Which album actually has the worst production?

Sth2112 said:
Dance of death - the albums have alot of great songs, lots of variation and I do enjoy it well. But the production is terrible, it’s rushed like hell. Bruce should have taken some more vocal takes. Janicks guitar creates lots of noise. Poor balance on the guitars. And that annoying one finger synths are all over.

Virtual XI - very flat sound, no punch in the guitars. The same can be said about The X factor, but it sure works better there due to the more sombre mood. Very poor mixing on VXI as well. You can hear they have not spent much budget on the studio/engineer.

Brave new world/the book of souls - again a poor Shirley job. Terrible rythm guitar sound on BNW, also not very balanced guitar recordings. Also miss some more punch on the bass as well. The vocals however is sound warm and good. TBOS sound muddy and raw. From drums to vocals. Not terrible, but could be alot cleaner.
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Bnw bad production? The album sounds powerfull and clean. When the title track of DOD was leaked in this forum in 2003 i remember thinking great song but this has to be the demo its imposible that clean guitars sound so bad with noises of the pick hitting the strings. And then was the album version. I dont have a special love about shirley producing the albums apart BNW.
But the worst is the first album,again noises before starting the song of the guitars and amps.
The best? Ssoass or powerslave

In a chapter apart Xfactor virtual xi and Fod. On fod the songs sound so different live than on studio
 
Regarding the whole "let's judge purely the album's production" argument...

Let's imagine a hypothetical situation: Virtual XI keeps its current production, but the album contains songs on the level of "The Number of the Beast," "Hallowed Be Thy Name," "Aces High," and "Powerslave."

Can anyone honestly say that such an album would still be regarded as a failed attempt? No way. The consensus would almost certainly be: "The production isn't great, but the songs are fantastic." In that scenario, the album would be held in very high regard. People would say: "Sure, these may not be the best-sounding versions of those songs, but the songwriting is so strong that it completely carries the record."

That's why I think songwriting quality and production quality are interconnected to a certain extent. Great songs can survive less-than-ideal production (Futureal, The Clansman). At the same time, excellent and fitting production can make average songs sound considerably more attractive. Not to the same degree that great songs overcome weak production, but it can definitely help.

With Virtual XI as it actually exists, I think the album's rather average production is amplified by what I consider mostly mediocre songwriting - and yes, that's obviously subjective. But I don't think many people would seriously argue that "Lightning Strikes Twice" or "When Two Worlds Collide" belong in the top tier of Iron Maiden's catalog.
 
The only album that sounded weird to me was TXF, especially the drums. That being said, would I enjoy TSOTC, Judgement of Heaven, Fortunes of War or The Edge of Darkness more than I do now, with a different production? I am not so sure. I came to accept that every album has its own unique sound, and after a while you (at least I) get used to it anyway. TBOS, DOD, and TFF do not sound alike production-wise, but my top 3 songs come from those 3 albums. In short, if Iron Maiden is OK with the production, I am OK as well.
 
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Eli said:
The only album that sounded weird to me was TXF, especially the drums.
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I think TXF has a really good drum sound, albeit with too much reverb and slightly too loud, but the guitars don't gel with the rest (partly due to being too low in volume, partly the overall guitar sound with too little distortion and too few rhytm tracks), which is why it falls flat.
 
Yax said:
I think TXF has a really good drum sound, albeit with too much reverb and slightly too loud, but the guitars don't gel with the rest (partly due to being too low in volume, partly the overall guitar sound with too little distortion and too few rhytm tracks), which is why it falls flat.
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In 1995 i said AGAIN the bass to high steve rules maiden without bruce and AGAIN AND AGAIN the intros and chorus. I can barely listen to the guitars and the guy i hate his singing lol

Now,if you want to create a dark atmospheric album he is a genius.
 
Original post is spot on, word for word.

Only other contender is VXI.

The first album is great for those songs, and if Steve hadn't spent 46 years moaning about it I don't think it would be being brought up. I also think NPFTD sounds fine for those songs. The other albums I'd nitpick about are FOTD and Dance of Death, FOTD for the similar but not quite as bad wimpy guitar sound as the X Factor, and DOD for one of the guitars in particular sounding like a jar of bees.

I don't think pristine production is some absolute requirement, in fact over production is just as bad, if not worse than bad production.
 
srfc said:
I don't think pristine production is some absolute requirement, in fact over production is just as bad, if not worse than bad production.
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And this is where they nailed it with A Matter Of Life And Death. Amazing sounding album IMO. That live-in-studio feel wasn't captured since on that level, despite them trying ever since (and is impossible due to their age now and lackluster arrangments of songs in recent years).
 
dickinson1978 said:
Bnw bad production? The album sounds powerfull and clean.
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The drums and vocals sound pretty good. But no I just don’t think the rythm guitars sound any good. The opening in The wicker man sounds like a pile of mud:help2:and it’s hard to separate who plays what other than the lead guitars. The low ends are just not any good.

Shirley is very hit and miss. He can be brilliant as well, like A matter of life and death. While I don’t like The final frontier much, the production there is way warmer and lush than other Shirley produced albums.
 
TXF for me big time.

Awful, thin, lame, pathetic guitar sound, you can barely make out the riffs. (Which are in fact superb.)

Their worst drum sound, the snare sounds like bashing a rotting wooden plank.

Toms are ridiculous, with barely a noticeable difference in sound between each.

Luckily for us, the incredible musicianship and ace songwriting still shines through. So I still enjoy the album tremendously, but each time I listen to it, I'm reminded of the abysmal production and engineering work done.

Turns out, the greatest songwriter who ever lived, the founder/leader of the greatest band ever existed, is awful when it comes to producing and sound engineering. Or at least he was in the 90s.

This whole album should be re-recorded, they totally should do it. It would totally work. Just re-record the whole damn thing, play everything as it is, note for note, and with Bruce on vocals, but with a proper, expert producer.

Tons of bands do this, re-record their own stuff, when it's warranted. In the case of TXF, it totally is.

Never gonna happen though.

A close second is VXI for me, for the same reasons. It's a tiny bit better than TXF, the snare is more bearable, there's a tiny improvement in the guitar sound, but the overall album sound still sucks. The music is great though, as usual.

The debut is fine for me, I don't get Steve's 46 year long moaning about it either. It's a raw, badass album. I like that raw sound if it works.
 
Clairvoyant Parchment said:
TXF for me big time.

Awful, thin, lame, pathetic guitar sound, you can barely make out the riffs. (Which are in fact superb.)

Their worst drum sound, the snare sounds like bashing a rotting wooden plank.

Toms are ridiculous, with barely a noticeable difference in sound between each.

Luckily for us, the incredible musicianship and ace songwriting still shines through. So I still enjoy the album tremendously, but each time I listen to it, I'm reminded of the abysmal production and engineering work done.

Turns out, the greatest songwriter who ever lived, the founder/leader of the greatest band ever existed, is awful when it comes to producing and sound engineering. Or at least he was in the 90s.

This whole album should be re-recorded, they totally should do it. It would totally work. Just re-record the whole damn thing, play everything as it is, note for note, and with Bruce on vocals, but with a proper, expert producer.

Tons of bands do this, re-record their own stuff, when it's warranted. In the case of TXF, it totally is.

Never gonna happen though.

A close second is VXI for me, for the same reasons. It's a tiny bit better than TXF, the snare is more bearable, there's a tiny improvement in the guitar sound, but the overall album sound still sucks. The music is great though, as usual.

The debut is fine for me, I don't get Steve's 46 year long moaning about it either. It's a raw, badass album. I like that raw sound if it works.
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Well if i have to speak about songwritting and structure of the songs. SSOASS goes to the top. But the xfsctor for me goes in another category its not the best the top of songwrittig there is plsnty of slow intros but for that album that sound and that voice fits so well NOW as steve said. I think the main problem is that we came from all the classic from 80s ssoass and FOTD and then that album
 
Azas said:
the polka section of Don't Look to the Eyes of a Stranger is great
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I would have put money on the fact that I would never read this combination of words in this sequence all together in my entire life. :D

No hate, it just always baffled me as to why Nicko Steve would have laid down a polka beat into an Iron Maiden song.

As for production, I can't argue with anyone on TXF. I would love a big, beefy remaster of that with the guitars pumped up, but doubtful that'll ever happen. For all we know, one of the reasons Steve loves it is because of the production choices he made. From the reunion on, the production quality seems to have a lot of ebb and flow to it. Take If Eternity Should Fail. To my ears, it sounds like someone dropped the mics in some Scottish bog and hit record. The rest of the album tends to fare better, IMO. And there are examples of this on a few of the albums post-AMOLAD (which I don't love the production on that one either, but at least it's consistent).
 
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Virtual XI's production reminds me a little of Motörhead's albums. It's like their ugly twin - the complete opposite: anemic and as if it had forgotten how to kick ass. Anyone agree?
 
Speaking of albums with varying production between songs, I really like the way Lord of the Flies sounds on The X Factor..just not the rest of the songs
 
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