Examples of record companies pressuring creative choices?

The general phenomenon of label meddling over artist resistance might be ubiquitous, but there could still be interesting, noteworthy, or particularly egregious examples. This could thread could be a place to post and discuss such examples.

How about being told not to play on the record at all, which was standard practice at least pre, idk, 1965 or so?

This is still common practice, particularly with drummers. I've heard of numerous cases where the drummer will record individual hits which are sampled and then cut 'n' pasted onto a grid for the album.

LITERALLY PICK ANY ARTIST ON A RECORD LABEL

― Οὖτις, Thursday, 7 July 2016 22:01

I want the accounts/stories, not a list of every music artist on a record label. Aside from the common things I mentioned at the top, I haven't seen many people in music talking about being told to go in directions they didn't want.

Captain Beefheart "Strictly Personal" - "Originally intended to be a double album called It Comes to You in a Plain Brown Wrapper for the Buddah label, it was released later in pieces in 1971 and 1995. After rejection from Buddah, Bob Krasnow encouraged the band to re–record four of the shorter numbers, add two more, and make shorter versions of Mirror Man and Kandy Korn. The music was already weakly recorded with a trebly thin sound[citation needed]. Krasnow created a strange mix full of "phasing" that, by most accounts, (including Beefheart's) diminished the music's strength. This was released in October 1968 as Strictly Personal on Krasnow's Blue Thumb label."

De La Soul "Pass the Plugs": "Singin' on records, making it hectic / Wishing it all would fall and die / Radio works it, public consumes it / Tommy boy wants another say no, huh / Rough and rugged, it's not a new twist / Been trugoy since the first get go / Here's the daisy / Watching it die, see"

XTC "Skylarking" - forced to work with Rundgren, Mermaid Smiled swapped out for Dear God, etc.

so many, the list is endless

every Phil Spector production ever

Around the same time, Gaye's label Motown tried to get the artist to record in the current sound of the times, disco music. Gaye criticized the music, claiming it lacked substance and vowed against recording in the genre. His label mate Diana Ross had recorded her first disco song, "Love Hangover". The song's producer Hal Davis debated over giving that song to either Ross or Gaye. After working over the song, he went with Ross, and it became her fourth solo number one hit. Motown struggled to get Gaye in the studio as Gaye focused on work on an album (which would later be released as Here, My Dear, dedicated to Gaye's troubled first marriage). After months of holding off from recording anything resembling disco, the singer set upon writing a song parodying a disco setting.

Del the Funkee Homosapien's "I Wish My Brother George Was Here"

Malcolm McLaren dressing up the NY Dolls in red leather + Soviet flag backdrop

Kelly Clarkson hated "Since U Been Gone," Clive Davis forced her to work with Dr. Luke and put it on her first album

all of Willie Nelson's early records in Nashville

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDRjsKcFC9g

Albert Ayler, "New Grass"

"They told me to do this. Bob Thiele. You think I would do that now? He said, 'Look Albert, you got to get with the young generation now.'"

Sleep's record label hated Dopesmoker (then Jerusalem), refused to put it out as a single song and forced them to chop it into tracks, then dropped them

all of Willie Nelson's early records in Nashville

Charlie Rich in Nashville. Billy Sherrill wouldn't even let him play piano on his own records, said the studio musicians couldn't follow him.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cut_the_Crap

Mellencamp confessed in a 2005 interview: "That (name) was put on me by some manager. I went to New York and everybody said, 'You sound like a hillbilly.' And I said, 'Well, I am.' So that's where he came up with that name. I was totally unaware of it until it showed up on the album jacket. When I objected to it, he said, 'Well, either you're going to go for it, or we’re not going to put the record out.' So that was what I had to do... but I thought the name was pretty silly."

In 1980, Mellencamp returned with the Steve Cropper-produced Nothin' Matters and What If It Did, which yielded two Top 40 singles – "This Time" (No. 27) and "Ain't Even Done With the Night" (No. 17). "The singles were stupid little pop songs," he told Record Magazine in 1983. "I take no credit for that record. It wasn't like the title was made up – it wasn't supposed to be punky or cocky like some people thought. Toward the end, I didn't even go to the studio. Me and the guys in the band thought we were finished, anyway. It was the most expensive record I ever made. It cost $280,000, do you believe that? The worst thing was that I could have gone on making records like that for hundreds of years. Hell, as long as you sell a few records and the record company isn't putting a lot of money into promotion, you're making money for 'em and that's all they care about. PolyGram loved Nothin' Matters. They thought I was going to turn into the next Neil Diamond."

XTC "Skylarking" - forced to work with Rundgren, Mermaid Smiled swapped out for Dear God, etc.

― Οὖτις, Thursday, 7 July 2016 22:27

In a BBC radio documentary about Rundgren, one of the XTC guys said they picked Rundgren from a list. I remember Rundgren asking Partridge to leave the studio after a certain point.

yeah but they hated him and hated the album

XTC also has lots of complaints about the videos Virgin made them do

Andrew Loog Oldham locking Mick and Keith in a room and telling them to write their own material, demoting Ian Stewart, etc.

A lot of bands were told to start writing their own material in the 60s.

Lou Reed "Sally Can't Dance": While the record was a hit and elevated Reed's status as a star, he reportedly was disappointed in its production (in which he took a largely passive role) and the treatment of the songs. Reed remarked, "It seems like the less I'm involved with a record, the bigger a hit it becomes. If I weren't on the record at all next time around, it might go to Number One."

A lot of bands were told to start writing their own material in the 60s.

yes well RAG wants specific examples dontchaknow, doesn't seem to care that the vast majority of bands are an example

Classic Lou quote.

A lot of bands were told to start writing their own material in the 60s.

― They could have been Stackridge. (Tom D.), Thursday, 7 July 2016 23:02

Why did this start happening?

I'm grateful for all examples. But I'm still hoping for nuggets about people being told to sound like Stereophonics or look like Insane Clown Posse.

The Move: The promotional campaign for "Flowers in the Rain" led to litigation that had serious repercussions for Wood and the group. Without consulting the band, Secunda produced a cartoon postcard showing the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Harold Wilson, in bed with his secretary, Marcia Williams. Wilson sued The Move for libel and the group lost the court case; they had to pay all costs, and all royalties earned by the song, which otherwise would have belonged to Wood as composer, were awarded to charities of Wilson's choice. The ruling, much to Wood's chagrin, remained in force even after Wilson's death in 1995.

this was another pretty good recent one

http://pitchfork.com/news/34834-klaxons-change-second-album-after-label-pressure/

Why did this start happening?

The Beatles.

... also more money from publishing.

Simon & Garfunkel's "Sounds of Silence" getting the folk-rock overdub treatment w/out their knowledge or participation

Nico, "Chelsea Girl"

"I still cannot listen to it, because everything I wanted for that record, they took it away. I asked for drums, they said no. I asked for more guitars, they said no. And I asked for simplicity, and they covered it in flutes! [...] They added strings and – I didn't like them, but I could live with them. But the flute! The first time I heard the album, I cried and it was all because of the flute."

Rick Rubin pressuring Run DMC into doing "Walk This Way" w/Aerosmith

Alex Chilton's entire career as a Box Top

first RZA and GZA singles

jon landau pressuring bruce springsteen to write a hit single for born in the usa after springsteen thought it was done. he told landau to go fuck himself (those may not have been his exact words), then crawled away (that may not have been his exact action) and wrote "dancing in the dark."

brian epstein forcing the beatles to wear nice, clean, matching suits

Andrew W.K. This album was originally titled "Blow Your Bone", but the title was deemed "Too offensive" by Island Records, so Andrew opted to use the name "The Wolf". Cover art was even made with the original title, but it differed from the cover art of "The Wolf".

Pink Floyd, "It Would Be So Nice"

Nick Mason: "Fucking awful, that record, wasn't it? At that period we had no direction. We were being hustled about to make hit singles. There's so many people saying it's important you start to think it is important. It is possible on an LP to do exactly what we want to do. . . ."

Roger Waters: "Live bookings seem to depend on whether or not you have a record in the Top Ten. I don't like 'It Would Be So Nice.' I don't like the song or the way it's sung."

Mason: "We were a rock and roll band and if you're a rock and roll band and you've got a record that you want to be number one, you get it played and if they say 'take something out' or whatever - you do it. In fact what you do is exactly what was done - you make as much press out of it as possible. You ring up the Evening Standard and say: 'Did you know that the BBC won't play our record because it mentions your paper?'"

steve miller's record company threatening to drop him unless he wrote a song with the word "pompatus" in it*

*this may or may not be true

the tracklisting and everything else about the beatles' first seven or eight u.s. albums, including but not at all limited to "yesterday and today."

Badfinger being told they could have McCartney's "Come and Get It" as long as they played it note for note like his demo

Scott Walker, "The Moviegoer"

The album was the first of six studio albums in which Walker did not contribute original material. Having lost creative control of his music after the commercial failures of his previous two studio albums Scott 4 and 'Til the Band Comes In, Walker was tasked with recording "inoffensive, middle-of-the-road material that could be easily processed, marketed and sold". By way of compromise Walker had some say in the song selection and drew together a selection of themes from some of his favourite films.

This could end up as one of the longest threads on ILX.

where are those Floyd quotes from Tom D? i could, right now, read an entire book of Floyd talking about their entire recorded output in such fashion.

This could end up as one of the longest threads on ILX.

....

... Wikipedia! Sometimes seems Floyd are more critical of their own recordings than most of their critics! (xp)

who was first to break free? the beatles worked themselves up to it, but zeppelin seems to have had unusually free rein from the start. who else?

Dylan was pretty free. Thanks to Albert Grossman.

Rap-A-Lot's rotating cast of Geto Boys members

Zappa (my stock answer for anything)
xp

The La's: The Eden sessions with Lillywhite would become the band's final attempt at recording the album. The frustration of not achieving the right sound and mood in their songs, as well as increasing friction with Go! Discs, who had spent a considerable sum of money on recording sessions for the album, led to them simply giving up on the sessions. Lillywhite pieced together the recordings he had made with the group into what became the eventually released album. The band, particularly Lee Mavers, were not pleased with this decision. Among the band's complaints were that Lillywhite used vocal guide tracks on the LP and that he did not "understand" their sound. Mavers would later go on to claim that the band had played poorly deliberately during the sessions in the hope that the material would not be released, as they did not gel with Lillywhite from day one.

They should've at least mentioned it somewhere in the Michael Rapaport doc.