Bands/Artists From 60/70s Who Maintained The Same Production/Engineering

Cafe Society
1

Which bands/artists continued to sound (production/engineering) the same way they did in the 60/70s as they did in the last 40 years? I don’t mind if the song style changes, or if they explored or totally changed genres, but I think this would be quite helpful when it comes to recommendations for me (and hopefully others on here), since I’ve exhausted most of the other criteria in music.

For those who feel the same way, I’d recommend finding live versions. I prefer Queen’s “Radio Ga Ga” live, despite being almost always preferring the studio versions of songs.

Lately, I love going on YouTube (and here) and finding female vocalists (very refreshing) from all over the world, and when I like one, I’ll start chronologically, but by the 80s, it sounds bad, and not just the production, but the songs in general. Speeding up the tempo so much, for example. Vocals buried in the mix, drum machines, “epic” loud snares, cheesy keyboards, jangly cheesy Strats, plastic and sanitized. I also seem to prefer slower songs, in minor (sad-sounding) chords, or “dark” sounding diminished chords. I was born in the early 80s, and I’ve gone back to re-listen, but I didn’t hear much experimentation, and the songs seemed to be short in length - verse/chorus and a bridge if you were lucky. I love 70s prog-rock, and most of my favorites are 5-6 minute songs; it doesn’t need to be 18 minutes to be “prog”.

Basically, I need to stop revisiting Paul McCartney and The Rolling Stones discography, hoping I’ll find even one good/great song, because I’ve done that already. The older I get, the quicker boredom sets in. I notice the same with movies. In the last few years, I haven’t been able to watch more than one a month, and like music, I now watch movies centered around a woman, and it’s nice that difference, which is why 95% of my music evaluation have been strictly for the women and have been successful, but there aren’t as many ladies in the field, so feel free to throw rare stuff – as long as it’s on YouTube!

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Well, I’m not really clear by your OP what you’re looking for, but Neil Young stuck with David Briggs as his producer until Briggs died, just like ZZ Top with Bill Ham.

One more: all Led Zeppelin’s album were self-produced by Jimmy Page (certainly with a little help from John Paul Jones, who remained uncredited as far as I know for production).

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Led Zeppelin’s last album was in 1979, so they didn’t have a chance to have 80s production/engineering. I’m not interested who has maintained the same producer, but the same production and engineering, as opposed to being trendy as I thoroughly described in the OP.

My title can’t be more clearer - maybe the question is too wonky for you. If you’re interested, I’d be interested in helping you. Just ask away…

4

AC/DC. They have the style now (balls to the wall) as they did in the 70s. Most everyone else has wussed out or died. Dying because they were wussies compared to AC/DC and couldnt keep up IMHO. Aerosmith falls off stage trying to keep up.

5

@EinsteinsHund wasn’t the only one who found your OP confusing, I’m sorry.

I think that you worded it differently in the first line of your OP (“Which bands/artists continued to sound (production/engineering) the same way they did in the 60/70s as they did in the last 40 years?”), and if I’m understanding correctly, you’re looking to find examples of bands whose recent work pretty much has the “same sound” as they had decades ago. Specifically calling out “production/engineering” suggested (inaccurately) that you were looking for specifics around actual producers/studio/etc., rather than sound.

A band could (and likely is) using extremely different production and engineering techniques and tools today than they had available to them in the '70s and '80s, but could still arrive at the same sound that they had 40 years ago.

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Why the snark? It’s really not obvious for me what you’re looking for. For example, the AC/DC example above counts for the question in the title of this thread, but so would the Rolling Stones which have been self-produced by the Glitter Twins (Jagger/Richards) since 1974’s “It’s Only Rock’N’Roll”, but for some reason you discounted them in the OP, because you are bored with them. So what is it?

7

I was confused, too. My best guess is that @MortSahlFan is looking for bands/artists who continued to make music into the 80s and beyond which doesn’t sound like it was produced in the 80s (or the 90s or etc.).

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I’m confused too. I thought the OP was looking for bands whio used exactly the same type of facilities and techniques as they did a half-century ago. All analog equipment, reel-to-reel tape recorders, chunks of remnant carpet on the studio walls, that sort of thing. In which case I’d have to guess “nobody” because it’s damned hard to find vacuum tubes anymore.

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There are a number of studios that specialize in analog equipment, particularly in the UK. For instance:

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Although I’ve recently learned Ham had very little to do with the music of ZZ Top, being a businessman with no musical ear. The bearded boys would send Ham on errants before making non-Ham-approved changes to their songs, of which Ham would be utterly oblivious of upon returning.

But “producer” he did get on the stats of dozens and dozens of ZZ Top songs.

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Interesting, I didn’t know that. Though he had all the credits.

ETA: though you always have to be careful if the manager and the producer are allegedly the same person. See the Stones and Andrew Loog-Oldham and Velvet Underground and Andy Warhol.

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Well, a couple of the original members are dead now :wink:. They’re not quite immortal.

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AC/DC is the one I had in mind, but I haven’t listened to everything they did and was waiting for a fan to reply.

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I thought I went out of my way to not sound snarky. The guy below you answered it.

AC/DC’s production didn’t change much, but neither did their songs, which were always basic, but the latter wasn’t what I was necessarily looking for.

The Stones changed their production after 1981’s “Tattoo You” - but even three good songs on that album were already done.

It will take me forever to quote everyone on this dying laptop… You can use the same equipment, but you could also use digital.

Drum sound is the biggest change. Take the session drummer Andy Newmark who played on all of John Lennon’s “Double Fantasy”… The production is shitty, and the way the drums sound is especially bad. Then compare the sound of Roger Water’s “Running Shoes” which also features Andy Newmark on drums. They sound good, and sounds like I’m there.

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But what then are you looking for? You really cannot find a better example than AC/DC, they always were produced similarly, the never had ballads (though a few slow blues songs), never any keyboards, no piano, organ or synths, just the basic combination of two guitars, bass, drums and vocals.

16

You may be thinking of gated reverb (and/or the use of drum machines), which is one of the things (along with all the synths) that makes much 80s (and later) music sound so 80s—kind of like how Autotune has infested more recent pop music.

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This is probably a stretch, but how about Steely Dan?

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Oh, good one.Steely Dan retained their high production values throughout their whole career. Of course the technology changed, but the sound remained always perfect for the time it was recorded.

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The snare drum was so loud, and “epic” sounding. Too much of an electronic sound, rather than acoustic. And in general, just too loud overall… I think a good example (I think) of gated reverb was Phil Collins in “In The Air Tonight”? Mike Oldfield actually used this technique on “Five Miles Out”

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What I meant was that the kind of songs isn’t what I was looking for (so I wouldn’t confuse anyone), but their production didn’t change much, and is a good example, which is why I said “latter”, not worried about the songs sounding the same like AC/DC…