Worst Recording

[revolink24]

I came up with this thread after listening to "Keep Yourself Alive" Queen on the 1981 Greatest Hits album (Just bloody awful.), and seeing various "Best Recording" and "Audiophile (insert genre here)" threads.. Post what, in your opinion, the worst recorded songs by any artists on any album are. Can include various masters from the "loudness war."

I will make one stipulation here though.
No Death Magnetic. There, half the useless posts are gone.


Anyway, on Keep Yourself Alive - It seems like everything is clipping, and hitting brick wall compression at reasonably low levels. Just painful.

 

[salannelson]

The Red Hot Chili Peppers-Californiacation
RHCP-Stadium Arcadium
^^These two albums right here are the definition of the loudness war.

This is a waveform of the CD release (top) and the LP release (bottom)http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...h_waveform.png

Every Mars Volta Album after De-Loused was mastered a little bad.
The new DMB album Big Whiskey is unlistenable for me. It's really muddy.

 

[Laokid18]

Nevermind the Bollocks-Sex Pistols , It sounds really bad even compared to other punk albums of that time.

 

[Uncle Erik]

"At War With the Mystics," The Flaming Lips. Compression like I've rarely heard. The album is unlistenable. Still love them, though.

"Concert by the Sea," Errol Garner. No compression, just a horrible recording made with horrible equipment. The music is so good, however, that it's worth putting up with. If only they could have had good equipment there.

 

[kool bubba ice]

Back in Black remastered. Boyz in the Hood. Very low production, and sounds bad in general. TLC....On the TLC tip. Sounds overly muffled, bright, and bland..

 

[The Actual]

How about The Shaggs? try My Pal Foot for example
granted, I may be allowing content to influence my opinion on recording quality in this instance.

 

[Dublo7]

Quote:

Originally Posted by salannelson /img/forum/go_quote.gif The Red Hot Chili Peppers-Californiacation RHCP-Stadium Arcadium ^^These two albums right here are the definition of the loudness war. This is a waveform of the CD release (top) and the LP release (bottom)http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...h_waveform.png Every Mars Volta Album after De-Loused was mastered a little bad. The new DMB album Big Whiskey is unlistenable for me. It's really muddy.

I gotta disagree here. Frances, Bedlam and Octahedron all sound pretty damned great.
Amputechture sounds bad. Lots of distortion and some very painful channel separation. Sometimes an entire verse of vocals will be on one side of the channels, and it's enough to give you a headache - it's very fatiguing.

I'm not sure what the worst sounding CD I've ever heard is. The bonus disc to Radiohead's In Rainbows was quite bad. Lots of distortion.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Uncle Erik /img/forum/go_quote.gif "At War With the Mystics," The Flaming Lips. Compression like I've rarely heard. The album is unlistenable. Still love them, though.

Yoshimi is also very loud.

The other day I tried to listen to my Michael Jackson Dangerous CD. It has an album gain of -10.28db. Not very nice at all.

 

[John Buchanan]

Try "Earthbound" by King Crimson. Recorded on a Sony cassette recorder in 1972 from the FOH mix. So bad that Atlantic refused to take up the option of releasing it in the USA. Hugely distorted.

 

[TwoTrack]

Magic by Bruce Springsteen. Horrible.

 

[terriblepaulz]

The Woods by Sleater-Kinney

 

[tintin47]

The new Dinosaur Jr. Album, Farm. Terribly recorded, terribly compressed.

 

[edulus]

jefferson airplane - 2400 fulton street

 

[moogoob]

Real Black Metal. Any of it.

 

[Dublo7]

Mastodon's Blood Mountain is very painful to listen to.

This is the first track, The Wolf is Loose

 

[Punnisher]

Mastodon's three latest albums are a tragedy. Such great music brickwalled.

Rush- Vapor Trails is one of the worst.