albums where the musicians were never in the studio together?

[Jumbotron]

I'm trying to think of some examples of albums where the band hated each other so much that they were never in the studio at the same time.

I think I remember that Van Halen's 1984 was like that. Can anybody verify?

Are there any other examples you could help me out with?

[plangentmusic]

I would imagine that would be most of them in the last few years. Most of the session work I do these days is via email exchange of mp3's.

[twangman]

The Ramones had some tension between the Joey and Johnny. but they stuck together.. I know when they worked with Phil Spector, for the "End of the Century" album, Phil gave everyone a hard time (even held them at gunpoint) and some of the members just left the session. Dee Dee says he didnt even play bass on that album. hmmmm...........................

[20db pad]

In their later years, The Cars did a few songs, if not entire albums in separate locations. IIRC, they weren't necessarily on bad terms but all the members were very busy with other projects.

There's a lot of KISS material that Ace Frehley did in his own studio, while the rest of the band worked together elsewhere. Ace couldn't be bothered to show up or participate, which was a common MO for him. Other times, the band would just have an outside guitarist play parts on recordings because Ace was so unreliable.

Both these examples happened 10 or 20 years before the Internet.

[WalterBush]

I think the last two Beatles albums were recorded that way, IIRC.

[dubclashdub]

Surfer Rosa by the pixies was mainly done just one person at a time, I read that they weren't communicating much by then

[coffin blurt]

Trendkill by Pantera. Rex and the Abbott bros were in Texas, while Phil recorded Vox in Louisiana.

[Muddslide]

Originally Posted by dubclashdub

Surfer Rosa by the pixies was mainly done just one person at a time, I read that they weren't communicating much by then

That was their first full-length album.

There was an instrumental band in the 80s and 90s called Pell Mell. I really like their stuff.

From what I understand, their last 2 or 3 albums (Flow, Interstate (great album for driving!) and Star City) were recorded with each instrument individually because all the members were living in different states.

Apparently the drummer would lay down tracks, send it to one of the guitarists or the bass player who'd lay down tracks on top and send it off to the next person, etc.

This was all done by mail as it was before the Internet and file sharing were common.

[bassinplace]

Exile on Main Street.
http://www.bassplayer.com/article/bi...st-2010/118861

[Spoonman462]

Menomena's albums.

[colcifer]

Originally Posted by WalterBush

I think the last two Beatles albums were recorded that way, IIRC.

Nah, but The White Album was that way on a couple of tracks.

[RickenBoogie]

+1 ^

[Jumbotron]

Thanks, everybody!
That's really helpful (it's for an article that I'm writing about how technology has changed the possibilities for musical collaboration).

[mizzou541]

I'm sure there were some tracks from later Floyd albums where that was the case. Not sure there was room for others when Roger's head was in the room.

[iamlowsound]

Thrice's Alchemy Index was recorded that way. As was Mute Math's first EP.

lowsound

[jmattbassplaya]

I believe the new Stone Temple Pilots album was largely recorded this way.

[coreyfyfe]

Originally Posted by iamlowsound

Thrice's Alchemy Index was recorded that way.

It was their first that they recorded in their home studio, but they were all there, and did a large collection of photos of the process, and their youtube channel is full of videos of them in the same room recording parts. I can't find the photoblog anymore, but Teppei talked in decent detail about recording that and Beggars on the gearslutz boards:

http://www.youtube.com/user/alchemyindex

http://www.gearslutz.com/board/so-mu...e-beggars.html

[HaMMerHeD]

Not quite the same thing, but for Meshuggah's Catch 33 and Nothing re-issue albums, Tomas Haake (drummer) didn't actually record drum tracks.

[Basshappi]

The first Boston album was recorded by Tom Scholtz in his own studio and he brought people in a few at a time to record their parts. I believe that the story goes that the album had been released and started charting before the band had even rehearsed together.

[NS2A]

The first Winger album. The first time they all met was the photoshoot for the album.