Your favorite produced/engineered album.

[Benjamin Strange]

I recently rediscovered one of the best engineered albums ever: Roger Waters' Amused to Death. Not only is a great album, but the engineering and production are amazing! Jeff Beck plays guitar on it, and there are times where his guitar sounds like a gospel singer screaming her lungs out. Wow. The imaging is impeccable - sounds spread not only left and right, but up and down too. How do they do that?

It occured to me that I sometimes buy albums based on how they sound first and foremost, rather than buying them because I like the song (which isn't to say I'll buy stuff that sucks just because it sounds good).

Here's some of my favorite engineered records:

-Roger Waters: Amused to Death. Hands down best engineered album ever.
-Seal: Human Being. Woefully underrated CD. One of my favorite of the past 5 years.
-Metallica: the black album. I hated the album as a whole, but MAN does that thing sound good. I wish Master of Puppets sounded like this.
-Nine Inch Nails: The Fragile. Another woefully underrated CD. It's easy to see why this took 4 years to make.
-David Bowie: Heathen. Just incredible. David voice sounds so rich and full - and no pitch correction!
-Depeche Mode: Ultra. It's just so... deep. And dark. I like dark.
-Miles Davis: Sketches of Spain. I don't think the emotion in Miles' playing has ever been so evident as on this album. Even more so than Kind of Blue.
-Radiohead: Kid A. It's amazing at how warm this one sounds, even on CD.
-Sepultura: Roots. Two words: DAMN!

Chime in gents! Give me something I can wrap my golden ears around.

[Wrong Robot]

I'm listening to Raphael Saadiq right now, it's pretty produced, but it's groovy as hell. Great production, really soulful and funky.

[Brendan]

36 Crazyfists - A Snow Capped Romance. Brilliant production.
Norma Jean - Bless The Martyr and Kiss the Child. Andy Dukewitz (sp?) is a freaking genius producer
Motograter - Eponymous. Really good sounding nu-metal. Just fabulous production values.

Those are others, but I'm lazy.

Less Lazy:

Laura Love - Pretty much all of her albums are impeccable.

[Mudfuzz]

ZZ TOP: Rhythmeen. Raw, dirty & crusty, the sound of hip.

Bob Marly: Exodus. Love the bass tone, love the recording fidelity.

Sepultura: Roots. What Benjamin said.

Charles Mingus: The Clown. Explosive Jazz captured without being serialize, sanitized or stuffitized.

Peter Gabriel: Last temptation of christ. Solid production, clear sound, good subject matter.

Pink Floyd: Meddle. Skip to Echoes and listen!

There are many more but these are my top picks. I tend to use these to test monitors, players and such as well.

[bassturtle]

Probably my all time favorite album, as far as production goes, would be Jonatha Brook's Steady Pull. It's pretty 'pop/rock' but it kicks a$$. She's a great songwriter and the musicians are killer on the whole album (marcus miller anyone?).

A guy named Bob Clearmountain mixed/engineered/co-produced the disk. He's normally just a mix engineer, but he recorded the whole thing in is small home studio. He's got a great set of ears and ideas that are amazing to me.

Because it was all done in his house the sounds are very dry and in your face, which I prefer over the very 'roomy' sounding mixes. They used everything from a lint roller to plucked piano strings to achieve the sounds they wanted. It's just an awesome album.


I'm also gonna have to throw RH's 'The Bends' on here too. It's the modern rock album as far as production goes, in my mind.

[AllegroNonMolto]

Toss up between Radiohead - OK Computer and Beck - Sea Change...both produced by Nigel Godrich.

[DaveBeny]

I think that Teo Macero made valuable contributions to Miles Davis' 'In A Silent Way' and 'Bitches Brew' through quite his innovations for jazz recordings - notably his editing and tape-splicing of different performances as a form of composition.

Unfortunately, it all got out of hand - the '70s Miles albums 'On The Corner' and 'Get Up With It' (especially) are two of the worst mixed records I have ever heard.

[ironmaidenisgod]

My fav. bassist is Martin Birch.

The way in which he made the bass central in so many Maiden songs was one of the main reasons for their sucess.

[Mike Flynn]

Recently I've been seriously impressed by Outcast's 'The Love Below' - everything sounds wicked on that - and it's just a great contemporary soul/funk/jazz record - with some brialliant songs and cool bass lines for good measure - their version of 'My Favourite Things' is just fantastic.

Dark Side of the Moon - still gets my vote for one of the best produced albums of all time....but there are hundreds more possibilities.

[driver800]

Dark Side of the Moon - definitely

some of my other favorites:
Abbey Road (?? who did that?)
Quadraphenia - the who
Murmur - r.e.m.
Look Sharp - Joe Jackson
Shake Your Money Maker - Black Crowes
Just about anything by Shania Twain (Mutt Lange knows what he's doing)
Hard Again - Muddy Waters w/ Johnny Winter

[Dave Siff]

From a production and engineering standpoint, I still love Rush's Moving Pictures.

[Matt Till]

Beat me to Moving Pictures.

Disturbed's have fantastic production, that's why I was into them... for a while.

Good call on the Black album too. The songs are too generic, but damn, that's metal production!

[Lackey]

hmm..

Porcupine Tree - In Absentia

Attention Deficit - The Idiot King

Meshuggah - Nothing

King Crimson - The Power To Believe

can't forget...

Primus - Brown Album

[Freaky Fender]

Production and Engineering- Smashing Pumpkins: Mellon Collie and The Infinite Sadness.

Flood is a hell of a producer, and for that matter, check out Adore too for some great engineering

[MAJOR METAL]

I really dig the production on Metallica's Load album.

[bassturtle]

Originally Posted by Freaky Fender

Flood is a hell of a producer

Hell yeah he is.

[deepbob]

off the top of me head:

wonder - songs in the key of life
oysterhead - oysterhead
hendrix - axis: bold as love
steel pulse - true democracy
jane's addiction - nothing's shocking
cocteau twins - blue bell knoll
incognito - positivity
beatles - revolver
zeppelin - presence
fishbone - truth and soul
portishead - dummy
charlie hunter - natty dread
garbage - garbage
311 - transistor
peppers - one red hot minute
pj harvey - to bring you my love

[christoph h.]

well, floyd's DSOTM and steely dan's AJA most often get the highest ratings when asking pro engineers/mixers.

i personally like:

pat metheny - speaking of now.
spiral architect - a sceptic's universe (engineer: neil kernon)
tool - aenima / lateralus (dave botrill)
adam nitti : evidence

there are others which i can't remember at the moment.

[Geezer_Butler]

Exosus and overkill´s last albums have great productions, the exodus one has a destroying drum sound, just brutal. The overkill one I love the guitar sound. Talking overall sound I Like the black album ( It sounds similir to the St. Anger, specially the drums, dont you think? )

[SlavaF]

Tool - Aenima/Lateralus
Dream Theater - Train of Thought
Rush - Feedback
A Perfect Circle sounds really good.

That's all I can name right now...