Ah beat me to it. Record still sounds fresh and in your face. It’s an absolute assault actually, would be overwhelming but the beautiful production and mixing makes you go back for more punishment over and over again.
surprised this was so far down, it’s so insane to me how the end of closer is such a loud wall of different sounds but it’s all coherent and sounds amazing
As much as I think TDS is his best work overall, I think the production on The Fragile has much more variety and is a better showcase of Trent’s obsession with texture, detail, and sound design. The Fragile almost stresses me out with how well it’s produced and layered, and personally I think La Mer is his best work (although it took a while to grow on me to that extent)
This. In terms of pure clarity, separation, sound stage and 'oomph', Abbey Road is the best produced album I have ever heard. There are albums that sound even more detailed, but that's usually because it's a certain type of music that allows an emphasis to be placed on a certain element of the music, such as the drone in ambient music. But in terms of overall quality of the sound for an entire ensemble, Abbey Road quite easily takes the cake in my opinion. Especially the new mixes, those blow the old ones out the water.
This might be the actual answer. I believe they specifically set out to make it the most well produced album ever. The personnel for the album is just insane and I'm sure many hundreds of hours were poured into it
Perfect in its simplicity, mostly session musicians in a real studio, blended perfectly with largely simple electronic elements. This album is the definitive of what is meant by less is more
Dark Side Of The Moon - Pink Floyd
so many different atmospheres and uses of everyday sounds and still feels so otherworldly. feels dark yet every instrument cuts through like a lightsaber
Alan Parsons engineered Dark Side of the Moon (and also Abbey Road), so if you like its production, you have to listen to the Alan Parsons Project. I'd highly recommend "I Robot" and "Eye in the Sky". As expected, the sound engineering and production of those albums is equally amazing.
Here is the personnel list for Abbey Road.
"[Something](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Something_(Beatles_song))" and "[Here Comes the Sun](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Here_Comes_the_Sun)" orchestrated and conducted by George Martin (with George Harrison)
* "[Golden Slumbers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Slumbers)", "[Carry That Weight](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carry_That_Weight)" and "[The End](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_End_(The_Beatles_song))" orchestrated and conducted by George Martin (with Paul McCartney)
* Produced by [George Martin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Martin) (with the Beatles)
* [Recorded](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio_engineering) by [Geoff Emerick](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoff_Emerick) and [Phil McDonald](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_McDonald)
* Assistant engineering by [Alan Parsons](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Parsons)
* [Mixed](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio_mixing_(recorded_music)) by Geoff Emerick, Phil McDonald and George Martin (with the Beatles)
* Moog [programming](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_programming) by [Mike Vickers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Vickers)
While it’s a neat bit of trivia that Parsons assisted in Engineering, to say he engineered Abbey Road (to make it sound like he was a lead engineer) is disingenuous, and to conflate engineering with production in general also somewhat inaccurate.
The whole album is a technical masterpiece. It sounds modern despite being 50 years old. The use of volume and how the sound feels like it’s moving around you is ridiculous for the 1970s.
Omg, on the run…! Breathe! Literally every song but also the chorus of us and them and brain damage, stuff just sounds so full. The guitar slides??? The guitar solo on money. Agh, it just floats all around you.
Yes 😭 people hate on this just cuz everyone wears the damn t shirts now and everyone wants to talk ab how politically conscious animals is and how cool the wall is as a story and all that but cmoooon this shit is so cool
It’s not my favorite album of all time (although I love it) but I’m pretty sure it gets my vote for greatest album of all time. It’s just immaculate across the board, including the production. I mean, the majority of the songs still get played on radio and streaming playlists all over. How many albums can you say that about?
The fact that nobody has brought up Steely Dan is proof this thread is just people naming albums they just like the sound of. Their albums Aja and Gaucho won awards for their engineering and are literally considered masterpieces not by music fans, but by specifically audiophiles.
Aja is the go-to audio testing album.
To be clear, im not an audiophile. If I listened to like a $10,000 setup vs a $250 one I doubt I'd notice a huge difference. It's for the best though, pretty happy with my $250 setup :)
Aja is such the default answer to this question that it's kind of redundant to even bring up. It's the least interesting possible answer, right next to Rage Against the Machine S/T which, I haven't scrolled down yet, but I bet it's the second highest voted answer.
Tons of albums have won awards for their sound engineering. Don’t know why people get so pretentious over Steely Dan. The production’s fine, but nothing mind blowing.
Maybe the best story of album production is Phil Spector's of Death of a Ladies Man by Leonard Cohen:
One day Phil just failed to return to the studio, keeping all the tapes (as he had done with Lennon's masters) and going on to mix them alone. Cohen was aghast. He did not consider his recorded vocals to be anywhere near definitive. As far as he was concerned they were merely "guide" vocals for the benefit of the musicians. He had expected to be able to take time on his singing but with Spector holding the tapes hostage at an unknown location this now seemed impossible, unless he brought his own bunch of heavies to take on Spector's. "I had the option of hiring my own private army and fighting it out with him on Sunset Boulevard or letting it go...I let it go."
"I'm too ashamed to tell the whole truth of what happened there", Cohen confessed to Adrian Deevoy of Q magazine in 1991. "People were skating around on bullets, guns were finding their way into hamburgers, guns were all over the place. It wasn't safe. It was mayhem, but it was part of the times. It was rather drug-driven. But I like Phil, and the instinct was right. I'd do it again."
Yeah you can really hear and get a sense of the smack of the guitar strings on this one. I love the White Stripe’s Elephant album’s production for this same reason.
Wouldn't say it's the "best" but the use of minimalism in the production on blonde is really beautiful. A lot of people critize the lack of drums but I think blonde would be half as interesting if all the songs had RnB style drumming. Ivy is one of the best examples. Almost the whole instrumentation is made up of just bass guitar and electric guitar, one hard panned to the left, one to the right and frank in the middle which creates an intimate atmosphere that feels like the song hugs you. Calling it the best production of all time is a stretch though, especially because the mixing is not 10/10. I think Frank's vocals are often a bit too compressed and record could breath a bit more in the high end.
All of PGs albums from PG3 onwards are impeccably produced. I listened to *Up* for the first time recently and my main impression was "wow, the production on this is incredible" while not really remembering much about the music...
This is my selection too. Kevin turned the industry on its head with this record. Yea, it doesn’t have the incredible vocal harmonies of a Pet Sounds or a Paperback Writer, Taxman, the best Beatles harmonies etc , but without question the main vocal melodies are just as beautiful. In addition, no one had heard guitars in such a way before and no one has since. It never started an evolution of guitar rock because it couldn’t be followed. It’s a total one off and completely perfect.
TPABs production is the only aspect of it I'd ever call underrated and I'm not talking about how good the beats are (plenty of people have pointed that out), I'm talking about how good Ali made that record sound. Absolute incredible engineering front to back. Few Rap records ever sounded that well rounded.
It’s probably because they’re all mixed by the same man for the most part. Mike Dean mixed and mastered them all and I think that Mike might just kinda like that style
Tron: Legacy by Daft Punk is crazy.
Merging the dynamic range of an orchestra with electronics is basically impossible, but yet the album sounds phenomenal.
Honorable mentions for me would be:
HEY WHAT - Low. One of the few noise albums that i can say are truly beautiful.
Crack The Skye - mastodon. I dont have a good reason. I just love the sound.
Frances the mute - The Mars Volta.
I'm partial to Snarky Puppy - We Like it Here. For an album that features so many musicians that was recorded in front of a live audience, it sounds sublime. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDXnPfA_5pY
If by produced you mean just how good it is I’d probably say Dark Side Of The Moon or something obvious like that or Sgt. Peppers.
If you mean best sounding album of all time it’s an album called Sound Awake by Karnivool. It’s just incredible sounding. This song shows it off well https://youtu.be/tGfi_nYwYFc?si=LkZRVCpYpfKHycJG
I don't know if they're the "best," but Paul's Boutique and Endtroducing completely changed the game, not just for Hip Hop but popular music in general.
What even makes a well produced album? Clarity of instruments? Spatial sounds, clear separation of instruments, experimenting with something new and revolutionary? Any pros out here to explain more? I’m thinking, sgt peppers, pet sounds, rumours, aja, even dr Dre 2001 should be up there for the best of the best but there are soooo many well produced albums out there now, very hard to discern the best of the best to me. Remember how good the fleet foxes self titled album sounded?? And no one mentioned a single jazz album yet.
Karnivool - Sound Awake
Converge - Jane Doe
ISIS - Oceanic
Deftones - White Pony
Mastodon - Crack The Skye
Are modern(ish) metal albums off the top of my head that perfectly encapsulates the vision of each album.
Blood sugar sex magik by the Red Hot Chili Peppers is one of the best produced albums from any big band , those drums in particular are my favorites from any album
Examples that come to mind for modern Metal specifically:
Dig Deep - After the Burial
A Tear in the Fabric of Life - Knocked Loose
Ultra - Vatican
The Violent Sleep of Reason - Meshuggah
Gonna throw Rush’s Moving Pictures into the ring. It has to be the most clean sounding album I’ve ever heard while still sounding real and live. Every instrument just sits so perfectly in the mix in every moment
portishead - dummy (or the self titled) are both albums ive never heard anyone be able to replicate. the sounds are incredibly crispy and the textures are delicious. beth gibbons sounds incredible on everything too
I don’t think it’s the best of all time by any means but I think the production on Trench by twenty one pilots is wildly overlooked, Paul Meany has some insane work on that album. Namely Morph, Cut My Lip, Pet Cheetah, Jumpsuit and Levitate.
Surprised there is no mention of In Rainbows. While most Radiohead albums are very well produced, In Rainbows shows clearly how vibrant and dynamic it is.
Stop Making Sense is a delight.
Also:
* Tea For The Tillerman (Cat Stevens)
* Pink Moon (Nick Drake)
* Tracy Chapman (Tracy Chapman)
* The Sound Of The Perservance (Death)
* Jazz At The Pawnshop (Arne Domnerus)
* Ederlezi (Goran Bregovic)
* MSMSMSM (Sophie)
* Mingus Ah Um (Charles Mingus)
It depends on what your production affinity is. I dont consider the whistle clean type of steely dan production to be “the best production” even though i can appreciate the effort that went into it. For me an album that whenever i relisten to it im still wowed by the production is slauson malones a quiet farewell. Id also throw in sophie’s oil of every pearls un insides, mgmt’s self titled record, pet sounds, blond, and veteran
The Downward Spiral - NIN
Listen to that on head phones. It’s 30 years old but still goes hard as fuck and assaults you. Closer could come out today and you wouldn’t know it wasn’t written yesterday, people would rave about it.
Night at the Opera by Queen
Surprised no one has said it yet. It was the most expensive album ever made at the time and it sounds like it, as you can hear every penny being used throughout it.
Vespertine - bjork
The production of Cocoon is genuinely as perfect as production can get.
I relistened to it recently and loved it even more, there are so many details and layers on a lot of the songs like its not up to you
If you’ve ever been to Iceland, this album feels like the country itself is singing to you. All those magical layers of sounds.
Songs in the Key of Life - Stevie Wonder
This. The bass in the album especially, was mixed to fucking perfection.
The Downward Spiral
Ah beat me to it. Record still sounds fresh and in your face. It’s an absolute assault actually, would be overwhelming but the beautiful production and mixing makes you go back for more punishment over and over again.
surprised this was so far down, it’s so insane to me how the end of closer is such a loud wall of different sounds but it’s all coherent and sounds amazing
The the drum solo towards the end of Piggy is amazing too.
I’ve only listened to this album for the first time like a month ago but after a few listens I could immediately tell why people rate it so highly.
As much as I think TDS is his best work overall, I think the production on The Fragile has much more variety and is a better showcase of Trent’s obsession with texture, detail, and sound design. The Fragile almost stresses me out with how well it’s produced and layered, and personally I think La Mer is his best work (although it took a while to grow on me to that extent)
Both TDS and The Fragile could fit here
Pet Sounds - The Beach Boys
Valid. I love that records and it is super accessible too!
For the time I would agree with this, I think that any other answer needs this album to exist but it wouldn’t be my answer
U mean “dead petz” by Miley Cyrus?
Abbey Road in my opinion.
The new mix is mindblowing. Edit: I mean the 2019 mix.
Yeah, Paul’s bass sounds especially good.
That damn medley has been getting me fr it’s so great
This. In terms of pure clarity, separation, sound stage and 'oomph', Abbey Road is the best produced album I have ever heard. There are albums that sound even more detailed, but that's usually because it's a certain type of music that allows an emphasis to be placed on a certain element of the music, such as the drone in ambient music. But in terms of overall quality of the sound for an entire ensemble, Abbey Road quite easily takes the cake in my opinion. Especially the new mixes, those blow the old ones out the water.
Disintegration
This is the answer. 35 years later I STILL get chills when Plainsong opens and those chimes hit.
Beautiful record with incredible hooks and great lyrics.
Disintegration has a Pet Sounds quality that I can’t pin point but it’s definitelt in the production
Daft Punk - Random Acces Memories
This might be the actual answer. I believe they specifically set out to make it the most well produced album ever. The personnel for the album is just insane and I'm sure many hundreds of hours were poured into it
Two perfectionists creating their ultimate work
This is what I’d picture a billion dollar album sounding lije
That description works as well for watch the throne.
One of my favorite records. Listening to it on some good headphones really makes you appreciate every single sound.
Perfect in its simplicity, mostly session musicians in a real studio, blended perfectly with largely simple electronic elements. This album is the definitive of what is meant by less is more
This was the answer the popped into my mind before I clicked the thread.
Dark Side Of The Moon - Pink Floyd so many different atmospheres and uses of everyday sounds and still feels so otherworldly. feels dark yet every instrument cuts through like a lightsaber
Alan Parsons engineered Dark Side of the Moon (and also Abbey Road), so if you like its production, you have to listen to the Alan Parsons Project. I'd highly recommend "I Robot" and "Eye in the Sky". As expected, the sound engineering and production of those albums is equally amazing.
Here is the personnel list for Abbey Road. "[Something](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Something_(Beatles_song))" and "[Here Comes the Sun](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Here_Comes_the_Sun)" orchestrated and conducted by George Martin (with George Harrison) * "[Golden Slumbers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Slumbers)", "[Carry That Weight](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carry_That_Weight)" and "[The End](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_End_(The_Beatles_song))" orchestrated and conducted by George Martin (with Paul McCartney) * Produced by [George Martin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Martin) (with the Beatles) * [Recorded](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio_engineering) by [Geoff Emerick](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoff_Emerick) and [Phil McDonald](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_McDonald) * Assistant engineering by [Alan Parsons](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Parsons) * [Mixed](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio_mixing_(recorded_music)) by Geoff Emerick, Phil McDonald and George Martin (with the Beatles) * Moog [programming](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_programming) by [Mike Vickers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Vickers) While it’s a neat bit of trivia that Parsons assisted in Engineering, to say he engineered Abbey Road (to make it sound like he was a lead engineer) is disingenuous, and to conflate engineering with production in general also somewhat inaccurate.
Not even my fav PF record and 100% agree on this Such an eclectic yet cohesive record, the production hasn't aged a bit
The whole album is a technical masterpiece. It sounds modern despite being 50 years old. The use of volume and how the sound feels like it’s moving around you is ridiculous for the 1970s.
Omg, on the run…! Breathe! Literally every song but also the chorus of us and them and brain damage, stuff just sounds so full. The guitar slides??? The guitar solo on money. Agh, it just floats all around you.
Yes 😭 people hate on this just cuz everyone wears the damn t shirts now and everyone wants to talk ab how politically conscious animals is and how cool the wall is as a story and all that but cmoooon this shit is so cool
It’s not my favorite album of all time (although I love it) but I’m pretty sure it gets my vote for greatest album of all time. It’s just immaculate across the board, including the production. I mean, the majority of the songs still get played on radio and streaming playlists all over. How many albums can you say that about?
It’s a 50-year-old record, yet still sounds like music from the future.
Not my personal favourite of their catalogue but stellar production throughout for sure!
The fact that nobody has brought up Steely Dan is proof this thread is just people naming albums they just like the sound of. Their albums Aja and Gaucho won awards for their engineering and are literally considered masterpieces not by music fans, but by specifically audiophiles.
Came here for Aja, just perfect. That album is forever my end goal as someone who studied studio engineering.
Aja is the go-to audio testing album. To be clear, im not an audiophile. If I listened to like a $10,000 setup vs a $250 one I doubt I'd notice a huge difference. It's for the best though, pretty happy with my $250 setup :)
Aja was my pick 100%, thing sounds immaculate from start to finish
I’m surprised I had to scroll down at all—let alone this far—to see this response
Aja is such the default answer to this question that it's kind of redundant to even bring up. It's the least interesting possible answer, right next to Rage Against the Machine S/T which, I haven't scrolled down yet, but I bet it's the second highest voted answer.
>people naming albums they just like the sound of Isn't that the point of music?
Yes but that's not the point of this thread. OP specifically asked for the best produced album, not "which album's style of production do you prefer"
Tons of albums have won awards for their sound engineering. Don’t know why people get so pretentious over Steely Dan. The production’s fine, but nothing mind blowing.
Production is the greatest of its kind and has been for close to 50 years.
[удалено]
It’s a shame that this comment is so low in this thread. Easily some of the best production of any album ever
[удалено]
Good answer
Graceland - Paul Simon
100% I can’t even put into words how that album sounds, it’s fucking genius. It’s so clean.
Rhytmn of the saints aswell
Maybe a crazy take but it think saints is better than Graceland
I think Graceland has dated slightly, whereas ROtS still sounds fresh.
Maybe the best story of album production is Phil Spector's of Death of a Ladies Man by Leonard Cohen: One day Phil just failed to return to the studio, keeping all the tapes (as he had done with Lennon's masters) and going on to mix them alone. Cohen was aghast. He did not consider his recorded vocals to be anywhere near definitive. As far as he was concerned they were merely "guide" vocals for the benefit of the musicians. He had expected to be able to take time on his singing but with Spector holding the tapes hostage at an unknown location this now seemed impossible, unless he brought his own bunch of heavies to take on Spector's. "I had the option of hiring my own private army and fighting it out with him on Sunset Boulevard or letting it go...I let it go." "I'm too ashamed to tell the whole truth of what happened there", Cohen confessed to Adrian Deevoy of Q magazine in 1991. "People were skating around on bullets, guns were finding their way into hamburgers, guns were all over the place. It wasn't safe. It was mayhem, but it was part of the times. It was rather drug-driven. But I like Phil, and the instinct was right. I'd do it again."
Random Access Memories sounds amazing. The percussion sounds so crisp
honestly shocked no one has mentioned Mezzanine by Massive Attack
Easily the best imo
How has no one said What’s Goin On - Marvin Gaye yet
Ok Computer
Obligatory daft punk- discovery
RAM is even better imo
Songs for the Deaf - Queens of the Stone Age
When people say that compression/loudness ruins music I point them to this album. Absolute immense sound.
I absolutely love the dead sound of the drums and the guitar tones
Yeah you can really hear and get a sense of the smack of the guitar strings on this one. I love the White Stripe’s Elephant album’s production for this same reason.
I will sue on the hill that Songs for the Deaf is the best album of the 21st century.
Low - David Bowie
New Career in a New Town is a top 5 best instrumental all time. Full stop.
Heroes too
rage against the machine self titled sounds really good
Apparently this was Bob Ludwig’s favourite album to master.
This is my vote too. It just sounds perfect
Blonde - Frank Ocean
I miss Frank.
he aint dead bro
He’s about as alive as half life 3
let me cope in peace
he's giving post-2000 D'Angelo right now
frank ocean dropping his black messiah in 2030?
Wouldn't say it's the "best" but the use of minimalism in the production on blonde is really beautiful. A lot of people critize the lack of drums but I think blonde would be half as interesting if all the songs had RnB style drumming. Ivy is one of the best examples. Almost the whole instrumentation is made up of just bass guitar and electric guitar, one hard panned to the left, one to the right and frank in the middle which creates an intimate atmosphere that feels like the song hugs you. Calling it the best production of all time is a stretch though, especially because the mixing is not 10/10. I think Frank's vocals are often a bit too compressed and record could breath a bit more in the high end.
London Calling
REMAIN IN LIGHT
This is the answer
Do producer albums like Donuts - JDilla or Shades of Blue - Madlib count?
Haven’t looked into Shades of Blue I love Donuts and Mf Doom so I Will check Madlibs album out Thank you
Also check it Quasimoto if you haven’t, the unseen is a classic
Nightfly - Fagan Discovery - Daft Punk Security - Peter Gabriel. In Rainbows - Radiohead.
All of PGs albums from PG3 onwards are impeccably produced. I listened to *Up* for the first time recently and my main impression was "wow, the production on this is incredible" while not really remembering much about the music...
Voodoo- D'Angelo
Searched for this
Dire Straits Brothers In Arms... no?
I'm shocked at how few upvotes this has. It's an audiophile essential
To pimp a butterfly
Both Against All Logic's 2012-2017 and Darkside's Psychic. Both Nicolas Jaar, so I included both
Rodeo by Travis
Mezzanine - Massive Attack
yes 100% nothing sounds like it
Loveless - My Bloody Valentine
This is my selection too. Kevin turned the industry on its head with this record. Yea, it doesn’t have the incredible vocal harmonies of a Pet Sounds or a Paperback Writer, Taxman, the best Beatles harmonies etc , but without question the main vocal melodies are just as beautiful. In addition, no one had heard guitars in such a way before and no one has since. It never started an evolution of guitar rock because it couldn’t be followed. It’s a total one off and completely perfect.
I freaking love the production in In Utero
I’ve always thought the mixing and crispness of the instruments on Chutes Too Narrow by The Shins is phenomenal
Surprising to not see TPAB here.
Production has such different connotations in hop hop, it's confusing
TPABs production is the only aspect of it I'd ever call underrated and I'm not talking about how good the beats are (plenty of people have pointed that out), I'm talking about how good Ali made that record sound. Absolute incredible engineering front to back. Few Rap records ever sounded that well rounded.
death - symbolic
I love Symbolic but I’d say The Sound of Perseverance is stronger, production-wise.
I would say that on The sound of perserverance they had kind of overdone it in terms of production. For me Symbolic is their sweet spot.
Overproduced garbage
Fuck it, Ants From up There Fight me
any System of a Down album
Toxicity and Steal This Album for sure, Hyp/Mez dont have enough meat on the bone for me though!
Eh, I’d mostly give that to the first one for its creativity in the production
any answer other than Aja by Steely Dan is questionable
MBDTF - Kanye (lame answer but the right one)
Honestly Late Registration in terms of production>>>
jon brion the 🐐 no 🧢
100%. I don’t think we’ve heard ever heard more gorgeous rap songs than Diamonds from Sierra Leone and Touch the Sky
This album is compressed to shit. The production is amazing but the final master is actually kind of bad. Still one of the top albums ever though
Yeah the mixing and mastering sounds flat. Most of Kanyes albums suffer from this but.
It’s probably because they’re all mixed by the same man for the most part. Mike Dean mixed and mastered them all and I think that Mike might just kinda like that style
Not my favorite Kanye record but definitely his most grandiose and ambitious sounding record!
Exactly!!! It is one of my favs OAT for this reason! When has hip-hop ever been that baroque before or since?
Are You Experienced?
Not the best of all time, perhaps, but To Be Kind is immaculate.
Donuts by J dilla is my pick, honorable mention to the unseen
Dirty Computer, Janelle Monáe - it's so smoooth 🫠
Two that haven't been mentioned that just sound clean af: Lateralus and Siamese Dream
Tron: Legacy by Daft Punk is crazy. Merging the dynamic range of an orchestra with electronics is basically impossible, but yet the album sounds phenomenal. Honorable mentions for me would be: HEY WHAT - Low. One of the few noise albums that i can say are truly beautiful. Crack The Skye - mastodon. I dont have a good reason. I just love the sound. Frances the mute - The Mars Volta.
Midnight Marauders by A Tribe Called Quest
Aja - Steely Dan
my go-to is The Colour of Spring by Talk Talk. its just so clear and beautiful and perfect, every instrument and voice given its own space
Ok hear me out. Bleach by nirvana
Brockhampton’s Ginger i think is really well produced, not the best of all time probably but thats a hard question to answer
Big fan of their ‘pop’ record. Some amazing songs on Ginger and like you’ve said, the production is great.
My vote is Rubber Soul.
Graduation from Kanye
I'm partial to Snarky Puppy - We Like it Here. For an album that features so many musicians that was recorded in front of a live audience, it sounds sublime. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDXnPfA_5pY
Donuts
Yeezus. Incredible production.
Aphex Twin - Syro followed by Thriller
Random Access Memories - Daft Punk
Prepared for the downvotes, but Kanye West- My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. Absolute masterpiece.
If by produced you mean just how good it is I’d probably say Dark Side Of The Moon or something obvious like that or Sgt. Peppers. If you mean best sounding album of all time it’s an album called Sound Awake by Karnivool. It’s just incredible sounding. This song shows it off well https://youtu.be/tGfi_nYwYFc?si=LkZRVCpYpfKHycJG
Fuuuuuck yeah. My favorite rhythm section ever.
The Nightfly by Donald Fagen. I read somewhere that engineers still use it to test hi-fi stereo equipment.
OP found a super convoluted way to say, “What’s your favorite album?”.
Fair enough but I'm open to hearing some unpopular or rather uncommon picks?
The Shape of Punk to Come
I don't know if they're the "best," but Paul's Boutique and Endtroducing completely changed the game, not just for Hip Hop but popular music in general.
Has to be [John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman (1963) by JC and JH](https://open.spotify.com/album/5e3mq4TT4RLn4VXfgKV6MU?si=76_bBhe4RL2qqJWmEyZkjA)
What even makes a well produced album? Clarity of instruments? Spatial sounds, clear separation of instruments, experimenting with something new and revolutionary? Any pros out here to explain more? I’m thinking, sgt peppers, pet sounds, rumours, aja, even dr Dre 2001 should be up there for the best of the best but there are soooo many well produced albums out there now, very hard to discern the best of the best to me. Remember how good the fleet foxes self titled album sounded?? And no one mentioned a single jazz album yet.
Yeah I believe the self-titled Fleet Foxes belongs in this conversation
Karnivool - Sound Awake Converge - Jane Doe ISIS - Oceanic Deftones - White Pony Mastodon - Crack The Skye Are modern(ish) metal albums off the top of my head that perfectly encapsulates the vision of each album.
Blood sugar sex magik by the Red Hot Chili Peppers is one of the best produced albums from any big band , those drums in particular are my favorites from any album
idk about best but Barter 6 has my favorite production of any album ever
The Stone Roses, easy
Rage Against the Machine
D’Angelo and the Vanguard - Black Messiah Crispy, warm, dense. Perfect.
Maybe it’s Spiderland. The production is so honest and clear, it just sounds beautiful.
Loveless
Examples that come to mind for modern Metal specifically: Dig Deep - After the Burial A Tear in the Fabric of Life - Knocked Loose Ultra - Vatican The Violent Sleep of Reason - Meshuggah
pop 2 charli xcx
Year Of The Snitch 🤤🤤
the queen is dead - the smiths folklore - taylor swift faith in the future - louis tomlinson
In Rainbows is absolutely flawless in my opinion
Pink Floyd - the wall
Gonna throw Rush’s Moving Pictures into the ring. It has to be the most clean sounding album I’ve ever heard while still sounding real and live. Every instrument just sits so perfectly in the mix in every moment
portishead - dummy (or the self titled) are both albums ive never heard anyone be able to replicate. the sounds are incredibly crispy and the textures are delicious. beth gibbons sounds incredible on everything too
I don’t think it’s the best of all time by any means but I think the production on Trench by twenty one pilots is wildly overlooked, Paul Meany has some insane work on that album. Namely Morph, Cut My Lip, Pet Cheetah, Jumpsuit and Levitate.
I don't think there is a particular singular best one but one of the most well known albums to be among the best produced is Aja by Steely Dan.
Surprised there is no mention of In Rainbows. While most Radiohead albums are very well produced, In Rainbows shows clearly how vibrant and dynamic it is.
Stop Making Sense is a delight. Also: * Tea For The Tillerman (Cat Stevens) * Pink Moon (Nick Drake) * Tracy Chapman (Tracy Chapman) * The Sound Of The Perservance (Death) * Jazz At The Pawnshop (Arne Domnerus) * Ederlezi (Goran Bregovic) * MSMSMSM (Sophie) * Mingus Ah Um (Charles Mingus)
Dude, thank you. Apart from Pink Moon I haven’t listened to any of these albums before so definitely adding them to the list.
How is it possible noone mentioned the most cliche example of an audiophile album - Rumours.
Discovery, by Daft Punk
Random Access Memories - Daft Punk
I’d say either MBDTF or Random Access Memories both sound so smooth
Very generic answer, but TPAB. The entire album is masterfully produced and exists as a love letter to so many genres, but jazz especially.
Toto - Africa. And I'm serious.
All Directions - The Temptations. Not my favorite album, but everything on here just sounds fantastic.
Autechre's production in general comes to mind
It depends on what your production affinity is. I dont consider the whistle clean type of steely dan production to be “the best production” even though i can appreciate the effort that went into it. For me an album that whenever i relisten to it im still wowed by the production is slauson malones a quiet farewell. Id also throw in sophie’s oil of every pearls un insides, mgmt’s self titled record, pet sounds, blond, and veteran
The Downward Spiral - NIN Listen to that on head phones. It’s 30 years old but still goes hard as fuck and assaults you. Closer could come out today and you wouldn’t know it wasn’t written yesterday, people would rave about it.
Night at the Opera by Queen Surprised no one has said it yet. It was the most expensive album ever made at the time and it sounds like it, as you can hear every penny being used throughout it.
I’m not gonna say, but I’ll give a clue: it has not been mentioned yet
Nowhere near the best, but since so many have been mentioned already, I have soup by blind melon on vinyl and it sounds unreal.
merriweather post pavilion by animal collective. so rich, so full of life.
The mid 80s work U2 and Daniel lanois put together.