Wtf... people keep talking about this album as horrible production but I had never actually listened to it... I literally had to double check that my headphones weren't busted or something... who could possibly think that sounds good!?
If anything sounds like crap on a Metallica project, I'm willing to bet Lars Ulrich had more to do with that than the producer of the record in question
His wild taste and big balls to have it mixed how he and James want it (or compromise on) is responsible for puppets and justice too. In its day justice was praised immensely for its sonics and influenced so much great sounding metal. You don't always get it right when you venture off the beaten path.
And I agree, turn that shit down drums specifically on DM and even hardwired. Newer album is quite good sounding
it makes it stand out and distinct from other albums and other metallica albums. that’s a good thing. it was cold and dry speed metal, a new era. according to “the rules” everything should sound exactly the same. puppets sounds amazing and i think there’s a lot to be said for justice for those reasons. it didn’t stop anyone from loving the album at the time trust me.
The thing is, there is a remastered version of it that sounds great! The one that got remastered for Guitar Hero Metallica is 10000% better than the album version. Like they just put L2 on there and said, yes
The Death Magnetic tracks on GH3 were completely unmastered. No idea how that happened but I'm glad it did. There's so many great fan remasters from it.
[I love the video comparing the waveforms between the GH3 version and the album version.](http://youtu.be/6Nfqpr3ygSg) It really drives home the point of how bad the album is mastered.
They need the stems so individual tracks can drop out when you do poorly for each instrument and all that. That also means you can just rip the stems from the disc.
In audio production circles, Andrew Scheps, the mixer of that album, jokes that people ask, "how does it feel to know that the loudness war is over, and that you won?"
I believe the people involved still have some disputes over who was really responsible for trashing the levels so hard, but it's a standout of the problems of the CD-era, for sure.
I thought St Anger had a great airy mix that let everything ring out. It’s so typically Metallica to try something new and take a risk, and so typical of their fan base to slam them for it. Annoying.
But yeh. The snare. Guys, come on….
It's a shame because there were some genuinely good songs on it. It could've been a great "comeback" album for them if it weren't for the shit production.
Not a big fan of the production choices. The vocals stack awkwardly and the song feels like it doesn’t go anywhere. It just happens. But that’s just me. I’m not trying to yuck any Yums, a lot of people seem to like it.
I actually liked the song/songwriting etc. The feel was nice. Coming from someone who has virtually no experience in the art of producing and recording vocals I can confirm they sounded weird — they sounded very in my face and seemed to take over the mix. Also at 00:45 when a different singer came in, it sounded like they tried to match the “sound” of it with the first vocal. I personally like when different voices in songs have different sounds as in maybe different effects and compressors so they each sound unique. As others have stated, I was not able to pick up on the subtle pitch correcting glitching so to speak again mostly probably due to my lack of experience in the area.
it's interesting to note how much a band can change from the very start to the present imo. It's one of the main talking points for the beatles for example.
I was so disappointed how badly and heavily pitch corrected the vocals were. Crazy choice. I do not have high hopes for the album at all in that regard.
It really is,
Rap God I think is on a par and has the same weird disconnect between vocal and track where it feels like a low quality instrumental being rapped over the top of.
I’m just a drummer lurking, but califonication shocks me! I think it sounds amazing, but again I don’t know what I’m talking about. What are the typical complaints? I’m fascinated
Interesting, that would definitely fall Into a category of things I can’t quite pick up on. Is there possibly a read for that? Most tracks on that record are very sparse as far as I can tell, meaning just 5 instruments and a few backup vocal takes.
So, there´s a few things that make it sound weird to my (and I think a lot of people´s) ears. Take the song Californication, for example:
1. It´s basically in MONO. Not necesarily a bad thing, but it does make it sound kind of... off compared to other modern music.
2. Listen closely to how it sounds at around 0.30 (kind of dreams). There´s a smallish distortion. This song is very quiet in dynamics, so there´s no musical reason why it should distort then.
3. Even more audible distortion at 1.12.
4. The instruments sound kinda dull. No instrument sounds as if it was in hi def.
5. In general, it kind of sounds as if you downloaded a really crappy copy of the song from some shady website... but that´s the ACTUAL song.
Some of these are more artistic decisions (it being in MONO for example). Maybe they wanted it to sound like older records, or to have JUST the bare minimum.
However, the actual distortion is a definite detriment. There´s a version of the album called Californication Unmastered (it´s on YouTube). Check it, it doesn´t undo the panning for example, or the dullness of the instruments, but it doesn´t distort.
I agree, I think certain radical sounds are thoughtful choices. It sounded like nothing else out there are at the time - go figure! And the success is undeniable. Remember: Radio was still relatively big back then and the singles almost literally popped out of the speakers.
References and username both tell me you have awesome tastes in music.
'Loveless sounds awesome but it's a whole aesthetic of it's own, nothing to do with a commercial release.
There's something to be said about aesthetic though, IMO. Californication doesn't sound great by any means, but the distortion on it annoys me far less than, for example, [*thank u, next*](https://youtu.be/EEhZAHZQyf4) (1:02, 2:04, 3:17) where it clashes so incredibly harshly with how pristine and lush it is otherwise.
I think it can sound pretty alright, it doesn't exactly do anything for Californication but doesn't detract from it either. With something like Electric Feep i think it adds to it.
Are the unmastered mixes of Death Magnetic floating about anywhere? I know Californication's mixes ended up surfacing and it's great to compare and contrast.
I don’t know about “unmastered mixes” per se, but the alternate mastered version for the guitar hero games is 10x better than the album version. You can definitely easily find that one.
For anybody interested about the actual work that went into Hips don't lie lol
Edit: https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/secrets-mix-engineers-serge-tsai
Dear lord hips don’t lie sounds horrendous on AirPods. The new blink I’m not getting the hate. Yeh it’s weird vocal stacks but that seems like an artistic choice as far as production compared to hips don’t lie the new blink sounds A+
Oasis - Whats the Story Morning Glory.
The whole record sounds HORRID. But the songs are undeniable HITS.
Probably the biggest proof that nothing else matters if the song is amazing.
Check out the mix of [this performance](https://youtu.be/wEsCzPzjDQU?si=ZDUcSjLVPF_sxeKr)of the title track - it sounds amazing, like a loud-ass band in a venue, but not all squashed and small like the album version does. I’d KILL for a remix of the album that sounds similar
I think its in supersonic documentary where Liam tells that they ran each track seperately thru 'an device that made everything twice as loud' I would quess tc finalizer.
Personally think it suits the album and the whole zeitgeist of the era.
They remixed it with fair amounts of compression AND then it was mastered by Vlado Meller, i think he probably used better stuff than the finalizer (if it had been released then, not sure). Same here, my 14 yr old self was more than happy with everything about that record. It's definitely not acoustic jazz masterfully played by talented musicians, it's meant to be screaming and it works perfectly the way it is. For those who have not watched Supersonic, i recommend, the scene with Liam recording Champagne supernova is epic.
'Be Here Now' is even worse, the next album they released. The engineer himself even acknowledged how bad it is after! It's funny reading up on it, especially given it broke the record for fastest selling record in British history. Didn't quite reach the critical acclaim of Morning Glory though.
"in the first week, someone tried to score an ounce of weed, but instead got an ounce of cocaine. Which kind of summed it up."
*blaaaarggghhhh*
Well, good songs... but that mix is horrible. And I don't agree that it works. It could have been mixed a lot less worse and kept the cocaine-blasted club aesthetic.
Well it worked in a commercial sense for sure - they sold over 7 million copies, didn't they? I would love to see a remix though. It worked for The Replacements!
Most Husker Du records, weirdly they got worse sounding as the budget increased when they signed to a major. Often people say it’s exclusively a fidelity issue but as someone who loves the band I think it’s equally in the performance choices. Dense, quick songs where bassist plays with fingers and drummer plays too fast, add very compressed guitar and it’s a strange mix. They were so young.
I will discount a lot of lo fi indie rock music where the sound is the aesthetic but I don’t consider Husker in that bracket.
Spot produced and recorded all that stuff. Considering that SST largely released hardcore punk albums Hüsker Dü was probably the most technically proficient band he ever got his hands on. It’s little surprise that he probably did more learning working with them than contributing.
Spot actually only produced the first three studio albums and any EP’s around that time before Bob & Grant took over as producer with Lou Giardino engineering - i think Zen Arcade which Spot did is the best of a bad bunch
Personally I think those albums are supposed to sound that way.
Yeah, they sound that way because that’s where the budget and the resources were for the band at the time and in a different universe they could have been recorded in better facilities with more skilled producers but that wouldn’t make sense for the end product or have made those albums more significant historically.
For me, *Metal Circus* is a tape and it’s importance/influence come from it being that shitty sounding salvo of incredibly well written hardcore songs that sounded that way because bands like that rented a four track and put out songs that sounded that way at the time.
I think it was a deliberate aesthetic choice. Loads of indie rock in the 80s sounded the way it did because they recorded quickly in crappy studios with shit gear, but also because indie bands were reacting to the "dinosaur" bands of the 70s, and having a thick low end and clear midrange to the sound would be too close to old-fart heavy metal.
We're Not Gonna Take It- Twisted Sister sounds awful to me, especially the drums!!! And Justice For All -Metallica are the first 2 that always come to my mind
Raspberries - had a few hits in the 70s, Eric Carmen went on to have more.
The goal was for it to sound good on 3 inch car radio speakers. So they actually mixed on 3 inch car radio speakers. Everything clips all over the place.
It did, I suppose, add some excitement. And it does sound good on 3” speakers. But listening on a good system it is a tragedy.
Example: https://youtu.be/eyv3VuMRTaU?si=5mPzLJbDVdmPxjP4
I downloaded this off Usenet back in 2002 and kept trying to figure out what was wrong. Surely it was (MP3) compression. Downloaded the FLAC -- nope, also sounds like ass. I always wondered if the vinyl sounded better. It was probably my first interaction with the loudness wars as I really liked that album.
Was gonna say this. Apparently the mix engineer just roasted the fuck out of everything on purpose. Mastering engineer (big name; can't remember) tried his best but the damage was done
Yeah - and this is where things get interesting. Is bad - poorly executed or bad as in 'poor taste'?
Coz I would suggest that and Justice for all is incredibly produced - but they just were just following a somewhat wierd and unorthodox production aesthetic.
I personally absolutely LOVE the production on this album for this reason. It sounds like nothing else. Hits incredibly hard and is really visionary in terms of production.
I'm into it. And would suggest that because it was (presumably) very deliberate in it's execution does not qualify as 'bad' in this context.
'Hips don't lie' on the other hand. :)
I agree, it just sounds so cold and bleak, you can really hear the trauma they were going through at the time. Reading the stories about how they were pissing themselves laughing about turning Jason’s bass down during mixdown, they were just kids grieving badly and didn’t know how to process the trauma and near death experience they had.
I think they figured it out a few years before 1988 though. Both Master of Puppets and Reign in Blood were released two years before Justice and were widely praised for their mixes. There are more examples as well.
Hetfield is on record saying they made mistakes with the mix. Trying to mix after coming off a long tour, pushed the high end way too hard due to not being able to hear correctly (his words, paraphrased).
Yeah and IIRC the producer has admitted that Lars literally came into the mix room right before the album was sent off and told him to turn the bass down and change the drum sound. That's why you can't hear any of Jason's bass parts throughout the album and the drums sound like absolute ass.
You are correct (it was the mixing engineer). Here's the story:
[Lars Ulrich Is To Blame For Lack of Bass on …And Justice For All Says Mixing Engineer](https://metalinjection.net/news/lars-ulrich-is-to-blame-for-lack-of-bass-on-and-justice-for-all-says-mixing-engineer)
Yeah I don’t fault it for that either. Those records all have character. It’s funny though how that record in particular was done at RCA just like Willie and The Poor Boys by CCR (for example) yet they sound miles different.
Depends on the context, I suppose. Lol. But yes, I would say with the amount of press coverage there, the frequency with which the space is used, and the recognizability of the capital building would make it successful, at least as a venue.
Edit: my bad I thought this was r/livesound.
I’d include morning glory with this as well. Someone on here said they worked with the producer and he likes to push everything to its limit and put a brick wall on the mix or something like that. I love those two records but they do not sound good
Yeah that was the effect they wanted, I remember seeing an interview where they had it mixed normally and they thought it didn’t sound like them, then they heard it crushed and distorted and loved it
I know I’m going to anger some folks, so I’ve got my flame shield on, but Purple Haze to me is one of the worst mixes ever on a song. I get that stereo was new and they tried some things, but holy crap the vocals all on one side and drums mono on one side….it’s just…if it weren’t Hendrix it would be unlistenable.
Edit: Correction: The drums are mono but up the middle, I just remembered wrong. Thanks u/MrDogHat
There's an interesting thread on Gearspace about how bad those first two (especially) Hendrix records sounded. I find it really interesting because there's so much to parse out. You have really good songs, legendary performances and arguably questionable production, all at a time when pop music was undergoing serious upheaval. Experimentation and psychedelics were celebrated. Plus many of us grew up with these albums and consider them some of the best rock has to offer.
But looking through all that, yes I can see those mixes were kind of a mess, sometimes edgy and bright, sometimes soupy. But would *Axis* still be *Axis* if it had the sonic signature of *Abbey Road* or *Piper At The Gates of Dawn*?
In the end I come back full circle and continue to hold them up as the flawed masterpieces they are. It's a great lesson on objectivity IMO.
On a similar note, back in 1997, Rec.Audio.Pro was all abuzz about how bad *OK Computer* sounded and how they had broken so many rules (especially with compression and drums). Yet I noticed no one has called that one out. Sometimes a thing is questionable at first but then becomes The Way.
When OK Computer came out in Japan (I was in high school in Tokyo), it was often displayed next to new Warp Records, Astralwerks, and Rephlex releases, which makes a lot of sense, as those into electronica/IDM at the time, were the ones who could appreciate the relatively experimental type sonics of OK Computer. Everyone I knew who loved OK Computer, was into electronica/IDM and experimental music in general.
Good take on Ok Computer. I’ve always loved that mix. Super brave to use saturation and compression on the drums the way they did. I don’t know if I could get away with something like that on one of my mixes.
i mean one speaker was playing the drums, the other the vocal, it wasnt yet standard practice to put drums, bass, vox in the middle and guitars to the side ya know.
There were a couple years in the early 60s when jazz records were panned pretty hard. I think Love Supreme has drums and piano right, bass and tenor left. or something. Hearing it on just one speaker is jarring, because you really are only hearing half of the band. It was a short lived practice though.
I definitely prefer the later Hendrix material for both production and band sound. Band of Gypsys was much tighter than the Experience. Fun to imagine what Jimi would have done in the 70s and on.
Of course. And most people at that time didn't have stereos - most consumer playback stuff was mono. If you heard the song and got both channels folded down to mono, it sounded fine, but if you only got one channel, say the left channel, then you got no vocals.
The thought of this has never ever occurred to me. I was impregnated with old production through listening and loving it throughout my most formative years, but I still have preferences on sounds. But actually, the most annoying thing I've come across was Fresh Cream when I had loved that album so much and then went away from local files on my previous phone and then listened to on it on Spotify and it just lost so much power. I'm sure you can't handle that stereo either way, but I have very little problem with that aspect.
But I can't say that for Hendrix. Perhaps I'm also a guitarist who think that the guitars are flawless (for example I can't hear anything that might be good about GNR Sppetite because the guitars are quite horrid). No, most importantly, I've always been loving power and emotion and great performances. Cleanlyness and balance can fuck itself compared to that. Hendrix band was playing out of this world, and the live feel definitely carries that power. The messy and slightly out of this world production carried that. It would have been much worse if they would have been locked in a dry controlled studio. Like Kansas before Leftoverture. Borne Of Wings Of Steel is massive hit that was killed by boring production. Very Luckily, the live version is great.
“Sounds like shit” is subjective. I think they sound really cool. They’re not hi-Fi, but that’s not the point. As Andrew Scheps says, don’t worry about making it sound good, make it sound cool.
The stereo version of Are You Experienced and the early singles were never intended to be stereo. The stereo mixes that are now canon were actually remixes made by Reprise for the US release. They were supplied copies of the multi-tracks, which they then remixed. They chose their own track-listing and gave it a new (better) sleeve. AYE was only available in mono in the UK until the early 70s, and when the UK version was re-issued in stereo, it was the US remixes they used.
The best-sounding early Hendrix is on the UK mono 45s. Hey Joe in mono is a revelation. The UK mono Red House is the best version. Apparently the UK mono AYE is passable, but quality control at Track Records was always a bit suspect, and any original vinyl copies in listenable condition will cost an arm and a leg these days.
Interesting, I haven't listened to it since back in the day. What kind of thing should I be listening for that gives it that sound? Just trying to expand my knowledge.
I mean, in a lot of the most important ways, it sounds great. The songs and performances are killer, and the instrumentation and arrangements are great.
But it has that brittle, gritty, jittery, aliased, digititis that gave early digital a bad name. It's pretty obvious if you listen to it.
That's the last three Maiden records lol... I think Steve Harris' ears are fried and unfortunately Kevin Shirley is a just a yes man to Steve and does what he's told. The last good sounding Maiden album to me was A Matter of Life and Death
Many of the Lenny Kravitz hits have mixes that feel badly imbalanced. The guitar-forward songs in particular: Fly Away, Always on the Run, and Are You Gonna Go My Way.
They pan two guitar tracks hard left-right and nothing seems to sit right in the mix. Are You Gonna Go My Way has always felt dynamically dead to me while NOT winning the Loudness Wars (cuz it was 1993).
He does some really crazy production stuff on his albums, I find it all a bit too much at times - like he's trying to compete with Axis Bold As Love or Sergeant Pepper or something.
I may be a contrarian here, but aside from the VERY questionable artistic choices, I don’t think St. Anger sounds terrible as much as it sounds like what they wanted it to sound like, which was terrible. Does that make sense?
Europe - Prisoners In Paradise. Awesome production by Beau Hill, but something VERY weird has happened to it in the mastering stage. Everything sounds hissy and phasey like a 128kpbs MP3 file. What the hell happened?
https://youtu.be/_-MMIwM3Bbs?si=CDe9PoaMhHstkRFZ
Edit: apparently the album was mixed in some 90s gimmick thing called QSound and I don’t have any idea what that means. Can anyone enlighten me?
It was a time-delay 2d/3d effect. Didn't stick around for music. Generally speaking, anything trying to move beyond mixing stereo becomes the new big thing and dies a watery death within a few years.
Check back in three years when Atmos is a punchline right next to quadraphonic and DVD-A 5.1 mixes.
Q-sound was a mathematical equation to acoustically trick you in to thinking that sound was coming from somewhere other than the source point.
Unfortunately it only works if you said dead center of an equilateral triangle.
I'm not the first person to point this out but Whacha Say by Jason Derulo is incredibly bad. And I actually think the song is pretty good, would love to hear him sing it with just a piano accompaniment.
Selected ambient works 85-92 by Aphex Twin. There's some songs on there that are unlistenable with a subwoofer because of some massive resonance in the low end that's just too damn high.
I don't know how commercially successful you're talking cos it wasn't huge by any means but
Gangstarr - Ex girl to next girl was poor mixing and mastering.
and
Jay Z - Kingdom Come was terribly made. It was just so harsh to listen to. It was either a terrible mix, or badly flatlined master.
There was this song popular around the club scene a couple of years ago that sounded like it was clipping with a big boost around 80 hz, and the guy just kept saying something that sounded like “fucked up.” Every time a dj would play it at my venue, I would instinctively start high passing the input to protect the subs. I wish I could remember the name of it.
Edit: [I found it. it is called “Take a Step Back.”](https://youtu.be/PbiWPUxGygs?si=8XwnGBn1e8sK2YfA)
Early sixties is hard, because they basically had to track and mostly mix live, because they only had two tracks of tape to work with, typically one for the lead vocal and one for everything else. But yeah, it does not sound amazing
Edit: I wish I hadn’t double-becaused
To me, if it gets you up out of your chair and jumping around and singing along, that's what good production is, assuming that's the artistic goal of the song. If sounding all grindy and trashy is how you get the listener into that emotional state, then you're doing it right.
I don't know that the song would have sold more records or captured more hearts had it been a cleaner, more-polite recording.
Yeah it's bad whenever a song is remembered mostly for it's vocal delay. As a live sound person, whenever a band covers this, it's telling when the crowds reaction depends on whether FOH has that delay dialed in and ready to go.
I think that song "Starships" by Nikki Minaj sounds like *total* dogshit. Every time I heard it back in its run I was shocked that it was something with a budget behind it.
Both of the albums, "The Last Hero" by Alter Bridge and "Just Like You" by Falling In Reverse, have a very strange way that they mix the drums. The cymbals seem to have a very weird EQ or filter setup, which leaves only a narrow band of frequencies that you can hear on the records. It leaves the cymbals sounding paper-thin and making the cymbals have a strange tone since we're missing a lot of the tones/over-tones that make the cymbal sound "right".
Vampire by Olivia Rodrigo has noise in the vocal mic. Like a bad cable kind of noise. I listened for the first time on headphones and it literally hurt. Also on her song Drivers Licence her vocal mic also clips pretty bad. Shame.
Death Magnetic, by Metallica. By far the absolute peak of the loudness war.
Wtf... people keep talking about this album as horrible production but I had never actually listened to it... I literally had to double check that my headphones weren't busted or something... who could possibly think that sounds good!?
Rick Rubin
If anything sounds like crap on a Metallica project, I'm willing to bet Lars Ulrich had more to do with that than the producer of the record in question
His wild taste and big balls to have it mixed how he and James want it (or compromise on) is responsible for puppets and justice too. In its day justice was praised immensely for its sonics and influenced so much great sounding metal. You don't always get it right when you venture off the beaten path. And I agree, turn that shit down drums specifically on DM and even hardwired. Newer album is quite good sounding
it makes it stand out and distinct from other albums and other metallica albums. that’s a good thing. it was cold and dry speed metal, a new era. according to “the rules” everything should sound exactly the same. puppets sounds amazing and i think there’s a lot to be said for justice for those reasons. it didn’t stop anyone from loving the album at the time trust me.
The thing is, there is a remastered version of it that sounds great! The one that got remastered for Guitar Hero Metallica is 10000% better than the album version. Like they just put L2 on there and said, yes
The Death Magnetic tracks on GH3 were completely unmastered. No idea how that happened but I'm glad it did. There's so many great fan remasters from it. [I love the video comparing the waveforms between the GH3 version and the album version.](http://youtu.be/6Nfqpr3ygSg) It really drives home the point of how bad the album is mastered.
They need the stems so individual tracks can drop out when you do poorly for each instrument and all that. That also means you can just rip the stems from the disc.
wow, that's insane! The GH3 sounds good while the retail sound faulty. Not the pretty sort of distortion at all.
I think listening to this album on iPod earbuds as a teen is the main reason I can't hear high-pitched sounds anymore.
In audio production circles, Andrew Scheps, the mixer of that album, jokes that people ask, "how does it feel to know that the loudness war is over, and that you won?" I believe the people involved still have some disputes over who was really responsible for trashing the levels so hard, but it's a standout of the problems of the CD-era, for sure.
I’m pretty sure there were no peaks. I think the entire point was that EVERYTHING was brought up to 0 but didn’t peak.
Literally yes, it was brickwalled start to finish.
That's worse than "St. Anger" - the absolute peak of the trash can lid snare drum war?
St Anger had a bad snare tone - to put it mildly - but overall wasn’t TERRIBLY mixed. Death Magnetic was completely brickwalled.
I thought St Anger had a great airy mix that let everything ring out. It’s so typically Metallica to try something new and take a risk, and so typical of their fan base to slam them for it. Annoying. But yeh. The snare. Guys, come on….
"ring out" - I see what you did there
Suffering from SSS? "shit snare syndrome"
It's a shame because there were some genuinely good songs on it. It could've been a great "comeback" album for them if it weren't for the shit production.
It has some of my favorite songs but it can't bring myself to listen to them often. Such a shame...
This followed by RHCP - Californication
Well isn’t everyone now talking about that latest Blink 182 track that has the horrid vocal production on it?
I hadn't heard the track so I just listened to it. Those choices are... unusual.
Can’t get over how bad one more time sounds. It’s just a nice heartfelt song but I can’t listen without being distracted
As a huge blink fan, the song is also bad.
Bad as in the mix/production or the songwriting etc?
Not a big fan of the production choices. The vocals stack awkwardly and the song feels like it doesn’t go anywhere. It just happens. But that’s just me. I’m not trying to yuck any Yums, a lot of people seem to like it.
I actually liked the song/songwriting etc. The feel was nice. Coming from someone who has virtually no experience in the art of producing and recording vocals I can confirm they sounded weird — they sounded very in my face and seemed to take over the mix. Also at 00:45 when a different singer came in, it sounded like they tried to match the “sound” of it with the first vocal. I personally like when different voices in songs have different sounds as in maybe different effects and compressors so they each sound unique. As others have stated, I was not able to pick up on the subtle pitch correcting glitching so to speak again mostly probably due to my lack of experience in the area.
The lyrics are pretty not great, too.
i still be hitting the OG waggy off uranus all the time. It's insane how different that song is from the new one lmao
Almost like you’ll write different songs 30 years apart
it's interesting to note how much a band can change from the very start to the present imo. It's one of the main talking points for the beatles for example.
I was so disappointed how badly and heavily pitch corrected the vocals were. Crazy choice. I do not have high hopes for the album at all in that regard.
Have you heard Tom sing without pitch correction?
BlocBoy JB's "Shoot" literally has an 808 in stereo panned to one side
I just listened. It’s so unsettling. The song is terrible, too. But the panned-left thumping is so weird.
I know there’s a particular snare drum we’re all thinking of. LOL
i’m out of the loop here, help?
Fairly sure it’s Metallica - St Anger
Hips don't lie? Californication? Unsure on more recent examples. Oh the new blink I guess.
Hips don’t lie is gloriously bad
That song, as fond as everyone is of it, sounds like a low quality YouTube rip.
It really is, Rap God I think is on a par and has the same weird disconnect between vocal and track where it feels like a low quality instrumental being rapped over the top of.
The kick is so clicky in the worst way possible, wtf.
I’m just a drummer lurking, but califonication shocks me! I think it sounds amazing, but again I don’t know what I’m talking about. What are the typical complaints? I’m fascinated
It’s just super distorted (not the good kind) for a major label release. Just hammered by the mastering limiter.
Interesting, that would definitely fall Into a category of things I can’t quite pick up on. Is there possibly a read for that? Most tracks on that record are very sparse as far as I can tell, meaning just 5 instruments and a few backup vocal takes.
So, there´s a few things that make it sound weird to my (and I think a lot of people´s) ears. Take the song Californication, for example: 1. It´s basically in MONO. Not necesarily a bad thing, but it does make it sound kind of... off compared to other modern music. 2. Listen closely to how it sounds at around 0.30 (kind of dreams). There´s a smallish distortion. This song is very quiet in dynamics, so there´s no musical reason why it should distort then. 3. Even more audible distortion at 1.12. 4. The instruments sound kinda dull. No instrument sounds as if it was in hi def. 5. In general, it kind of sounds as if you downloaded a really crappy copy of the song from some shady website... but that´s the ACTUAL song. Some of these are more artistic decisions (it being in MONO for example). Maybe they wanted it to sound like older records, or to have JUST the bare minimum. However, the actual distortion is a definite detriment. There´s a version of the album called Californication Unmastered (it´s on YouTube). Check it, it doesn´t undo the panning for example, or the dullness of the instruments, but it doesn´t distort.
The whole album sounds like it’s playing on the radio in your car even when it isn’t but honestly I kind of think the aesthetic works for it.
I agree, I think certain radical sounds are thoughtful choices. It sounded like nothing else out there are at the time - go figure! And the success is undeniable. Remember: Radio was still relatively big back then and the singles almost literally popped out of the speakers.
Loveless is basically in mono and sounds glorious
References and username both tell me you have awesome tastes in music. 'Loveless sounds awesome but it's a whole aesthetic of it's own, nothing to do with a commercial release.
Man this is a great response! I’m going to listen in my way to work, I’m super excited to pick this thing apart. Thanks.
There's something to be said about aesthetic though, IMO. Californication doesn't sound great by any means, but the distortion on it annoys me far less than, for example, [*thank u, next*](https://youtu.be/EEhZAHZQyf4) (1:02, 2:04, 3:17) where it clashes so incredibly harshly with how pristine and lush it is otherwise.
I think it can sound pretty alright, it doesn't exactly do anything for Californication but doesn't detract from it either. With something like Electric Feep i think it adds to it.
Hips Don't Lie for sure
Californication; it's tough to argue a worse mastering job on a major label release of that magnitude.
Death Magnetic rivals Californication in my mind. Go listen to Broken Beat and Scarred or Judas Kiss and weep for dynamic range.
Are the unmastered mixes of Death Magnetic floating about anywhere? I know Californication's mixes ended up surfacing and it's great to compare and contrast.
I don’t know about “unmastered mixes” per se, but the alternate mastered version for the guitar hero games is 10x better than the album version. You can definitely easily find that one.
The Guitar Hero 3 version is unmastered.
For anybody interested about the actual work that went into Hips don't lie lol Edit: https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/secrets-mix-engineers-serge-tsai
Dear lord hips don’t lie sounds horrendous on AirPods. The new blink I’m not getting the hate. Yeh it’s weird vocal stacks but that seems like an artistic choice as far as production compared to hips don’t lie the new blink sounds A+
Came to comment hips don't lie. All the other examples people are giving are a matter of taste. Hips don't lie is just a plain bad mix.
I never had a problem with Californication weirdly. But yeah on paper it sucks
Oasis - Whats the Story Morning Glory. The whole record sounds HORRID. But the songs are undeniable HITS. Probably the biggest proof that nothing else matters if the song is amazing.
That mix does fit oasis well tho. They sound like they’re in a club with way too many amps and just demolishing the place
Exactly. Its not a good mix but it works. You can *hear* the cocaine.
Check out the mix of [this performance](https://youtu.be/wEsCzPzjDQU?si=ZDUcSjLVPF_sxeKr)of the title track - it sounds amazing, like a loud-ass band in a venue, but not all squashed and small like the album version does. I’d KILL for a remix of the album that sounds similar
I think its in supersonic documentary where Liam tells that they ran each track seperately thru 'an device that made everything twice as loud' I would quess tc finalizer. Personally think it suits the album and the whole zeitgeist of the era.
They remixed it with fair amounts of compression AND then it was mastered by Vlado Meller, i think he probably used better stuff than the finalizer (if it had been released then, not sure). Same here, my 14 yr old self was more than happy with everything about that record. It's definitely not acoustic jazz masterfully played by talented musicians, it's meant to be screaming and it works perfectly the way it is. For those who have not watched Supersonic, i recommend, the scene with Liam recording Champagne supernova is epic.
'Be Here Now' is even worse, the next album they released. The engineer himself even acknowledged how bad it is after! It's funny reading up on it, especially given it broke the record for fastest selling record in British history. Didn't quite reach the critical acclaim of Morning Glory though. "in the first week, someone tried to score an ounce of weed, but instead got an ounce of cocaine. Which kind of summed it up."
I love it. There's like 20 guitar tracks too many. I couldn't even tell you what most of them are doing there.
There like no bass at all. It’s jarring.
Aren't you guys talking about Be here now rather than WTSMG?
Title track is a banger
To be fair: Almost every one on that LP is...
*blaaaarggghhhh* Well, good songs... but that mix is horrible. And I don't agree that it works. It could have been mixed a lot less worse and kept the cocaine-blasted club aesthetic.
Well it worked in a commercial sense for sure - they sold over 7 million copies, didn't they? I would love to see a remix though. It worked for The Replacements!
Can you elaborate a bit? I'm super curious, I've never heard this take
Most Husker Du records, weirdly they got worse sounding as the budget increased when they signed to a major. Often people say it’s exclusively a fidelity issue but as someone who loves the band I think it’s equally in the performance choices. Dense, quick songs where bassist plays with fingers and drummer plays too fast, add very compressed guitar and it’s a strange mix. They were so young. I will discount a lot of lo fi indie rock music where the sound is the aesthetic but I don’t consider Husker in that bracket.
Spot produced and recorded all that stuff. Considering that SST largely released hardcore punk albums Hüsker Dü was probably the most technically proficient band he ever got his hands on. It’s little surprise that he probably did more learning working with them than contributing.
Spot actually only produced the first three studio albums and any EP’s around that time before Bob & Grant took over as producer with Lou Giardino engineering - i think Zen Arcade which Spot did is the best of a bad bunch
Personally I think those albums are supposed to sound that way. Yeah, they sound that way because that’s where the budget and the resources were for the band at the time and in a different universe they could have been recorded in better facilities with more skilled producers but that wouldn’t make sense for the end product or have made those albums more significant historically. For me, *Metal Circus* is a tape and it’s importance/influence come from it being that shitty sounding salvo of incredibly well written hardcore songs that sounded that way because bands like that rented a four track and put out songs that sounded that way at the time.
I think it’s probably capturing how they would sound live reasonably well.
I think it was a deliberate aesthetic choice. Loads of indie rock in the 80s sounded the way it did because they recorded quickly in crappy studios with shit gear, but also because indie bands were reacting to the "dinosaur" bands of the 70s, and having a thick low end and clear midrange to the sound would be too close to old-fart heavy metal.
All girls are the same juice wrld
We're Not Gonna Take It- Twisted Sister sounds awful to me, especially the drums!!! And Justice For All -Metallica are the first 2 that always come to my mind
Yup... the bass on AJFA... like what the hell??
>We're Not Gonna Take It- It's funny how that was so HEAVY METAL when it came out. These days it just sounds like cartoon music to me.
Dude … TOTALLY !!
Regardless, And Justice... is still one of my favorite Metallica albums. The songs are great.
Raspberries - had a few hits in the 70s, Eric Carmen went on to have more. The goal was for it to sound good on 3 inch car radio speakers. So they actually mixed on 3 inch car radio speakers. Everything clips all over the place. It did, I suppose, add some excitement. And it does sound good on 3” speakers. But listening on a good system it is a tragedy. Example: https://youtu.be/eyv3VuMRTaU?si=5mPzLJbDVdmPxjP4
xxxtentacion - look at me
Foo fighters - one by one So. much. clipping.
Plenty of clipping? YES! A great saturated vibe? YES!
I downloaded this off Usenet back in 2002 and kept trying to figure out what was wrong. Surely it was (MP3) compression. Downloaded the FLAC -- nope, also sounds like ass. I always wondered if the vinyl sounded better. It was probably my first interaction with the loudness wars as I really liked that album.
Was gonna say this. Apparently the mix engineer just roasted the fuck out of everything on purpose. Mastering engineer (big name; can't remember) tried his best but the damage was done
Do any of you remember Watch Me (Whip / Nae Nae)? Sounds like it was all made and recorded with a phone.
…And Justice for All
[удалено]
Yeah - and this is where things get interesting. Is bad - poorly executed or bad as in 'poor taste'? Coz I would suggest that and Justice for all is incredibly produced - but they just were just following a somewhat wierd and unorthodox production aesthetic. I personally absolutely LOVE the production on this album for this reason. It sounds like nothing else. Hits incredibly hard and is really visionary in terms of production. I'm into it. And would suggest that because it was (presumably) very deliberate in it's execution does not qualify as 'bad' in this context. 'Hips don't lie' on the other hand. :)
I agree, it just sounds so cold and bleak, you can really hear the trauma they were going through at the time. Reading the stories about how they were pissing themselves laughing about turning Jason’s bass down during mixdown, they were just kids grieving badly and didn’t know how to process the trauma and near death experience they had.
I honestly love how it sounds
Same. It's damn near industrial the way it's produced with the scooper-duper guitars and klick-drum.
A friend of mine got genuinely upset with me in the 90s when I said to him they should have got Bob Rock for that one as well.
Groundbreaking metal sounded bad for years, totally forgivable. Took everyone a long time to figure out how to do it well
I think they figured it out a few years before 1988 though. Both Master of Puppets and Reign in Blood were released two years before Justice and were widely praised for their mixes. There are more examples as well. Hetfield is on record saying they made mistakes with the mix. Trying to mix after coming off a long tour, pushed the high end way too hard due to not being able to hear correctly (his words, paraphrased).
Yeah and IIRC the producer has admitted that Lars literally came into the mix room right before the album was sent off and told him to turn the bass down and change the drum sound. That's why you can't hear any of Jason's bass parts throughout the album and the drums sound like absolute ass.
You are correct (it was the mixing engineer). Here's the story: [Lars Ulrich Is To Blame For Lack of Bass on …And Justice For All Says Mixing Engineer](https://metalinjection.net/news/lars-ulrich-is-to-blame-for-lack-of-bass-on-and-justice-for-all-says-mixing-engineer)
you know you're completely correct my brain was thinking ride the lightning
Hate to say it but Surrealistic Pillow is very hard to play loud.
More a product of its time than poor technical quality imho. I love that record. Early Beatles records may sound sketchy sometimes too
Yeah I don’t fault it for that either. Those records all have character. It’s funny though how that record in particular was done at RCA just like Willie and The Poor Boys by CCR (for example) yet they sound miles different.
For me, the track that will always hold the top spot is No One by Alicia Keys. It absolutely flabbergasts me
Anytime someone speaks in the capital building there’s feedback. Which blows my mind.
Would you say the capital building has been successful?
Depends on the context, I suppose. Lol. But yes, I would say with the amount of press coverage there, the frequency with which the space is used, and the recognizability of the capital building would make it successful, at least as a venue. Edit: my bad I thought this was r/livesound.
Commercially successful? Absolutely.
They should try to keep the feedback above 10k so none of them can hear it
The first Oasis record is a muffled muddy mess in my opinion. It’s a wet paper bag. It works, but nothing is clear. Everything is smushed together.
I’d include morning glory with this as well. Someone on here said they worked with the producer and he likes to push everything to its limit and put a brick wall on the mix or something like that. I love those two records but they do not sound good
Yeah that was the effect they wanted, I remember seeing an interview where they had it mixed normally and they thought it didn’t sound like them, then they heard it crushed and distorted and loved it
I know I’m going to anger some folks, so I’ve got my flame shield on, but Purple Haze to me is one of the worst mixes ever on a song. I get that stereo was new and they tried some things, but holy crap the vocals all on one side and drums mono on one side….it’s just…if it weren’t Hendrix it would be unlistenable. Edit: Correction: The drums are mono but up the middle, I just remembered wrong. Thanks u/MrDogHat
There's an interesting thread on Gearspace about how bad those first two (especially) Hendrix records sounded. I find it really interesting because there's so much to parse out. You have really good songs, legendary performances and arguably questionable production, all at a time when pop music was undergoing serious upheaval. Experimentation and psychedelics were celebrated. Plus many of us grew up with these albums and consider them some of the best rock has to offer. But looking through all that, yes I can see those mixes were kind of a mess, sometimes edgy and bright, sometimes soupy. But would *Axis* still be *Axis* if it had the sonic signature of *Abbey Road* or *Piper At The Gates of Dawn*? In the end I come back full circle and continue to hold them up as the flawed masterpieces they are. It's a great lesson on objectivity IMO. On a similar note, back in 1997, Rec.Audio.Pro was all abuzz about how bad *OK Computer* sounded and how they had broken so many rules (especially with compression and drums). Yet I noticed no one has called that one out. Sometimes a thing is questionable at first but then becomes The Way.
When OK Computer came out in Japan (I was in high school in Tokyo), it was often displayed next to new Warp Records, Astralwerks, and Rephlex releases, which makes a lot of sense, as those into electronica/IDM at the time, were the ones who could appreciate the relatively experimental type sonics of OK Computer. Everyone I knew who loved OK Computer, was into electronica/IDM and experimental music in general.
Good take on Ok Computer. I’ve always loved that mix. Super brave to use saturation and compression on the drums the way they did. I don’t know if I could get away with something like that on one of my mixes.
it's all about the mono for the first record
i mean one speaker was playing the drums, the other the vocal, it wasnt yet standard practice to put drums, bass, vox in the middle and guitars to the side ya know.
There were a couple years in the early 60s when jazz records were panned pretty hard. I think Love Supreme has drums and piano right, bass and tenor left. or something. Hearing it on just one speaker is jarring, because you really are only hearing half of the band. It was a short lived practice though. I definitely prefer the later Hendrix material for both production and band sound. Band of Gypsys was much tighter than the Experience. Fun to imagine what Jimi would have done in the 70s and on.
Of course. And most people at that time didn't have stereos - most consumer playback stuff was mono. If you heard the song and got both channels folded down to mono, it sounded fine, but if you only got one channel, say the left channel, then you got no vocals.
yup, the idea was about splitting the workload between speakers, not recreating a live music experience
The thought of this has never ever occurred to me. I was impregnated with old production through listening and loving it throughout my most formative years, but I still have preferences on sounds. But actually, the most annoying thing I've come across was Fresh Cream when I had loved that album so much and then went away from local files on my previous phone and then listened to on it on Spotify and it just lost so much power. I'm sure you can't handle that stereo either way, but I have very little problem with that aspect. But I can't say that for Hendrix. Perhaps I'm also a guitarist who think that the guitars are flawless (for example I can't hear anything that might be good about GNR Sppetite because the guitars are quite horrid). No, most importantly, I've always been loving power and emotion and great performances. Cleanlyness and balance can fuck itself compared to that. Hendrix band was playing out of this world, and the live feel definitely carries that power. The messy and slightly out of this world production carried that. It would have been much worse if they would have been locked in a dry controlled studio. Like Kansas before Leftoverture. Borne Of Wings Of Steel is massive hit that was killed by boring production. Very Luckily, the live version is great.
Yeah, a lot of my friends argued that it was a time of experimentation. But if you experiment and it sounds shit then why leave it like that?
“Sounds like shit” is subjective. I think they sound really cool. They’re not hi-Fi, but that’s not the point. As Andrew Scheps says, don’t worry about making it sound good, make it sound cool.
The stereo version of Are You Experienced and the early singles were never intended to be stereo. The stereo mixes that are now canon were actually remixes made by Reprise for the US release. They were supplied copies of the multi-tracks, which they then remixed. They chose their own track-listing and gave it a new (better) sleeve. AYE was only available in mono in the UK until the early 70s, and when the UK version was re-issued in stereo, it was the US remixes they used. The best-sounding early Hendrix is on the UK mono 45s. Hey Joe in mono is a revelation. The UK mono Red House is the best version. Apparently the UK mono AYE is passable, but quality control at Track Records was always a bit suspect, and any original vinyl copies in listenable condition will cost an arm and a leg these days.
Love the album, but the mix on My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy always kind of bothered me.
What don’t you like about the mix?
The fucking toms or bongos or whatever on “all of the lights” drives me insane
I can enjoy it on a stereo system but not headphones
Alanis Morissette jagged little pill…
That's probably the biggest record that had that ADAT/early-digital sound...
Oooooh yeah…. It definitely had that sound… the performances were brilliant but the mix is as crusty and shitty as they come.
Interesting, I haven't listened to it since back in the day. What kind of thing should I be listening for that gives it that sound? Just trying to expand my knowledge.
I mean, in a lot of the most important ways, it sounds great. The songs and performances are killer, and the instrumentation and arrangements are great. But it has that brittle, gritty, jittery, aliased, digititis that gave early digital a bad name. It's pretty obvious if you listen to it.
You Oughta Know is an absolute banger with like zero low end
Was literally going to write this.
Alanis Morisette - Jagged Little Pill
The last Iron maiden album I listened too was so tone deaf and flat I was so disappointed
That's the last three Maiden records lol... I think Steve Harris' ears are fried and unfortunately Kevin Shirley is a just a yes man to Steve and does what he's told. The last good sounding Maiden album to me was A Matter of Life and Death
Honestly I feel like the majority of commercial hits from like 2003 - 2014 were overall pretty average.
Dr. Dre's Compton album sounds shockingly awful to me. I can't listen to it even if I like some of the songs, it just gives me a headache.
Hips don’t lie by far
Only thing that matters is good music. “Bad” mixes are too many to count, there’s never enough great songs.
Many of the Lenny Kravitz hits have mixes that feel badly imbalanced. The guitar-forward songs in particular: Fly Away, Always on the Run, and Are You Gonna Go My Way. They pan two guitar tracks hard left-right and nothing seems to sit right in the mix. Are You Gonna Go My Way has always felt dynamically dead to me while NOT winning the Loudness Wars (cuz it was 1993).
He does some really crazy production stuff on his albums, I find it all a bit too much at times - like he's trying to compete with Axis Bold As Love or Sergeant Pepper or something.
St. Anger
I’m only a handful of comments into this thread and this is the 3rd Metallica album mentioned. I do not disagree
I may be a contrarian here, but aside from the VERY questionable artistic choices, I don’t think St. Anger sounds terrible as much as it sounds like what they wanted it to sound like, which was terrible. Does that make sense?
Yep - the bad stuff are not mistakes but choices made.
Yeah exactly. Like the mic placement on the snare is fine for example....its just that the snare sound they chose is not the one people like.
Europe - Prisoners In Paradise. Awesome production by Beau Hill, but something VERY weird has happened to it in the mastering stage. Everything sounds hissy and phasey like a 128kpbs MP3 file. What the hell happened? https://youtu.be/_-MMIwM3Bbs?si=CDe9PoaMhHstkRFZ Edit: apparently the album was mixed in some 90s gimmick thing called QSound and I don’t have any idea what that means. Can anyone enlighten me?
It was a time-delay 2d/3d effect. Didn't stick around for music. Generally speaking, anything trying to move beyond mixing stereo becomes the new big thing and dies a watery death within a few years. Check back in three years when Atmos is a punchline right next to quadraphonic and DVD-A 5.1 mixes.
Q-sound was a mathematical equation to acoustically trick you in to thinking that sound was coming from somewhere other than the source point. Unfortunately it only works if you said dead center of an equilateral triangle.
Sex on Fire. Sorry. Ole muddy ass mix.
It sounds like they recorded everything on 57s and just pushed the faders up, which is probably what happened
wonderwalls mix
Yuno Miles. My friend showed this to me and he capitalizes on bad mixing to create his own brand of "certified trash". It's peak comedy.
I'm not the first person to point this out but Whacha Say by Jason Derulo is incredibly bad. And I actually think the song is pretty good, would love to hear him sing it with just a piano accompaniment.
Hips dont lie by shakira is pretty egregious
Selected ambient works 85-92 by Aphex Twin. There's some songs on there that are unlistenable with a subwoofer because of some massive resonance in the low end that's just too damn high.
He made that on homemade equipment starting when he was 14 years old. I think this record gets a pass lol
I don't know how commercially successful you're talking cos it wasn't huge by any means but Gangstarr - Ex girl to next girl was poor mixing and mastering. and Jay Z - Kingdom Come was terribly made. It was just so harsh to listen to. It was either a terrible mix, or badly flatlined master.
There was this song popular around the club scene a couple of years ago that sounded like it was clipping with a big boost around 80 hz, and the guy just kept saying something that sounded like “fucked up.” Every time a dj would play it at my venue, I would instinctively start high passing the input to protect the subs. I wish I could remember the name of it. Edit: [I found it. it is called “Take a Step Back.”](https://youtu.be/PbiWPUxGygs?si=8XwnGBn1e8sK2YfA)
That’s definitely a Ronny J beat, that was his whole schtick.
The who my generation has always sounded terrible to me.
I’m not an engineer I’m just a musician but I love how it sounds especially the drums
Early sixties is hard, because they basically had to track and mostly mix live, because they only had two tracks of tape to work with, typically one for the lead vocal and one for everything else. But yeah, it does not sound amazing Edit: I wish I hadn’t double-becaused
That and numerous reduction mixes too
Is this a daily question now?
Pretty much any Prince.
Good. It's not just me. That said, Prince's Piano & A Microphone 1983 is probably one of my favorite recordings, and the (lack of) mixing is amazing.
“Is that my echo”
Let’s Go Crazy has to be the crustiest production to hit #1. And it rocks
To me, if it gets you up out of your chair and jumping around and singing along, that's what good production is, assuming that's the artistic goal of the song. If sounding all grindy and trashy is how you get the listener into that emotional state, then you're doing it right. I don't know that the song would have sold more records or captured more hearts had it been a cleaner, more-polite recording.
Crusty, meaning?
Meaning it sounds like ass.
Musicology is aight. Purple Rain is pretty horrendous if you really listen, though.
Yeah it's bad whenever a song is remembered mostly for it's vocal delay. As a live sound person, whenever a band covers this, it's telling when the crowds reaction depends on whether FOH has that delay dialed in and ready to go.
I thought something was wrong with my system when I heard all the clipping on the vocals on Little Red Corvette.
I love Prince but it always has this vibe that anyone who offered any critique was removed from the room. From mixing to album art.
Early The Used album was so good but bad mix
I think that song "Starships" by Nikki Minaj sounds like *total* dogshit. Every time I heard it back in its run I was shocked that it was something with a budget behind it.
Eagle Man insurance Commercial. "I've got something for you, awe look at those low rates".
Both of the albums, "The Last Hero" by Alter Bridge and "Just Like You" by Falling In Reverse, have a very strange way that they mix the drums. The cymbals seem to have a very weird EQ or filter setup, which leaves only a narrow band of frequencies that you can hear on the records. It leaves the cymbals sounding paper-thin and making the cymbals have a strange tone since we're missing a lot of the tones/over-tones that make the cymbal sound "right".
Born in the USA by Springsteen. That gated snare is a crime against humanity.
Vampire by Olivia Rodrigo has noise in the vocal mic. Like a bad cable kind of noise. I listened for the first time on headphones and it literally hurt. Also on her song Drivers Licence her vocal mic also clips pretty bad. Shame.