Re-doing Classic Albums

[Sgt. Pepper]

So my cousin sent me The Reimagined In The Court Of The Crimson King with a whole slew of musicians and singers on it. He also sent me Zakk Wilde doing the entire first Black Sabbath album. Don’t get me wrong they are done well, and it’s almost note for note accurate, but is it necessary to recreate to a T? He also sent me Tedeshi/Trucks doing the entire Layla album done live. Doing it as a live thing I get, but going into the studio and redoing it seems odd. It’s already done and needs no tweaking. How are you gonna improve on what the originals did?

Do I want Dali’s Hallucinogenic Toreador hanging in my house painted accurately by Timmy Tingle?

Edited May 6 by Sgt. Pepper

[Karloff]

31 minutes ago, Sgt. Pepper said:

So my cousin sent me The Reimagined In The Court Of The Crimson King with a whole slew of musicians and singers on it. He also sent me Zakk Wilde doing the entire first Black Sabbath album. Don’t get me wrong they are done well, and it’s almost note for note accurate, but is it necessary to recreate to a T? He also sent me Tedeshi/Trucks doing the entire Layla album done live. Doing it as a live thing I get, but going into the studio and redoing it seems odd. It’s already done and needs no tweaking. How are you gonna improve on what the originals did?

Do I want Dali’s Hallucinogenic Toreador hanging in my house painted accurately by Timmy Tingle?

somethings just aren't needed. I agree, doing it as a live show is one thing, but ...   whats next ? a re-do of Relayer or Fragile ?

[Karloff]

10 minutes ago, Karloff said:

somethings just aren't needed. I agree, doing it as a live show is one thing, but ...   whats next ? a re-do of Relayer or Fragile ?

although I really enjoyed the Frog Brigade's cover Animal's in it's entirety. but again, it was a live performance

Edited May 6 by Karloff

[SteveFord]

It depends.

 

[Valeriy]

yes, it’s a little strange, but some people do it very well and even in a new way, seems, although everything seems to be the same as in the original. Fleetwood Mac's song is great in the original, but now I liked this girl too 🙃 :

 

[Sgt. Pepper]

Primus played the entire, A Farewell To Kings a few years back.

I’m gonna listen to each side by side with the originals. One thing is for sure, no one is gonna do Sheik Yerbouti in its entirety.

[Ceptorman]

3 hours ago, Sgt. Pepper said:

Primus played the entire, A Farewell To Kings a few years back.

I’m gonna listen to each side by side with the originals. One thing is for sure, no one is gonna do Sheik Yerbouti in its entirety.

Yes, and they did an excellent job of playing that album live. Claypool even took some bass lessons from Geddy, Les can definitely play a bass guitar.

[sparquelito]

All of this speaks to much of modern music. 

And television. 
And the movies. 

There's a conspicuous absence of original material and original creativity going on. 

How many Spiderman movies have there been in the past 15 years?
How many ways can young musicians re-interpret classic rock music?


Did Greg Brady really go out on a date with his TV mom??
😗

[Sgt. Pepper]

18 hours ago, SteveFord said:

It depends.

 

I’m sure Dr. Demento played that at least once on his show.

Edited May 7 by Sgt. Pepper

[Sgt. Pepper]

I think the first one I saw was a few years back when Train redid Zeppelin II. I thought WHY?

Edited May 7 by Sgt. Pepper

[Karloff]

27 minutes ago, Sgt. Pepper said:

I’m sure Dr. Demento played that at least once on his show.

good ol' Dr Demento ...

[Sgt. Pepper]

40 minutes ago, Johnson Blake said:

Hallucinogenic Toreador and Tuna Fishing are two of my favorites by Dali, painted back to back 1967-1970 in the midst of the LSD craze. Of course,  Dali insisted that HE was the drug...

Perhaps this redo among film makers and musicians is a malaise of having nothing new and clever to say...or perhaps not.🤔 

I doubt that Timmy Tingle could paint himself into a corner. Sorry Timmy

I’ve seen it in person in the Dali Museum in Florida. It’s huge.

I think A Star Is Born hasn’t been done enough who is up next? They should get on with the times and and have alternate genders be the stars. The whole boy/girl and man/woman thing is so 20th century. Does that get 3 socks?

Edited May 7 by Sgt. Pepper

[Sgt. Pepper]

7 minutes ago, Johnson Blake said:

Never figured you for a three sock man

https://www.sunshinedaydream.biz/Red-Hot-Chili-Peppers--Wearing-Socks-Poster_p_3543.html

Oh it has to do with them. Can’t stomach those guys. 

[Phil OKeefe]

On 5/6/2024 at 11:50 AM, Sgt. Pepper said:

So my cousin sent me The Reimagined In The Court Of The Crimson King with a whole slew of musicians and singers on it. He also sent me Zakk Wilde doing the entire first Black Sabbath album. Don’t get me wrong they are done well, and it’s almost note for note accurate, but is it necessary to recreate to a T? He also sent me Tedeshi/Trucks doing the entire Layla album done live. Doing it as a live thing I get, but going into the studio and redoing it seems odd. It’s already done and needs no tweaking. How are you gonna improve on what the originals did?

I bet that absolutely slays. I'm going to have to hunt that down. 

As far as doing exact covers of previously recorded songs, I'm a longtime fan of that, for various reasons. What turned me on to that is Todd Rundgren's Faithful, which is a great record IMO. But then again, Faithful only has covers on side one. Todd made side two with new songs in the style of/influenced by the era and songs that appear on side one. 

Doing an exact cover of something is one of the best learning/listening exercises in the world. You can learn a ton by trying to do an exact recorded cover sometime, from mic positioning to EQ, from phrasing to dynamics, mixing to... well, pretty much everything involved in doing a recording.

But doing someone else's entire album? As a loving tribute, yeah, I guess I can see why some folks might want to do that, too. I have no problem with it, but OTOH, it's the rare cover that I'm going to listen to regularly. It happens occasionally that a cover will be as good as, or even better than the original, but I'll usually go back to the original version since it's often the "best." 

On the same basic subject, if you've never heard Matthew Sweet and Susanna Hoffs and their Under the Covers albums, they've done some really cool "faithful" covers, too. 

 

 

[Sgt. Pepper]

4 minutes ago, Phil OKeefe said:

I bet that absolutely slays. I'm going to have to hunt that down. 

As far as doing exact covers of previously recorded songs, I'm a longtime fan of that, for various reasons. What turned me on to that is Todd Rundgren's Faithful, which is a great record IMO. But then again, Faithful only has covers on side one. Todd made side two with new songs in the style of/influenced by the era and songs that appear on side one. 

Doing an exact cover of something is one of the best learning/listening exercises in the world. You can learn a ton by trying to do an exact recorded cover sometime, from mic positioning to EQ, from phrasing to dynamics, mixing to... well, pretty much everything involved in doing a recording.

But doing someone else's entire album? As a loving tribute, yeah, I guess I can see why some folks might want to do that, too. I have no problem with it, but OTOH, it's the rare cover that I'm going to listen to regularly. It happens occasionally that a cover will be as good as, or even better than the original, but I'll usually go back to the original version since it's often the "best." 

On the same basic subject, if you've never heard Matthew Sweet and Susanna Hoffs and their Under the Covers albums, they've done some really cool "faithful" covers, too. 

 

 

I have a lot of Todd’s stuff. I have that, and haven’t listened to it’s a decade or so.

Saw Matthew Sweet once. I’ve heard a few of the songs he did with Suzanne, meh.

In my opinion your supposed to make a cover your own, recreating it to a T to me is pointless.

Edited May 7 by Sgt. Pepper

[Phil OKeefe]

53 minutes ago, Sgt. Pepper said:

In my opinion your supposed to make a cover your own, recreating it to a T to me is pointless.

 

I can certainly see the value to that approach, too. In fact, in many cases, I think that's the preferred approach, although a revised/reworked version is often not nearly as good as the original, IMO. Occasionally though, someone does a revamped version in their own way that's as good as, or even better than the original. Valerie Carter's version of Ooh Child is one example that comes to mind. A couple more would be Jimi Hendrix and his cover of Dylan's All Along the Watchtower, and Johnny Cash's version of Nine Inch Nails' Hurt. 

I already pointed out the ways that I think doing a recreation can be beneficial. YMMV, and I certainly respect that POV. 

[Sgt. Pepper]

20 minutes ago, Phil OKeefe said:

 

I can certainly see the value to that approach, too. In fact, in many cases, I think that's the preferred approach, although a revised/reworked version is often not nearly as good as the original, IMO. Occasionally though, someone does a revamped version in their own way that's as good as, or even better than the original. Valerie Carter's version of Ooh Child is one example that comes to mind. A couple more would be Jimi Hendrix and his cover of Dylan's All Along the Watchtower, and Johnny Cash's version of Nine Inch Nails' Hurt. 

I already pointed out the ways that I think doing a recreation can be beneficial. YMMV, and I certainly respect that POV. 

Jimi’s Watchtower is killer, and is nothing like Dylan’s. Both versions of Hurt don’t do anything for me. 

I do like Talking Heads version of Take Me To The River.

[Pinch]

9 minutes ago, Sgt. Pepper said:

Jimi’s Watchtower is killer, and is nothing like Dylan’s.

And thank God for that!

[Sgt. Pepper]

1 hour ago, Pinch said:

And thank God for that!

Mumble mumble mumble said the mumble to the more mumbles.

There are reasons some people only sing  cause they are good at it. 

Page played the guitar in Zeppelin, Plant did not.

Edited May 7 by Sgt. Pepper

[Ceptorman]

I'm hearing excellent reviews of the new Atmos version of Pink Floyd's DSOTM.

[Sgt. Pepper]

1 hour ago, Ceptorman said:

I'm hearing excellent reviews of the new Atmos version of Pink Floyd's DSOTM.

Yeah, but that is like Uber Gucci 5.1 SS, its not a band recreating it.

I have a few CDs sets that came with them mixed in D Atmos, but to me it’s useless cause I have no stereo that decodes it. 

Roger Waters although did re-do Dark Side. I hear he read a poem in it, and people hated it. Never heard it and probably never will.

Edited May 8 by Sgt. Pepper

[Sgt. Pepper]

Zakk loves his Sabbath. I just saw he has a double cd called Doomed Forever or it might be Forever Doomed, but he redid Sabbath the entire Paranoid, and M O R albums.

So is this one step above or below being a Tribute Band? Seems like there are tons of Tribute Bands touring. Hey wanna go see fake Guns N Roses tonight? No I saw fake AC/DC last week I’m good on fakes right now.

Edited May 8 by Sgt. Pepper

[68Kustom]

I wish the mid-period Creedence albums could be re-mixed.  These are the Wally Heider recordings.  The sounds are great, but they were made for AM radio.   All these albums have a kind of 'distant' sound as if you're hearing them across the room.

It would be amazing to hear the Wally Heider recordings with attention to definition in bass and overall clarity to ambient sounds. 

[Phil OKeefe]

On 5/11/2024 at 4:46 PM, 68Kustom said:

I wish the mid-period Creedence albums could be re-mixed.  These are the Wally Heider recordings.  The sounds are great, but they were made for AM radio.   All these albums have a kind of 'distant' sound as if you're hearing them across the room.

It would be amazing to hear the Wally Heider recordings with attention to definition in bass and overall clarity to ambient sounds. 

That would be an interesting project. IMO, if someone's going to do it, it should probably be remixed at Hyde Street. Might as well use the studio where the tracks were originally recorded and mixed to do the re-mix. 

I'm not sure what they recorded to. Probably 16 track, although the early stuff may have been recorded to 8 track. Of course, with today's advanced tech, we can lift individual tracks out of submixed material, so that's less of an issue than it used to be.  

Records made in the late 60s really had a lot of restrictions on them in terms of what the playback technology could handle. Too much bass in the mix, or too much kick drum, and you risked making the stylus jump, which could result in a lot of returned records, so they tended to mix and master things conservatively–especially by today's standards. And, as you mentioned, you had to mix things in such a way that they came across on the extremely bandwidth-limited AM radios since this was still mainly the AM era.

Of course, to get this done, you'd need to get John onboard and willing to consent to it and approve the final mixes. That might not be easy.  

[Notes_Norton]

On 5/6/2024 at 2:50 PM, Sgt. Pepper said:

So my cousin sent me The Reimagined In The Court Of The Crimson King with a whole slew of musicians and singers on it. He also sent me Zakk Wilde doing the entire first Black Sabbath album. Don’t get me wrong they are done well, and it’s almost note for note accurate, but is it necessary to recreate to a T? He also sent me Tedeshi/Trucks doing the entire Layla album done live. Doing it as a live thing I get, but going into the studio and redoing it seems odd. It’s already done and needs no tweaking. How are you gonna improve on what the originals did?

Do I want Dali’s Hallucinogenic Toreador hanging in my house painted accurately by Timmy Tingle?

I suppose some people might like it, but it's not for me, either. I don't mind someone taking a song and reinterpreting it, I like some covers better than others, but a note for note album? 

Even remixes of old classics, though interesting, never seem to replace the original for me.

I wonder if I heard the original and the re-doing or the remix for the first time, if I'd feel the same way.

 

Notes ♫