May 232008
My first choice is a no-brainer!
What song would you probably love if you didn’t hate the production so much that you can only tolerate hearing the actual recording of the song?
My first choice is a no-brainer!
What song would you probably love if you didn’t hate the production so much that you can only tolerate hearing the actual recording of the song?
Baby Jane by Rod Stewart
Along the same lines – “Everybody Wants to Rule The World” by Tears for Fears.
Weird Al’s parody of I Want It That Way makes me think that could have been a song I really liked, as for now, I will continue to sing it as Ebay if I find the melody in my head.
Shirley Jones and the Dap Kings proved that “What Have You Done for Me Lately?” is a great song when they gave it an arrangement that was so old school that one would think theirs was the original.
I think too many Hüsker Dü songs to mention individually qualify, particularly after Metal Circus.
Which just goes to prove you shouldn’t pre-judge people. Who’da thought Shirley had it in her back in those Partridge Family days?!?!
woopsy daisy. ha!!!
that’s *Sharon* Jones….
Check out this version of Leonard Cohen’s song, “Tonight Will Be Fine”, sung by Teddy Thompson:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8W89j6GjPDI
The original is almost bizarre in comparison – the tempo, the arrangement, the Jew’s Harp. It’s almost like a joke. IMHO.
A lot of songs by Queen lose their charm with all the bombast. It ruins a lot of their songs I think.
Man, I can’t even think of any, I’m so distracted by that Prince video. I would suggest, Mr. Mod, that the production of that song isn’t what bothers you at all, but the instruments their playing. That era of synth junk bugs me more that the synthesized snare sound. I know some here feel strongly about the Strange Little Androgynous One, but he bugs the bejesus out of me, and always has. I own several of his records, and like them up to a point, but every now and again I have an experience like this one. How many times have I seen that vid? And yet it annoys me anew every 20th time or so. How dare you annoy me while I’m watching quasi-lesbians get it on while playing chopsticks? You mincing, prancing little shitsu! When it *was* 1999, even *I* partied better than that.
But now that I’ve vented, I’ll say again that I think the production is all of a piece with the song’s Weltanschauung. (Ooh, I used that word! Whee!)
Also, a song I always liked that I surely wouldn’t have without its arrangement and production: Rock On by David Essex.
General, I just got done drafting and posting a piece on the role that Steve Gadd’s drum part in “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover” plays in the success of that otherwise slight song, and now I read your thoughts on the maybe the most valuable production job ever! How right you are about “Rock On”!
Thanks, too, for whipping Prince as only he deserves to be whipped.