Worst sounding recordings?

There are some recordings that are hard to listen to through a good, revealing system. Too much compression, poor/inexistent soundstage, anemic dynamic range, muffled sound, among other problems.

Some examples I can recall at the moment:

- RUSH – Vapor Trails

- ASIA – Live in Moscow

- NEKTAR – Remember the Future

- GENESIS – Trespass, Nursery Crime

- MARILLION – Script for a Jesters Tear, Fugazi

- U2 – many of their 80's recordings sound awful

- FLAMING LIPS – At War with the Mystics (over-compressed at worst)

- DREAM THEATER – many of their recordings sound over-compressed (a very common problem with virtually all prog metal recordings I know)

Other examples of poor-sounding recordings you know?

Demetrio.

Blue Rodeo - Palace of Gold. This disk is completely unlistenable. I actually find myself gritting my teeth every time I try to listen to it (I long ago stopped trying). It makes Vapour Trails sound good in comparison.

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Originally Posted by ForeverAutumn

Blue Rodeo - Palace of Gold. It makes Vapour Trails sound good in comparison.

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Now, that's bad.

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Originally Posted by Demetrio

There are some recordings that are hard to listen to through a good, revealing system. Too much compression, poor/inexistent soundstage, anemic dynamic range, muffled sound, among other problems.

Some examples I can recall at the moment:

- RUSH – Vapor Trails

- ASIA – Live in Moscow

- NEKTAR – Remember the Future

- GENESIS – Trespass, Nursery Crime

- MARILLION – Script for a Jesters Tear, Fugazi

- U2 – many of their 80's recordings sound awful

- FLAMING LIPS – At War with the Mystics (over-compressed at worst)

- DREAM THEATER – many of their recordings sound over-compressed (a very common problem with virtually all prog metal recordings I know)

Other examples of poor-sounding recordings you know?

Demetrio.

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Just about any modern recording is going to qualify; too many to mention.

the remastered CD by LORDS OF THE NEW CHURCH is friggen horrible, same with the remastered TALK TALK TALK by the P. Furs, who do they get to do these reamsters PHIL SPECTOR?????

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Originally Posted by unleasHell

the remastered CD by LORDS OF THE NEW CHURCH is friggen horrible, same with the remastered TALK TALK TALK by the P. Furs, who do they get to do these reamsters PHIL SPECTOR?????

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Marlie Matlin

Worst sounding one off the top of my head is probably Okkervil River's Black Sheep Boy. Truly unlistenable which is a shame as the actual music underneath sounds as if it could be something I would like, but I suppose I'll never find out unless I hear it live.

There are tons of poor recordings out there, but does anyone have the latest CD by APPLES IN STEREO? The reason that I ask is because some of the tracks seem a bit harsh to me. It's a little heavy in the treble to my ears...anyone else feel this way? Otherwise it has some nice quality to it, but just a bit over the top on the higher frequencies.

I also agree about the DREAM THEATER material, which is a true crime. For a band that spends so much time perfecting things you would think that they could get a decent CD out there in the quality that it needs to be, also, they release their DVD's with insanely poor Dolby 5.1 mixes as well...they need to do DTS and solid PCM 2.0!!!

Some of the LED ZEPPELIN CD's are all over the place with harshness and lacking clarity...I've heard them on Vinyl and thought they had more fidelity there. Most of the recordings on Rhino are pretty junky too.

queens of the stone age - Lullabies to paralyze, it wanted to be a good recording, but it sounds like a cassete, played on a cheap cassete player...

then
I find the lords of the rings soundrtrack sound horrible...
and I find alot of modern pop recordings sound terrible too...

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Originally Posted by bobsticks

Marlie Matlin

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ROTFLMAO

Get real, here's bad;

I bought a Jerry Lee Lewis which ended up being live but it sounds like the album was recorded in a bar with the recording microphone in the john.

A Staples Singers collection of Gospel recordings that sound like it was recorded from the back pue with a shoebox tape recorder.

A Glenn Miller collection that ended up being mono and sounded like it covered frequencies from 1k to maybe 8k. terrible, terrible

I no longer own these they were too bad, a waste, and I'd think damaging to the artists. Why would anyone intentionally put out a product that started out being garbage? All of these made me feel ripped off.

You want to talk about notorious bad Rock recordings, anyone have anything by Motorhead?

I thought Lord of the Rings DVD's sounded pretty good. Movies with any good sound effects are far and few between.

When I was in middle school my best friend and I decided to record a heavy metal song. We wrote a classic sword and sorcery epic called "Burn the Bootlip". The first track was a hotrodded Kramer Pacer with a Bartolinni pickup through a Randall amp and a Peavy bass played through the headphone input of a Realistic receiver. We recorded it onto a boombox through the built-in mic.
Next we played that back on another boombox while simultaneously recording a keyboard part with a cheap Korg, the vocals and the drum bits. Lacking any part of a proper kit save the sticks we implemented percussion via pillows and tupperware.


The results sounded a lot like "...And Justice For All".

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Originally Posted by Mr Peabody

I thought Lord of the Rings DVD's sounded pretty good. Movies with any good sound effects are far and few between.

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the dvd sounds good, but we also have it on CD, and there it does suck...

I agree, most recordings in the past decade or so have been compressed too much, which lowers the standard. By that token, most of the names mentioned so far haven't been that bad considering - just not good like they should be.

The two that really stand out in my mind because they sound so much worse than the majority are:
Vapor Trails - ugh, what else can be said, I can't think of another album with good music on it that was butchered worse, except for

...And Justice For All - I don't know what the hell Metallica did, but this recording just plain sounds flat and sucky and makes Vapor Trails sound good...too bad too, I think it's their best album musically.

Bad recordings suck, but i have noticed they don't sound noticeably as bad, in fact can sound as good or better on lesser audio systems like radios, cars etc. Sort of levels the playing field I guess. Could it be these are recorded poorly intentionally because the majority of listeners would experience better results that way?

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Originally Posted by kexodusc

Bad recordings suck, but i have noticed they can actually don't sound noticeably as bad, in fact can sound as good or better on really lesser audio systems like radios, cars etc. Sort of levels the playing field I guess. Could it be these are recorded poorly intentionally because the majority of listeners would experience better results that way?

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that indeed is true, when I play a pc game (like GTA san andreas or so) and I listen to the radio stations in there, it actually sounds good on my PC system. but when I listen to the same thing on my advents, it sucks. same for the bad recorded cd's.

and the winner of them all:

The white stripes - Icky thump.
sounds like blown speakers, maxed out recording (even more), then compressed to a 32kbps mp3 and then burned on a cd.

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Originally Posted by basite

the dvd sounds good, but we also have it on CD, and there it does suck...

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My wife loves the movies and I bought her the soundtracks to all 3 films and WOW...they are poor poor poor. It's so flat and undimensional. I thought it was just me.

Top (or bottom) Five....
1. Rush - Vapor Trails
2. Red Hot Chili Peppers - Californication
3. Audioslave - Audioslave
4. Uncle Kracker - No Stranger to Shame
5. Nevermore - Enemies of Reality