One Man Band" DVD/CD combo sounds great)
"Boston" - Boston
"City to City" - Gerry Rafferty

The Restless Heart stuff featured great arrangements and harmonies beautifully recorded. And for sheer ear candy, the Richard Marx stuff sounded great. I'm missing so many more, but that's all I can come up with now.

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Incubus - A crow left of the murder

 

 

All I can say is Hell to the Yeah on this one. Sounds so raw yet exact. The sheer sounds on this album just make the band *pop*. Of course the musicians are off the wall talented and the songs are diverse and genius but the recording def. lends a hand in the perfection of this album. If any of you have not heard a few tracks off this one, give it a go.

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Almost anything released on ECM-esp those recorded in the Oslo studio

Avalon by Roxy Music should be in a hall of fame for perfect recording

Steve Tibbets Yr album was recorded on an 8 track recorder in a low budget (home?) studio but has beautifully crisp and clear acoustic guitar and tabla

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On some of the newer alt/rock/whatever mentions...

 

Songs for the Deaf - QOTSA is just awesome. Fantastic tones everywhere on this album, clean and controlled but also live and loose where it needs to be. I think Dave Grohl must've had a big say in the drums, cause they've not sounded as good since.

 

Superunknown - Soundgarden is damned good. Very deep and explorable sound; you can really turn it up and listen to the depth.

 

Jagged Little Pill - Alanis Morissette(sp?) great emotions captured on the vocals, and great vocal arrangements. I'd love this album more without the sugery sweet electric guitar sounds on most of the tracks (not you oughta know) and some real drums would make it a touch smoother.

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Joy Division - Unknown Pleasures

Not a "good" or "nice" sounding record, but odd, bleak and desolate, just like the music. Very cool.

 

 

But you bring up a great point because first and foremost, great engineering and sound should support the artistic statement and emotion. If it doesn't do this, then it really doesn't matter how great the microphone was or how "hi-fi" or "lo-fi" the sound is or how great the editing was or any of it. Every single creative and sonic decision should support the artistic and emotional statement.

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But you bring up a great point because first and foremost, great engineering and sound should support the artistic statement and emotion.



I think that's the definition of a good production... Cheers :thu:

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For simplicity with analog glory:

"Every Picture Tells a Story" - (Rod Stewart (not long after he was jammin' with Jeff Beck, and before he went into "other directions" musically)).

Listen to 'dat snare, the fat guitar solo sound, 'da bass . . .

Want the real effect - - pop on a record on a decent turntable and system.

Oh, the old days . . .

Gutter Grandpa Pup

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I'm glad someone finally got around to mentioning Autolux's "Future Perfect". With T Bone Burnett at the helm that's half the battle.

And I LOVE the sound of QOTSA "Rated R", "Songs for the Deaf", and "Era Vulgaris"

A couple relatively obscure recordings by Verbena: "Into the Pink" and "La Musica Negra" sound great to me. Dave Grohl produced "Into the Pink". I'm not sure who produced the other. The guitars and the vocals just sound like rock.

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