Albums with bad production/recording quality/sound

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   Frost* are a band where each album sounded worse to my ears. Especially noticed in the cymbals. No decay and they don't sound real. 

Dream Theater - Distance Over Time sounds bad to me. Mastered or mixed too hot and because of that I don't listen to it much.

Greco Bastian - With A Little Hell From My Friends. Drums sound bad. Overall, messy.

The Psychedelic Ensemble - all their records sound muddy to me. Such a shame, because the music is spectacular.

Anderson Stolt - Invention of Knowledge. Crushed to the max. And Jon never stops singing... Music needs space.

Lot's of bands that compete in the Loudness Wars. Haken's last few come to mind. And yes, it 
ruins the experience for me.

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Grumpyprogfan Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Reviewer page Forum Senior Member Joined: July 09 2019 Location: Kansas City Status: Offline Points: 11636	Post Options Post Reply Quote Grumpyprogfan Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: August 19 2023 at 09:40
	Frost* are a band where each album sounded worse to my ears. Especially noticed in the cymbals. No decay and they don't sound real. Dream Theater - Distance Over Time sounds bad to me. Mastered or mixed too hot and because of that I don't listen to it much. Greco Bastian - With A Little Hell From My Friends. Drums sound bad. Overall, messy. The Psychedelic Ensemble - all their records sound muddy to me. Such a shame, because the music is spectacular. Anderson Stolt - Invention of Knowledge. Crushed to the max. And Jon never stops singing... Music needs space. Lot's of bands that compete in the Loudness Wars. Haken's last few come to mind. And yes, it ruins the experience for me.

Stressed Cheese Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Reviewer page Forum Senior Member Joined: March 16 2022 Location: The Netherlands Status: Offline Points: 540	Post Options Post Reply Quote Stressed Cheese Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: August 19 2023 at 08:38
	Just interested to see if people have some good examples of albums that have bad sound/production/recording quality. And I'm wondering if, and if yes to what degree, this ruins or lessens your enjoyment of the album. The first two albums are albums that I've been listening to a lot lately that kind of inspired this thread. Also, I'm not talking about brickwalled remasters, I mean stuff that just sounds bad independent of that or before it ever got remastered (though I will list one example...). -Soft Machine's Third. I think we're all familiar with this album and its bad sound. It's a very murky album that sounds like it was recorded on cardboard equipment, which would explain the album cover. From what I know, no rerelease will be able to fix this because it was just recorded this shtty. Quite a shame, as it does hurt the music a lot, and it sounds especially bad on headphones (what I use for most of my listening). -Genesis - Nursery Cryme. I don't think this sounds as bad as some people seem to think, but having recently listened to Trespass for the first time, that really sounded a lot better than I was expecting based on Nursery Cryme. Foxtrot is also a clear improvement over Cryme. It doesn't really hurt my enjoyment. -I have to mention Metallica, who have 3 (!) infamously bad sounding albums. 1) PA's favorite, ...And Justice For All, which has no audible bass, tinny guitars, and a snaredrum that sounds like a mouse-click (which tbf is a problem for a lot of thrash metal from the era), 2) St. Anger, which just sounds like sht, and 3) Death Magnetic, which is probably the most infamous victim of the loudness wars (and yet, we're still in it...sigh...) and prompted fans to reconstruct the album themselves from files datamined from Guitar Hero. -Pink Floyd. I love Floyd, but I find a lot of their 1968 and 1969 output to sound pretty murky and bad to me compared to Piper. There's some exceptions, like Julia Dream and the non-album version of Eugene, but especially More sounds pretty dire in a lot of places. I've always found it funny how The Nile Song sounds like complete garbage, but Ibiza Bar, a nearly identical song, sounds much better (still not great). Example videos: Btw, does anyone know if you can hide stuff behind spoiler tags or make YT videos smaller on here? It drives me nuts how much real estate videos take up on certain threads on this forum.