by maz » 16th Jan 08, 14:07
Interesting post this one - my take on it is - my rating in brackets:
Don't be happy.... - good songs (7) - weak production (5.5), largely down to the drum sound and ultimately down to budgets - overall 6.5
Earth vs...... - great songs (9.5) - far better production, lovely guitar tones (8 )
overall 9
P.h.u.q - Fantastic songs (10) - the best wildhearts/ginger related production (9.5), largely down to the bombastic drum sound!!! Obviously Battersby is a different kind of drummer than stidi and the sort of songs on the album suited him.
overall 10
Fishing for luckies (original) another great batch of songs (9) and as they were sessions from p.h.u.q the production is also high quality (9) - I'm just thinking, because these were never eventually chosen for p.h.u.q I feel they were not mastered in the same sessions as the actual album - does anyone know or have an opinion on this? I just feel that with inglorious, sky babies ect the production is around 95% up to the standard of p.h.u.q, i just feel the snare isn't as loud.
Fishing for luckies (sick of drugs, different kind of love, red light/green light, moodswings ect....) a cool sound, particularly interesting rhythm guitars - listen to red/light for example and during the first bridge the guitars sound semi-acoustic, basically it seems the tone that was used was purposely different, obviously jeff streatfields inclusion was a factor - i thought this line-up by the way was the best, his backing vocals on this and live are excellent!!! Generally these songs are produced really well
overall 9
Landmines and Pantomimes - mixed bag of tunes (6.5) and mixed production (7.5 ) - obviously these were b-sides/rarities ect and were never full mixes, however songs like abhoria, velvet presley, Ride the wave (great drumming in that one) sounded really decent
Overall 7
Endless Nameless - what is there to say about this album, fantastically different, almost ahead of it's time - songs (9), production..........it's a tough one really, as it is so different, you can give it a 10 or maybe a 1!! I always thought songs like nurse maximum (one of my favourite wildhearts songs) and sounddog babylong had a fat-boy slim kind of vibe but obviously far heavier. I would say the production is perhaps slightly too tinny but apart from that I will give it an 8!!
Overall 8.5
Wildhearts must be destroyed - mixed bag of tunes (6) and I would actually question the production on this one.......(7)........vanilla radio works, but some of the tunes sound a bit too tinny, and the drum sound isn't too clever
Overall 6.5
Coupled with - reading a lot of the posts on this forum I have noted that this is quite a fan favourite, I feel i'm in the minority - the tunes are certainly a mixed bag (6) with OCD and stormy being well up there, but there are some poor tunes too.............production wise is even more controversial, to my ears it isn't good at all, the drum sound is poor (5) and it doesn't come anywhere near earth vs/p.h.u.q/fishing/endless or even landmines..........
overall 5.5
The Wildhearts - some quality songs (8 ), riffs are back, great choruses, but maybe 10 songs are not enough and I have heard unbroken which perhaps could have been the best song off the album.................i'm going to again be controversial with the production, I think it is good, but not brilliant (7.5)................the opening to sweetest song, hard way are brilliant........really good, really thumping.............however I feel throughout other songs the drums are far too low in the mix, the snare and bass drum
are barely audible in some of the tunes, and listen to destroy, fantastic song, but what about the brilliant fills that battersby the legend does, I feel they are too low in the mix. Now compare that with the sound at certain gigs end of last year (well I was at astoria) it's beefy it's loud............
overal (7.5)
I suppose what i'm saying in all this is that the most important sound for me are the drums (and i'm a guitarist lol!) in a wildhearts production certainly. The guitars come a close second, but what about vocals?? Well actually this is down to gingers voice changing, as all voices naturally do over time. I feel between p.h.u.q and endless his voice was absoulte quality, maybe it's down to the production but it sounds quality, I would say it still does, check out nurse maximum and urge from the live gig he sounded awesome, but I feel some of the tunes that have been written recently perhaps involve more shouty/almost spoken word kind of lyrics........rather than gentle or more melodic vocals - in lilly's garden, just in lust, nita nitro ect..... Endless Nameless was genious because it meant ginger's voice could be fx laden...........he almost sounds like old-skool liam gallacher in pi*ssjoy.
This brings me onto the solo stuff:
Silver ginger - tunes - cool, glam rock esque (7.5) production (6) - again is it just me or is the sound almost uncomprehendable - too tinny, too clustered, and songs like brain sugar which are excellent are too polished and tinny and anyway but maybe suffers from the vocal mix being back to front (check out the chorus and you will know what I mean, low voice higher than the high voice). I hear there are 2 versions of this album that are mixed differently?
overal 6.5
Valador..............tunes - very good I reckon (8 ) production (7) - certainly better than silver ginger, I always like the fact that ginger likes his guitars played loud!!!!!
overal 7.5
Yoni - tunes (8.5) really different kind of album this one - black windows sounds like rush/toto/bob marley combined - don't understand why people are having a go at the production (7.5) - it's purposely done this way (Like endless namelss) the drummer Denzil is really good, you can hear different parts of his kits and his technique oozing through the production, so it's quite dynamic - the guitar tones are different too - well you can tell he uses fender in some of the songs, there's that jangly sound to a lot of the songs. Ok I would say it could probably be a bit meaner, perhaps it's too tinny, songs like when she comes for example sound good as they are but people are probably sitting there thinking christ this could be brilliant if it was recorded wildhearts old-skool way.
overal (8 )
Well at the end of the day that is my lloooong assessement. Of course much of it is down to money, I would love to find out how much each album cost but to me p.h.u.q is ahead of the rest, unless they were in the studio for months recording endless (due to their erm past time activities at the time) maybe that cost quite a bit. It's of course also down to the recording techiques used, producer/mixing ect.......
Funnily enough I read somewhere that ginger wasn't happy with some of the guys involved with p.h.u.q (engineers?) and that it didn't sound how he would have wanted it to..................it's very interesting that everyone has such a different perspective, of course gingers would be the most correct and looking at my assessment I have probably over analysed it and been too critical, ginger and co are legends - but music and production to me is fascinating as a whole.
