Rock Town Hall's First Costello-centric Post of 2008
By Mr. Moderator on Jan 2, 2008
While listening to (what else) Elvis Costello and The Attractions' Get Happy!! on New Year's Eve I pinpointed exactly what made the greatest of that great string of the band's albums: Nick Lowe's production. And it's not so much what he did technically - the drum sound, the choice use of effects, the mic choice - but how he decided to capture the band for each album: that is, he captured the sound of the band. All the Lowe productions through Trust feature the full sound of both EC and The Attractions. The style of music is in no way similar, but scope is similar to what was captured on albums by The Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, and so many more great albums that I'd sound even more cliched and pathetic by listing them.
Elvis Costello & The Attractions w/Martin Belmont (w/o Steve Nieve), "Little Sister" (Live at the Hope & Anchor)
Imperial Bedroom has the same type of open scope, allowing for the listener to chooose to focus on any one of the instruments. Of course that album was produced by a Beatles' engineer. Compare the Lowe-produced Costello albums and Imperial Bedroom with all the rest: Costello's voice way out front and the rest of the musicians kind of canned in the background. On albums like Punch the Clock and Spike I might as well have been listening to Elvis Costello and The Association. The best of the non-Lowe-produced bunch, King of America, also sticks the musicians under glass. Quick: Name your favorite lick in a song from King of America.
Follow up:
The "canned hits" approach has worked wonders for the right material (eg, The Beach Boys, The Turtles, The Bee Gees, ELO). Then there's the "controlled organic" approach that Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, among others, have relied on. Not a hair is out of place on those albums, but you can follow each strand. These other approaches are not necessarily bad, but contrary to my past belief that Bruce Thomas was the "secret sauce" of those great records, I think Lowe's "democratic" production is what allowed the genius of The Attractions to show through. Also, for those of you who know me, if I've got my half-assed categories straight, it probably goes without saying that the democratic approach to production is my preferred approach.
P.S. - I initially meant to enable a broadening of this thread by asking what artists/productions these days allow for a "democratic" mix of players and lead singers. I sense this "canning" of backing tracks goes on as often as it has since the days of '60s AM radio. Much of that AAA radio stuff, for instance, suffers from ProTools perfection. (And some benefits from that approach, I'm sure.) Although I rarely fall in love with Wilco albums, they seem to operate under this democratic scope.
17 comments
Quick: Name your favorite lick in a song from King of America.
James Burton's brief solo in "Glitter Gulch" or maybe the intro to "Brilliant Mistake", though I don't know if you'd consider either of those to be "licks".
I think you may be attributing to Nick Lowe the quality of togetherness the band felt in those early days, a feeling which translated into their playing.
I don't know about that. I think virtually all the Elvis & the Attractions' albums have this barely suppressed tension that attests to a fair amount of discomfort, if not acrimony, between the band members.
Whether it's togetherness or tension or a combination thereof, my point is that Lowe's productions allow it to come to the fore. You hear the group dynamic. Without that you get too much Costello. I find "too much" of a key figure to be a problem with a lot of productions these days more than ever.
Interesting points all around. All I'll say is that I agree completely that EC should just get Nick Lowe to produce his next rock-oriented album. I loved When I Was Cruel and didn't mind its bass-heavy production (very appropriate for some of the songs), but I would've liked Brutal Youth and the more recent The Delivery Man more if they'd been produced by Nick Lowe instead of Mitchell Froom and umm, whoever produced The Delivery Man, respectively. I have more of a problem with Brutal Youth's production, esp. since Nick played bass on half of it!
Oh I looked it up and Dennnis Herring produced The Delivery Man. Looking at his extensive bio, he's produced tons of artists. I remembered that he produced that breakthrough Modest Mouse record, but also several Camper Van Beethoven albums to tie two threads together.
http://wm11.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=11:fnfoxqt5ldje~T4
It's not complete democracy as the instrument that's not high in the mix usually is the guitar. Lowe is just producing to the strengths of the entire group. This is especially true on a record like "Trust".
It's not complete democracy as the instrument that's not high in the mix usually is the guitar.
Are you looking for a democracy or some form of socialism? I don't mean the production makes instruments completely equal in the mix but that the instruments are set free, in their own place. They're not all bundled up in one neat package, like you get from an early Bee Gees recording, for example.
I sense I'm trying to get at larger points that few if any Townspeople will get. So it goes!
I sense I'm trying to get at larger points that few if any Townspeople will get. So it goes!So 2008 is going to be pretty much like 2007?
So 2008 is going to be pretty much like 2007?
Standing Ovation
Al, I'm not sure how clever my quote was, but yes.
Geo, thanks for at least getting what I'm getting at - and maybe more importantly, thanks for offering another point of view. What you say about Spike makes sense. I was thinking of "Veronica" more than some of the more unlistenable tracks. Actually, "Deep Dark Truthful Mirror" is a pretty good take on The Band before he throws in that line about eating the monkey's brain.
What you've said is somewhat more true of the Langer/Winstanley productions, but that was the part and parcel of getting that 80s hit production and, frankly, it might've worked if he wrote something as good as Madness' Our House on those albums. But the material on those was pretty lackluster.
I disagree with this, at least somewhat. On Punch the Clock, you're somewhat correct as most of the material on there is quite weak (esp. compared to his earlier albums) and two of the strongest cuts, "Shipbuilding" and "Pills and Soap", sound like they don't really belong and of course the former was previously recorded by Robert Wyatt.
With that said, the slick, Madness and Dexy's style production gives it a coherence that it might not otherwise have and covers up the weaker material. Still, I'd much rather listen to "TKO (Boxing Day)", even with its awful lyrics, or any other song on that album as opposed to hearing "Our House" ever again. Oh and incidentally it did have "Everyday I Write the Book", one of only 2 US Top 40 hits he ever had.
As for Goodbye Cruel World, though, this was clearly more of a problem with the material being mauled by the inappropriate production. The two cuts where Langer and Winstanley really produce it fully, "The Only Flame in Town," and "I Wanna Be Loved", at least IMO are weak retreads of stuff from the previous album (though I really like the stripped-down versions of the former and I sorta have a soft spot for the latter). As for the rest of it, "Home Truth," "Worthless Thing" and "Love Field" (which actually benefits somewhat from the production) are all great, as are "The Comedians" and "The Deportees Club" on the other side, but man oh man the production on songs like "Room with No Number" is almost painful to listen to. If it would've been produced like the dark, folk-influenced record he wanted to make, I say that it could've been a really good album. However, as it stands, on the Rykodisc version the "Extended Play" section is better than the album.
As for Spike, I say that songs like "Coal Train Robberies" would've been much better if it was The Attractions (or a similar small combo) instead of 12 musicians playing on the fucking thing. Still, I like the more experimental pieces on there quite a bit, though I don't really like the too-slick by a hair production.
Comment feed for this postComments are not allowed from anonymous visitors.
| « Mystery Date | Dr. Hi-Tech and His Robot Ramble » |
