guttertrash wrote:Why does clean and clear translate as great production to people? A major part of what made albums so amazing up to the mid 70s was the bleed of instruments into the mics of surrounding instruments. Muddy is an issue, because you get Pretties For You, but bleed is one of the things that has been lost in the age of massively overdubbing things and especially the digital age, and instruments are very vibrant and clear, but the ambience is lost and instead a soulless, sterile sound fills the void.
It worked for Pink Floyd and The Cars. But a band like Queen's sound after their first couple albums are way two sterile and overdone for me. It is also why Destroyer and Billion Dollar Babies are not my favorite Kiss and Alice Cooper albums. They aren't bad, but the shift is noticeable and not nearly as gnarly as what came before them.
I guess that answer would be it's what the majority of the record public wants. Alice's two slickest albums are Billion Dollar Babies & Trash and are also his biggest sellers.
Artists are in this business to make money. Especially when the artist is under contract to a label. A label insists that artists make a profit for them. The way you make profit is to give the people who spend money a product which they want to buy.
PFY & EA are considered "avante garde" and "art" by some, but the majority of the record buying public --and more importantly Alice fans--find them to be just awful.
Again, music is subjective and I'm a well known hater of "Trash", but I understand why it was done as well as why Ezrin took the original band mainstream with B$B. MONEY! LOTS OF MONEY!
If the original band recorded and album like Love It To Death instead of the slick Billion Dollar Babies in 1973, it would have flopped spectacularly. That album led directly to the success of WTNM two years later and Alice being able to establish a solo career.
Also it was Trash that has enabled Alice to have the career he has enjoyed since it's huge success.
This new album's success is based on the fact that everyone seems to love it. This itself proves that Ezrin's production was right on the mark. The album sounds better everyday!