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Great Music/Bad Vinyl - 2010 Edition

You know it, you dread it -- a great performance but a crummy sounding LP. This is even worse than a crummy performance because you want to listen, but it's painful and offends our highfalutin' audiophile sensibilities. Yes, I know it's all about the music, but 'fess up; it hurts a bit to hear how bad that recording sounds.

Hope others chime in and share their tales of vinyl woe and help others avoid our expensive mistakes. Nominees should be restricted to vinyl you've actually heard and not water cooler scuttlebutt.

Without further adieu, my nominees are (drumroll...)

The Raveonettes - 'In and Out of Control'
Recorded too loud with no dynamic range.

Phosphorescent - 'Here's To Taking It Easy'
Imagine the sound of mid-60's Motown; this was worse.

The Dead Weather - 'Horehound'
Actually anything on the Third Man Record Label could be on this list. Jack, please, hire a real engineer. Please.

Special Award for Disappointment/Expectation Ratio:
Elvis Costello - 'My Aim Is True' (MSFL re-issue)
jazdoc
jazdoc OP
365 posts
 
Richard - I was warned and you were right. What kind of re-grind did they use for Phosphorescent? CD is good.

Synthfreek - This was my first Raveonettes LP...do they really all sound this bad?

Mofimadness - My copy of Elvis is so bad that the first time I spun it my reaction was to quickly shut down my whole system thinking something was blown!

Appreciate everyone sharing their tales of woe!
theunderlyingtheme
90 posts
 
Palasr: "Mastodon - Crack the Skye is a muddy awful mess. The mastering is utter shit. There are so many good metal albums sonically, but this isn't one of them though musically it's quite good."

You must not own the 45 rpm double LP? It sounds pretty damn good to my ears. Plus, you have to consider that there is a helluva lot going on within those songs. The music on CTS is pushing in all kinds of directions - unlike, say Norah Jones.

Can you give me some examples of metal albums that you think are sonically great? I know a few, but they're pretty scarce in my collection.

And Mastodon did record CTS on analog tape, in case you're interested:

http://www.eqmag.com/article/double-fantasy-adversity/may-09/95529
xiekitchen
821 posts
 
"Metal Albums that are sonically great"
You're not gonna believe this but,,, Black Sabbath "Technical Ecstacy" (the LP)wasn't bad...
Also Deep Purple's "Who Do We Think we are" LP pretty good sounding.
palasr
527 posts
 
Yeah, I know about the 45RPM version, but I only found out after I bought the 33RPM (!). I agree, there is a lot of complexity happening, but there's a lot of complexity in a Mahler symphony and I have a few of those that sound stunning.

Decent sounding metal (and I use the term broadly) albums:

Faith No More - 'King For a Day, Fool for a Lifetime'
Soundgarden - 'Badmotorfinger' and 'Down on the Upside'
The Melvins - 'Stoner Witch'
Prong - 'Cleansing'
Leeway - Open Mouth Kiss
Nearly the entire Rage Against the Machine catalog, and most of Clutch's albums (especially Elephant Riders, recorded/mastered on a Tim de Paravicini modded Studer, which shamefully has never been on vinyl). There are more which I can't remember off the top of my head.
And, of course, there's the past - lots of good sounding Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Sabbath, Rainbow, etc.

What's your list of recommended metal LPs?
theunderlyingtheme
90 posts
 

Here, some "metal" LP's that I think have great sound (of course I'm loosely using the term also):

Extreme - III Sides To Every Story

Metallica - Metallica

Hanoi Rocks - Two Steps From The Move

Queensryche - Empire

Thin Lizzy - Jailbreak, Black Rose

AC/DC - Powerage

Queen - News Of The World, A Day At The Races, The Game
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