Almost anything the RS have released during the last 20 years sounds the way Bob Clearmountain decides it should sound. Except for some re-issue re-mixed by Marcussen, all the rest - From The Vaults included - is Bob Clearmountain. He's considered a genius - and probably is - but sometimes he treats the group's music with a too personal touch. That said, he's also the man who's made LA 75 a great listening experience.
That said, I believe that the 'problem' is Mick Jagger who always wants up-to-date sound, instead of staying loyal to the true sound of the RS. IMO, Luca

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Cooltoplady
He produced Blue And Lonesome. So I guess some people here hate that too.

for me; tho i really enjoy the tracks they chose for singles, the B&L sound is more than reminiscent of what I appreciated about Lem's lead post.
(all of that post).

Don Was - the same terrible sound as Chuck / Matt are supporting.
What to expect!!

At least everything Don "hit the wall" Was has produced with the stones they finally agreed to...so either they must be dumb or lazy in case you follow lem's and others analysis...

I don’t want to put too much emphasis on the loudness wars because that’s only one problem with Don Fegansons’s producing the Stones.
The “blame Mick” crowd is always gonna jump in this sort of conversation but this time they’re partially right albeit for reasons different from the usual “he just wants hits,he wants a modern sound,he doesn’t like the Stones classic sound.”etc..
Mick worked as hard as anyone else but he had just put out a fantastic album of his own and Wandering Spirit had used up his lyrics.
Don Was has a central goofiness about him,he first came on the scene with a novelty hit”walking the dinosaur” from the album”what up dog?”.
He didn’t understand how they worked a groove into a song and he didn’t understand when Mick was struggling with the words.

Sharks will cry is too easy,fans have made fun of it for years.but F your sweet ass sounds desperate to be outrageous,suck on the jugular is a terrible title and the creepiness of New Faces is hard to ignore.
The early versions had a beautiful mid60s Stones sound that could’ve been a modern Lady Jane or As tears go by.
If you’re a little goofy you let Mick write about some dudes skin and hair but then if you’re the walking the dinosaur guy New Faces probably sounds like Paint it Black.
Notice the difference from Wandering Spirit? You’re the producer,you need the brains and balls to say “Mick,really?”

How many artists in their 30s, 40s, 50s, etc. already have some form of hearing loss or tinnitus from playing onstage? They may not even be the best judges of how good their own music sounds.

There's gotta be some contractual issues that prevent producers and musicians from intervening in bogus mastering and mixing. Either that, or they just don't care enough to say anything.

The guys in Rush cared enough to have their 2002 album, Vapor Trails, remixed and re-released in 2013:

[en.wikipedia.org]

At the risk of being provocative, I wonder which of these two things is true?

The songs on VL, BtB, and ABB are, in general, sub-par, and evidence of a band in creative decline, or

The songs on VL, BtB, and ABB are quite likely outstanding and two of the greatest songwriters in the history of rock'n'roll allowed themselves to be hoodwinked by a crap producer into releasing inferior versions of them.

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LazarusSmith
At the risk of being provocative, I wonder which of these two things is true?

The songs on VL, BtB, and ABB are, in general, sub-par, and evidence of a band in creative decline, or

The songs on VL, BtB, and ABB are quite likely outstanding and two of the greatest songwriters in the history of rock'n'roll allowed themselves to be hoodwinked by a crap producer into releasing inferior versions of them.

Two of the greatest songwriters in the history of rock n' roll assume everything they make is going to sound good. It doesn't. It might, if the expectations weren't so high. We expect the bass to be outstanding, and it's not. It's been pedestrian but for a couple cuts on Voodoo. They shouldn't put out a Keith cut unless he can actually pull off the vocals. The lyrics are still good, but the rest is meh. Except for Blue and Lonesome. (Is that the last flare from the lighthouse?)

I regard Voodoo Lounge as one of the their great albums, among Exile, Let it bleed, Some Girls, and all those, so i don't get why most people say it's sub-par and someone somehow ruined it.

I remember meeting a guy at school in 1999, whom would later become my friend, and saying something like "that new album from the Stones, Voodoo Lounge" and him arguing that it was an old one.

I still think about it as a "new" album and mades me proud them achieving such greatness at that stage of their lives, which feels to me like it belongs into the present era.
I know it's been released 25 years ago,

I love that album, as well as Blue and Lonesome, but I don't like BtB that much and ABB it's almost unlistenable to me, since it is a Mick solo album.

In any case, Don Was plaqys his role as Clifford, Denson, Chaplin and Leavell, as people who may have a different idea of what's rock and roll.

And if anything is wrong with the Stones, it's Chuck Leavell to be blamed, since he's the worst thing ever happened to the Stones.

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EdubertoPalitroke
I regard Voodoo Lounge as one of the their great albums, among Exile, Let it bleed, Some Girls, and all those, so i don't get why most people say it's sub-par and someone somehow ruined it.

I remember meeting a guy at school in 1999, whom would later become my friend, and saying something like "that new album from the Stones, Voodoo Lounge" and him arguing that it was an old one.

I still think about it as a "new" album and mades me proud them achieving such greatness at that stage of their lives, which feels to me like it belongs into the present era.
I know it's been released 25 years ago,

I love that album, as well as Blue and Lonesome, but I don't like BtB that much and ABB it's almost unlistenable to me, since it is a Mick solo album.

In any case, Don Was plaqys his role as Clifford, Denson, Chaplin and Leavell, as people who may have a different idea of what's rock and roll.

And if anything is wrong with the Stones, it's Chuck Leavell to be blamed, since he's the worst thing ever happened to the Stones.

Voodoo Lounge has a handful of great Stones songs, You Got Me Rocking, Love Is Strong, The Worst, and I Go Wild isn't bad. (As mentioned before New Faces is good, but it's Lady Jane all over again. The problem is that there are ten other songs on the album! And they suck. I can't even tell you how Blinded By Rainbows goes because I listened to it once and my ears refuse to listen to it again. There's little original on the album. It's like they were starting all over again, stunned by Bill's departure, and they thought they'd better be 'classic' Stones or no one would care.

Bill was right. He was interviewed just a short few years after he left. He said they'd achieved everything there was to achieve. (He was right). He said they were just repeating themselves now. (They have). And that he didn't want to play Honky Tonk Women on stage for another 20 years. (It would have been 30!)

Amazingly, I think almost opposite: to me, Voodoo Lounge does not sound like classic Stones. It sounds unique, like Exile or Beggar's Banquet.

I miss Wyman so much... but him not being there led to some nice new flow, just for that album, I think. Then he should had been brought back.

well gosh, people. you don't have to set him on fire.
Just ask him to leave. Pay him to leave. Pay people to make him leave.
Just give them half of the money, though; till we're sure he's gone.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2019-04-20 08:24 by hopkins.

Totally concur with the Don Was criticisms. In fact when I heard he was on board to do Voodoo Lounge, I was thinking "oh no"! He produced one of Dylan's worst Under the Red Sky...

I have had the VL discussion here and other places before. I hate Voodoo Lounge. "Fake Stones" - supported by the yes man. At the time the Don Was comments about it being Exile-like etc were just tripe.

The big problem of the Stones since Steel Wheels...it is generally formula. Too much open G or open G that is not used beyond the couple of simple chordings that Keith has recycled for fifty years. Too many by numbers tracks that have little or no emotional resonance. At least Dirty Work had emotions behind it. The late Stones albums are just mainly dead to me. Even the Keith numbers - usually the redeeming feature became more insipid as time went on.

Even though I pretty much have everything of the Stones, 1989 on...there are few redeeming features of their catalogue.Even their live shows sounded like cabaret thanks to Chuck and Matt Clifford (as someone alluded to earlier). At least in 81 it was rough and seemingly about to fall apart but Keith could still manage a reasonable solo if necessary. From 1994 on it was just the same boring licks and bum notes.

Don Was is a hack. One of those producers who are bloody lucky. At least Dylan never went back.

Oh yeah - and I am not a fussy audiophile type - but Blue and Lonesome CD was unlistenable. It was so compressed it gave me a headache listening to it and I have never listened to the whole thing to this day. While mastering is not the producers job - Was has some responsibility for how brickwalled that mess is.

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hopkins
well gosh, people. you don't have to set him on fire.
Just ask him to leave. Pay him to leave. Pay people to make him leave.
Just give them half of the money, though; till we're sure he's gone.

I'm getting the feeling you're a Don Wasn't.

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funkydrummer
Oh yeah - and I am not a fussy audiophile type - but Blue and Lonesome CD was unlistenable. It was so compressed it gave me a headache listening to it and I have never listened to the whole thing to this day. While mastering is not the producers job - Was has some responsibility for how brickwalled that mess is.

Ah, different ears. Blue and Lonesome is the ONLY Stones post-Wyman that I play often.

If Don Was wasn’t listed as the producer people wouldn’t know the difference

I'm not sure if Don Was is really to be blamed for the brickwalled sound of, say, ABB. I would rather guess that was Mick's choice, trying to sound modern.

I'm rather wondering what Keith's role is (if there is any) when it comes to an album's overall sound. Considering the way CH sounds, with great dynamics, warm, in parts even sounding like a home recording (in the positive sense) I find it difficult to imagine that Keith loved the way ABB sounds. But what do I know.

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funkydrummer
Totally concur with the Don Was criticisms. He produced one of Dylan's worst Under the Red Sky...

Well to be fair Dylan sabotaged his own album with passion. He forced Was to record as many as 5 or 6 songs in one single day. With that frantic pace there's not much room for "producing".
And Dylan also sabotaged the trick Was used successfully on Iggy Pop's "Brick By Brick" : bringing a bunch of famous guests.
Read Slash's comments about working with Dylan on "Under the Red Sky"...

misguided blame. Don Was isn't the issue. Jagger and Richards are.
B & L was produced by Was and that was great.

and btw...look no further than this new offering from Madonna..love it/hate it/whatever...at the end of the day it all lies with the authors..already at 6m + views...a worldwide hit...

[www.youtube.com]

I love Voodoo Lounge. Moon Is Up is one of my favorite Stones songs. Mean Disposition is criminally underrated. I admit that I haven't heard enough of the outtakes from that era to have an opinion about if they are better than the cuts that made the album.

Complaining about Don Was producing the Stones at this point is like complaining about George Martin producing the Beatles - a little bit too late. Mick simply doesn't want producers who are intent on creating Exile Part 2, no matter how much Stones fans long for them to return to that type of sound.

“Complaining about Don Was producing the Stones at this point is like complaining about George Martin producing the Beatles - a little bit too late. Mick simply doesn't want producers who are intent on creating Exile Part 2, no matter how much Stones fans long for them to return to that type of sound.”

Don Was and George Martin are not comparable. Not.
Don Was had nothing to do w/ Exile. Jimmy Miller.
Don Was ‘Blue & Lonesome’ credit? For what, pushing the recording button on machine?

thanks for making my point.

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Rip This
thanks for making my point.

You’re welcome. Happy Sunday.

I think we can all agree that we’d love to see the Stones work with another producer, but we’re split into two groups:

1. People who accept that the Stones aren’t going to make a change and have enjoyed some of the music that has been created during the Don Was era. This group also seems to acknowledge that Mick and Keith have a large part in the production of the album, so it’s not entirely his fault. And with this next album more than likely being their last, why would they make a change at producer?

2. People who have a strong dislike of Don Was and the albums that have come out during his era. They place the blame primarily with him as they see it’s a producers responsibility to manage the production of the album. They want a producer who’s going to come in and kick Mick and Keith’s @ss creatively.

So I guess my question to the people in the second group...if you hate the albums that has been put out under Don Was, have you continued to buy Stones albums produced by him? If you have, then why do you continue to when you know you’re more than likely going to be disappointed?

- Cam

My theory is that Keith was an assistant 'producer' in the glory years of 1967-1972, and he was very creative and hard-working in getting a certain guitar sound and mixing multiple guitar tracks to create the basic tracks. Charlie and Bill were very much in tune with this. It all started with the basic track.
As technology great more complex, I think he lost the ability to do those things in the studio. I also believe that when he was drinking heavily he didn't have the same ability to stay in the studio forever. (When you read in 'Life' about the partying that was done during his solo albums, it's a miracle anything was put on tape.)
By the time Don Was appeared on the scene, Keith was old and settled into just being part of the machine. Show up, do an album and I get to tour. Don't rock the boat or Mick will pull the plug on me being Keith Richards.
It's well known Mick just wants to turn up at the studio in the afternoon and be done with the song by midnight, so no help there. He can sound off to Don Was in the morning if he wants and Was will take it.

If you listen to ‘Crosseyed Heart’,
Keith Richards has lost nothing of his magical ear/ timing from God on placement.

Sincere compliment Happy Easter Mr. Richards.

Don Was VS. Chuck Leavell in a no holds barred wrestling match....my money is on Don.

_____________________________________________________________
Rip this joint, gonna save your soul, round and round and round we go......

Great observation. From my personal experience The Stones filled analog tape with every possible idea or permutation of an idea. I can only imagine what they would do in today's recording world of unlimited tracking. Still Blue and Lonesome was the exact opposite of all that so there's hope. You guys know they are geniuses and are never far from a miracle



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2019-04-22 01:38 by DoomandGloom.