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Well produced recent albums

Andy1912

Andy1912

pfm Member
This afternoon, as I’m on leave, I sat down to listen to a few tunes.

I put on Funeral by Arcade Fire, which I do love but frankly the production is poor on the vinyl and digital versions. Obviously, a really talented band and lots going on so from my viewpoint a real shame.

As a comparator I put on Sade Diamond Life. Musically, not so interesting at all, but beautifully produced. Really the comparison is marked.

So my question is, are there still high quality productions making it to market or is it a dying art?
 
Seem to recall the record company spending a lot on the recording of 'My One and Only Thrill' by Melody Gardot back in 2009. Certainly sounds good on vinyl and some decent tunes too.

An obvious one is 'Random Access Memories' by Daft Punk.

I tend to listen to 60s/70s/80s music so don't buy a huge amount of new releases. Thought the last Bruce Springsteen wasn't bad and also My Woman by Angel Olsen. Both good albums.
 
Andy1912 said:
This afternoon, as I’m on leave, I sat down to listen to a few tunes.

I put on Funeral by Arcade Fire, which I do love but frankly the production is poor on the vinyl and digital versions. Obviously, a really talented band and lots going on so from my viewpoint a real shame.

As a comparator I put on Sade Diamond Life. Musically, not so interesting at all, but beautifully produced. Really the comparison is marked.

So my question is, are there still high quality productions making it to market or is it a dying art?
Click to expand...

I'm not so sure Funeral is recent? I find all of their albums lack definition, live too, many layers doing similar things musically creates a dense sound. One album I liked the sound of was last year's Shortly After Take Off by BC Camplight. Then going back a few years Lost in the Dream by The War on Drugs sounds great and is one of those albums where the perceived rythmic inflections vary depending on the stereo set up.
 
Robn said:
I'm not so sure Funeral is recent? I find all of their albums lack definition, live too, many layers doing similar things musically creates a dense sound. One album I liked the sound of was last year's Shortly After Take Off by BC Camplight. Then going back a few years Lost in the Dream by The War on Drugs sounds great and is one of those albums where the perceived rythmic inflections vary depending on the stereo set up.
Click to expand...

It's funny, but although I love "The War On Drugs" I was pretty unimpressed with the audio quality of "Lost In The Dream" and "A Deeper Understanding". I found them a bit flat. I'm talking about the digital versions though, never heard them on vinyl. I think the KEXP sessions on YouTube sound better:


As for modern releases which sound great and up to the standard of Sade's "Diamond Life", I'm struggling - maybe Leonard Cohen's final trilogy?
 
I'm not sure it costs a lot of money any more to make the decisions that result in a great sounding recording.

'Life will see you now' by Jens Lekman, the Swedish pop singer/songwriter sounds amazing, but I doubt anyone gave him a lot of money to make it. Sort of a more vulnerable Chris Difford, the track 'Evening Prayer' is the highlight.
 
I read an interview where they were making a bit of a big deal out of Arcade Fire's production (same producer for several years etc) and I thought, well, the production is crap (really muffled and murky - probably sounds ok on Yamaha NS10s), so what's the big deal?

In the last decade or so, outside of the usual audiophile stuff from Diana Krall (she used to be great), ECM and Deutsche grammophon labels, artists such as GoGo Penguin, Recondite, The Bad Plus, HVOB, Andrew Bird, Four Tet, Special Request, Recondite, Photek, Kiasmos, Gregory Porter, Joe Sample, Jamie XX, The XX, Daft Punk and Jon Hopkins put out consistently decent sounding tracks (some of these are purely electronic artists so it shouldn't be badly 'recorded' at all....). There's loads of decent stuff around. One of the mostly badly mastered albums in recent years is Haim's 'Days are Gone' (a victim of The Loudness Wars). Great songs and melodies but ruinous sound quality.
 
Depends what your interpretation of good production is. Some might say that the likes of Sade and Diana Krall are over produced.

Do you like a highly polished sound where every instrument has had a gap in the production carved out for it and the vocals are closely miked so you can hear every breath? Or do you like a more live like sound like Springsteen used to try and get?
 
Well, from that interview, Arcade Fire strive for a live sound and fail massively - especially if you compare their studio recordings with a good live recording such as Pink Floyd's 'Pulse', Eric Clapton's 'Unplugged' or Led Zeppelin's 'How the West Was Won'. I quite like Arcade Fire's 'Reflektor' but listening to it is like being at their concert while wearing ear muffs. Paul Weller's 'Wild Wood' on the other hand sounds live but still retains warmth and detail.

One of my favourite recordings of recent years (2015) is 'Junun' (one of Jonny Greenwood of Radiohead's side forays into world music - lyrics are in Hebrew, Hindi and Urdu). The documentary is great and the album is even better! It's not a 'live' recording as such but they did convert a hall within a Rajasthani fortress into an appropriate studio for the recording process, furnishing the area with cushions, drapes and curtains and so on. Lovely stuff (it's a shame Radiohead's own recordings - such as 'In Rainbows' sound so compressed in comparison).

 
Andy1912 said:
This afternoon, as I’m on leave, I sat down to listen to a few tunes.

I put on Funeral by Arcade Fire, which I do love but frankly the production is poor on the vinyl and digital versions. Obviously, a really talented band and lots going on so from my viewpoint a real shame.

As a comparator I put on Sade Diamond Life. Musically, not so interesting at all, but beautifully produced. Really the comparison is marked.

So my question is, are there still high quality productions making it to market or is it a dying art?
Click to expand...
Well I totally agree in terms of production, other than I find 'Diamond life' incredibly interesting and not so much 'Funeral'
A couple of recent releases that are very well produced are
The Pineapple Thief 'Versions of the Truth,
Azu Tiwaline 'Draw me a Silence and Melody Gardot 'Sunset in the Rain'
 
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