I don't know if this was an artistic choice or a production faux pas, but what's up with the sloppy 12 string lead guitar solo in the beginning of "Eight Miles High" by The Byrds?
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LOVE the Byrds, LOVE that song, not so sure about that guitar playing, but it was very much an artistic choice. Roger McGuinn:
"We were on a tour of America, and someone played us the Coltrane albums Africa/Brass and Impressions. I had just picked up a cassette recorder – it was such a new thing, you couldn’t buy any tapes to play in it. But I had some blank tapes so recorded the Coltrane albums, along with some Ravi Shankar, and took them on tour. It was the only music we had, for the whole time on the bus. By the end of the tour, Coltrane and Shankar were ingrained.
There was one Coltrane track called India, where he was trying to emulate sitar music with his saxophone. It had a recurring phrase, dee da da da, which I picked up on Invalid Link Removed and played some jazzy stuff around it. I was in love with his saxophone playing: all those funny little notes and fast stuff at the bottom of the range."
I suppose if the idea was to play as freely and with the abandon of a John Coltrane solo (as Davo Crosby has said), it was a valid experiment. I mean, it's out there for a song that was an AM radio Top hit, anyway. Probably bent some teenage ears, so that's worthwhile.
I always liked that song, and that intro. It works, which is the bottom line, "sloppy" or not it conveys the feeling of the song.
I'm a big Byrds fan as well, I just never understood the opening solo to that song. The end result appears to be what McGuinn was going after, so I can respect that.
Ginger Baker's splash cymbal in Blind Faith Can't Find My Way Home.
Yeah, maybe, but I can't listen to this sound without air crashing the cymbal with him...nobody can.
Jazz is the one with the three humbuckers, innit?
Might be easiest to group them all together in one image:
The whole point of noise and grunge rock was to be raw, unfiltered, and real. Listening should feel like being at a live performance, or, even better, sitting in on a basement jam session.
The whole point of noise and grunge rock was to be raw, unfiltered, and real. Listening should feel like being at a live performance, or, even better, sitting in on a basement jam session.
You might not want to say "any" unless you've heard all of them.
The Birds invented Psychedelic Rock with this song. Not a mistake.
I really enjoy the album (5th Dimension), but the track that tries to simulate a jet flight is like having someone turn a vacuum cleaner on next to your ear. They were trying to do crazy stuff on purpose - trying to find the limits of what you could capture on tape and how/if it would translate as music.
It's an uneven album, but a few of the tracks are brilliant. I love "5th Dimension", "Mr. Spaceman" "Wild Mountain Thyme" and a few others.
The other side of the coin.
Any modern Hip Hop Rap song is 100% production and no musicians.
My thought is if they scaled back the production you'd be left with very little.
Point taken and no sense casting aspersions on the entire genre. Let's rephrase that to;
Most modern Hip Hop Rap songs are 100% production and no musicians.
Any modern Hip Hop Rap song is 100% production and no musicians.
My thought is if they scaled back the production you'd be left with very little.
Point taken and no sense casting aspersions on the entire genre. Let's rephrase that to;
Most modern Hip Hop Rap songs are 100% production and no musicians.
That sounds pretty accurate, especially if you're talking about the tracks that get the most radio and video exposure. Which is a shame, because there are plenty of really good hip-hop bands out there that most people will never hear.
That is a shame and unfortunate that this has been a common occurrence for pretty much all genres for the last century or longer.
What was wrong with the production on that album? I had it on CD and I recall it being a rather disappointing collection of songs after LD50, but I don't recall it being badly produced.
Very bright and brittle sounding. Too much scoop and "process" if you're familiar with BBE Sonic Maximizers. Agreed that LD50 will go down as their crowning achievement. But "End" was a HUGE leap forward in musicianship for them. LD50 has better overall songs though.
Not certain if this counts as BAD production, but it surely was surprising:
Smiley Smile by the Beach Boys. After the amazing sonics of Pet Sounds and Good Vibrations (included on SS), the Smile recordings were abandoned, so instead of Brian Wilson producing, the Beach Boys themselves produced the replacement to meet contractual obligations.
While this album is now more highly regarded, it certainly was a shock then. Obviously, it was produced in desperation.
Smiley Smile by the Beach Boys. After the amazing sonics of Pet Sounds and Good Vibrations (included on SS), the Smile recordings were abandoned, so instead of Brian Wilson producing, the Beach Boys themselves produced the replacement to meet contractual obligations.
While this album is now more highly regarded, it certainly was a shock then. Obviously, it was produced in desperation.
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I thought that was a commentary on what it was like in New York at the time the song was out. Sort of a musical picture.
