Poll: TMBG - The Else - Side 1

I pretty much can't stand this album, but Climbing the Walls really is an awesome song.

Gah! Blashemy!  The Else is my favorite album since John Henry.

never heard of it...

Ah, I wasn't aware you were a fan of bad overproduction.

I'm not such an audiophile to notice things like overproduction (although the album, especially I'm Impressed, takes part in that loudness trend that has killed audio dynamics in recent albums from all sources).

However, I think the songs are really strong, and I won't hesitate to listen to the album from start to finish.  I just really enjoy it.

what I mean by overproduced is that there's too much emphasis on effects and instrumentation and less on the actual raw sound. the thing I love about John Henry is that it's a great live-recorded album. very little overdubbing in those days, and the vocals sounded real and unaltered. even Factory Showroom sounded pretty good, despite having quite a few weak tracks.

one of the biggest problems I've had with their more recent albums is that the vocals sound flat and bland, which I think is as much a function of bad production as just the way they're singing. the most horrendous example of this is the Mink Car version of She Thinks She's Edith Head. but I think they did that a lot on The Else, too.

and yes, the album definitely still has a loudness (more a normalisation) problem either way. of course, I also think most of the songs are crap, and the ones that aren't are mostly ruined by the production.

Agreed on the loudness (normalization is unrelated - every CD is normalized), but I really like the production on this overall. Everything they've done since after Factory Showroom has sounded terrible - way too dry and lifeless. This is a new direction, but a great one in my book. It's the production style I strive for in my own music: rich and complex, but not lacking in clarity and definition. And I really like most of the songs on this CD, too.

every CD is normalised, but not every CD is normalised well. it's possible (even easy) to screw it up, mostly by compressing the signal too much to try to squeeze out more volume. (A better example than anything TMBG have done would be BNL's 'Maroon', which is definitely among the louder CDs I've heard, and least dynamically interesting.)

"normalized".... you're from the US, remember? ;D

I was pleasantly surprised with this album.