Great music but poor recording recommendations.


It hit me that, when I visit most of my audiophile friends, that they are always playing Holly Cole, Pat Barber, Diana Krall, Kraftwerk, Dead Can Dance and other things that are well recorded but not very consonant with my musical sensibility. Most of the music I really enjoy is pretty badly recorded. So I thought that, in the interest of widening musical exposure, we could start a thread with great music that is not particularly well recorded but deserves a hearing from our audiophile friends. Doesn't have to be the worst recording ever or anything like that, just mediocre will do. I'll throw three out. "Introducing Roland Kirk", originally released on Argo and subsequently on Chess. This is Kirk's first record as a leader, before he became Rashaan, a real winner. Recording quality suffers in comparison to his later work on Mercury/Limelight and Atlantic. Robert Earl Keen, "Number 2 Live Dinner". OK, I said that I wouldn't pick the very worst recording, but this may be right up there, hey, it's my thread so I can cheat. Unbelieveable songwriting from this unsung Texas troubadour. Townes (who made a few terrible sounding recordings as well) would be proud. The Strokes "Room On Fire", their latest effort sounds like a direct-to-disc compared to this sophomore outing. More sludge than a Mississippi River flood. One can easily argue that, in this case, we are dealing with artisitic intent. For a brief moment, the only new band that mattered. Next.
128x128viridian
Almost anything by Nirvana, I really like to pull out something from these guys, but it can sound real bad. One exception is their MTV Unplugged album.
U2's "All That You Can't Leave Behind". Really excellent rock music, but a recording that will peel paint! I listened to it in my car today on a factory system and it was still WAY too hot (treble) for my taste. It is nearly unlistenable on my home system.

Honestly, I can't believe the Band or recording engineer really wanted this recording to turn out this way.

Ned's Atomic Dust Bin "God Fodder" and "Are You Normal". I really like both of these recordings, but they are very thin sounding and get "muddled up" when the music picks up and/or gets louder.

Agreed on The Rush recording mentioned earlier and basically think most of the original Rush CDs sound pretty poor. This was my favorite Band for 10-15 years, but I rarely listened to them at home once I got a decent system. Very thin with NO bass.

Counting Crows "This desert Life". Again, I like the music, but too thin and muddled-up when it gets loud.

Enjoy,

TIC
FatParrot, are you kidding??
Katy Lied is superb! what do you mean? P.S. my parrot is thin... can't get him to eat right, always prefers junk food
Lindisfarne: How true about most of Todd's work! I always liked "Initiation" but no bass! "RA" and also from same period The Tubes (can't remember the title -- cover had a photo of a baby suckling on a portable TV)produced by T.R... sound very good.
"Katy Lied" has some well documented audio problems. All the vinyl and CD versions I've heard sound fairly compressed and somewhat rolled off at the frequency extremes.