Significant loss of producer

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Brickyard Jack
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Re: Significant loss of producer

Postby Brickyard Jack » 13 Sep 2018, 17:18

Baker not producing Queen is not that significant, is it?
They continued to release great records, and their masterpiece was produced by Mack.

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Charlie O.
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Re: Significant loss of producer

Postby Charlie O. » 13 Sep 2018, 17:27

No one here will care but me, but The Buckinghams made two albums with James William Guercio producing, both of them interesting and one - the mostly-self-penned Portraits - "close to a masterpiece" (in Robert Christgau's words!). They then sued Guercio, who was also their manager and publisher, over money matters, and Columbia teamed them with Jimmy "Wiz" Wisner - a producer/arranger whose CV included Sam The Sham, Miriam Makeba, Tommy James & The Shondells and Robert Goulet (among many others), but who really wasn't the guy to help the Buckinghams continue in the progressive, post-Pepper direction they wanted to pursue at that point. The result was the worthwhile but confused and slightly burned out In One Ear And Gone Tomorrow (the title suggests that the band knew it was probably their last Long Playing shot) and no further radio hits.
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sloopjohnc
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Re: Significant loss of producer

Postby sloopjohnc » 13 Sep 2018, 17:30

Bent Fabric wrote:Emerick walked out. Martin went on holiday without telling the band.


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Re: Significant loss of producer

Postby ConnyOlivetti » 13 Sep 2018, 17:50

Positive Passion wrote:Baker not producing Queen is not that significant, is it?
They continued to release great records, and their masterpiece was produced by Mack.

And, that is?
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Quaco
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Re: Significant loss of producer

Postby Quaco » 13 Sep 2018, 18:50

Positive Passion wrote:Baker not producing Queen is not that significant, is it?
They continued to release great records, and their masterpiece was produced by Mack.

Yeah Flash Gordon was a hell of a record.
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bobzilla77
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Re: Significant loss of producer

Postby bobzilla77 » 13 Sep 2018, 18:56

People give Spot a lot of shit for the way his SST productions sound. But I submit that Husker Du , despite having major label resources at their disposal, were never produced more poorly than on Warehouse: Songs and Stories. Just airy, reverbed out, flatness with no teeth. Spots productions had teeth.
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Quaco
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Re: Significant loss of producer

Postby Quaco » 13 Sep 2018, 19:19

bobzilla77 wrote:The Who seem to me to be largely produced by Pete Townshend after their debut. Kit Lambert had no audio expertise and was mostly greasing the wheels for Pete's ideas. Glyn John's and Ron Nevison were more like great engineers who recorded them well. Face Dances is the first one since My Generation that had a strong willed, creative type producer on board. It's a disappointing album but I wonder how it would have been different if they didn't deliberately hire a hitmaker producer. Or hired someone other than the Eagles' producer

I get the feeling up to Tommy, Lambert was pretty influential. Yes, that often meant inspiring PT to go further with his writing or just getting the engineer to turn the dials more!

Despite a huge amount of preparation and work by PT, wasn't Who's Next pretty much Glyn Johns telling them which songs to do, which takes were best, creating that scream, and so on.

I have often thought Face Dances could have been done better. There is something odd about how it sounds -- as you suggest, The Who's sound doesn't gel with a smooth professional producer. It's Hard was Glyn Johns again, but it's only marginally better, so maybe it was just over for them in general. Then again, I'm not a great fan of Who Are You either so what is the problem really ... ?
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Sneelock
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Re: Significant loss of producer

Postby Sneelock » 13 Sep 2018, 19:41

the tunes, man. Pete just didn't have the tunes.
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Quaco
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Re: Significant loss of producer

Postby Quaco » 13 Sep 2018, 19:48

Sneelock wrote:the tunes, man. Pete just didn't have the tunes.

Yeah. I also think that times had changed, Moon was ailing/dead, and even if the best songs from PT's solo career had been used, without the Moon thing in full force, there was not much point.
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Snarfyguy
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Re: Significant loss of producer

Postby Snarfyguy » 13 Sep 2018, 20:15

bobzilla77 wrote:People give Spot a lot of shit for the way his SST productions sound. But I submit that Husker Du , despite having major label resources at their disposal, were never produced more poorly than on Warehouse: Songs and Stories. Just airy, reverbed out, flatness with no teeth. Spots productions had teeth.

Spot always seemed like a set-up-the-mikes-and-press-record kind of producer and I've been enjoying records with his name on them the whole time through.

But with Warehouse I didn't even sit through a single listening.
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Mike Boom
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Re: Significant loss of producer

Postby Mike Boom » 13 Sep 2018, 21:43

I think Costello lost something significant when he stopped using Nick "Basher" Lowe, lost a lot of the rough edges that his songs seemed to need to work best.

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Charlie O.
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Re: Significant loss of producer

Postby Charlie O. » 13 Sep 2018, 21:54

Snarfyguy wrote:
bobzilla77 wrote:People give Spot a lot of shit for the way his SST productions sound. But I submit that Husker Du , despite having major label resources at their disposal, were never produced more poorly than on Warehouse: Songs and Stories. Just airy, reverbed out, flatness with no teeth. Spots productions had teeth.

Spot always seemed like a set-up-the-mikes-and-press-record kind of producer and I've been enjoying records with his name on them the whole time through.

But with Warehouse I didn't even sit through a single listening.

Warehouse sounds like an early all-digital production, even if it wasn't one. There's virtually no low end - the bass guitar almost might as well not be in the mix at all, and the kick drum sounds like someone beating a pencil on a countertop - and the high end is thin and clattery.

It was engineered by Steve Fjelstad, who had made meaty-sounding records with The Replacements (and for that matter had done Flip Your Wig, the Hüsker's best-sounding album), so I would guess that the blame does indeed rest on Bob's and Grant's shoulders, but who knows.

It's a shame. If they had culled the best songs and made a good-sounding single LP, it would've been a great album to go out on.
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Brickyard Jack
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Re: Significant loss of producer

Postby Brickyard Jack » 13 Sep 2018, 22:14

ConnyOlivetti wrote:
Positive Passion wrote:Baker not producing Queen is not that significant, is it?
They continued to release great records, and their masterpiece was produced by Mack.

And, that is?


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WG Kaspar
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Re: Significant loss of producer

Postby WG Kaspar » 13 Sep 2018, 22:25

Positive Passion wrote:
ConnyOlivetti wrote:
Positive Passion wrote:Baker not producing Queen is not that significant, is it?
They continued to release great records, and their masterpiece was produced by Mack.

And, that is?


The Game, of course.

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Quaco
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Re: Significant loss of producer

Postby Quaco » 13 Sep 2018, 22:30

To me, it's half-great (rather like its predecessor). Some excellent stuff, but songs like 'Dragon Attack' and a couple others bring it down.
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pcqgod
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Re: Significant loss of producer

Postby pcqgod » 13 Sep 2018, 23:53

I remember some Creem reviewer bemoaning that on 'Heartbeat City,' Mutt Lange had done what Roy Thomas Baker had been unable to do with the Cars on their four previous albums: turn them into Queen.
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Mike Boom
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Re: Significant loss of producer

Postby Mike Boom » 13 Sep 2018, 23:59

Quaco wrote:To me, it's half-great (rather like its predecessor). Some excellent stuff, but songs like 'Dragon Attack' and a couple others bring it down.


"Dragon Attack" is one of the best things on it !

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Re: Significant loss of producer

Postby Bent Fabric » 14 Sep 2018, 01:03

Slight digression:

I don't want to say that this guy is "the other Tom Wilson", but...he sure got around.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian_Barber

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Charlie O.
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Re: Significant loss of producer

Postby Charlie O. » 14 Sep 2018, 01:13

Bent Fabric wrote:Slight digression:

I don't want to say that this guy is "the other Tom Wilson", but...he sure got around.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian_Barber

Indeed.
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Re: Significant loss of producer

Postby trans-chigley express » 14 Sep 2018, 05:19

Pretty much any act that stopped using Trevor Horn quickly turned to shit


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