In every "Classic Album" TV/Radio documentary...

21. Ugliest member of the band turning out to be the handsomest member of the band after aging.

22. Singer/guitarist performs a portion of a key song with an age-ravaged voice and completely different guitar tone/effects.

23. "[Insert famous musician] dropped in during the recording, and he/she/they just loved it!'

24. vacuous non-celebrities opining on record that they are suspiciously young to have heard when it came out

25. Drug casualty member interviewed with slightly haggard, ex-rock chick wife as prop in suburban garden.

26. Shit song written by bass player covered in 15 seconds

27. Original choice of cover art features naked chix/blatant drug references

28. Interviewee's cigarette placed just out side of frame

29. Reference to the album's chart position with a slow pan up the issue of Billboard it peaked in, with some embarrassing or less respectable album just above it.

30. Producer interviewed swivelling round in a chair in front of enormous mixing desk

31. Dude from record label who thought the album was shit and didn't want to release it.

30. Producer interviewed swivelling round in a chair in front of enormous mixing desk

that was likely not used to mix said record on

32. Norwegian recluse complaining that the album isn't melodic enough.

33. Story about enormous tape loop held taut with pencils and mic stands threading around control room.

34. "It was so small we had to put the drummer/string section in the bathroom/fire escape staircase"

35. Affectionate anecdotes about dead ex-roadies who were, in reality, drug-addled rapists and thugs
36. Embittered ancedotes about ex-managers who failed to make them even more money they already have

37. Commercials

38. Nile Rodgers.

39. Drummer who "happens" to be sitting in front of a bunch of gold discs on the wall.

40. "Bodger discovered that if he suspended his guitar amp over a fire bucket full of eels he got amazing natural reverb."

41. Richest or key member of band interviewed not in rented studio but in equally well kitted out home studio built in an enormous barn in Shropshire.

42. "If you listen very closely to the guitar solo in 'Truck Train Trailer', you can hear Aggi's son babbling about rubber duckies. When I pointed it out to Stephen a few years ago, he nearly bit my head off -- but I think it really adds to the character of the song. Nice little easter egg that very few people know about."

43. "This was our Deserter's Songs."

Slightly too many Pastels references in there for comfort!

44. Sixties album recorded on 4 or 8 track machine, listened back on brand new 172 track console.

Slightly too many Pastels references in there for comfort!

purely coincidental!

45. "That one didn't work 'till we broke out the whiskey and hookers. Only took one take after that."

46. "Initially, I was against putting out [insert classic hit] as a single..."

47. "And this bit..." (presses button on board to solo single instrument from the multitrack tape) "...is a guitar played with a mike stand/ashtray/old shoe/skull of a 13th century monk/some other bizarre object"

46. Lengthy interview with band member that conveniently avoids any mention of a popular urban legend regarding their initial refusal to record the song that became the album's biggest hit.

lol xpost

47. producer not so subtly hinting that hit song in question was a mess until he too control of it

took

48. One track that is never ever discussed or played, usually always about halfway through Side 2.

See 26. Shit song written by bass player covered in 15 seconds

Yes!

49. Guitar sound described using quasi-psychedelic imagery ("we wanted the guitar solo to sound like flying through purple thunderclouds on an antique Persian carpet sprayed with unicorn urine!")

50. Footage of the album's songs being played live culled almost exclusively from tours that took place many years, albums and lineup changes later.

(xpost) addendum: description gives you no fucking clue what the guitar actually sounds like, then the engineer/producer punches it in and it just sounds like a Tele played through an AC30.

51. Corollary to #1: "Of course, this was all mixed before automation..."

52. Everyone in file footage wearing eyeglasses in the studio.

53. "And this is the guitar I used..." - gingerly picks up ancient wreck of an instrument with 35 years of collected fingernail grime on the frets and finger board

54. "(name of musician) was the first person in the country to own a (insert name of obscure synth), and no-one in the studio knew how to use it!"

55. Corollary to #51. "Final Mix was like a performance" anecdote

56. Really boring keyboard player

57. "We got the bass drum to sound like this by stuffing it with a dead dog!"

58. Keyboardist: "This is the actual keyboard I used for that track...", but what it comes time to play a bit of it, a modern keyboard is used instead, not-so-subtly skating over the fact that the older keyboard doesn't work.

59. "Of course, back then no-one knew that heroin was dangerous"

60. Cowboy hats

61. Bass played now has a beard that makes him look like the Unabomber.

Truck train tractor

62. Gritty archival helicopter view of lower-income housing towers in city where band formed / bucolic car-window footage of shady streets and porches in small town where band formed

It's cool, Maresn3st, no need to feel bad. Nobody has the entire board memorized... except a few posters (who know who they are)

111. Impressionistic footage of a stylus gently undulating as a vinyl LP lusciously revolves on a turntable

112. Dave Grohl

113. Establishing footage of aged Rock Star arriving at studio in a new sports car.

114. Someone who was once a legendary reckless party animal making and drinking something like a wheat-grass smoothie

(And yes, Dave Grohl arriving in a sports car and then drinking an acai kombucha could hit these last three easily)

Anyone say "Carlos Santana invokes 'Coltrane' and 'Miles' amidst some cosmic gobbledygook talk"?

115. Footage of people frugging at Woodstock

116. Musician suddenly pausing while describing something horrible and staring off into space before reaching a very brief, apologetic conclusion.

Did anyone ever see BBC Four's When Albums Ruled the World or whatever it was called, and the narrative was that MTV came along and ruined the fun (somehow). And I can't remember who it was but some talking head in a very quivering voice came on at this point, to talk about how things were before MTV, saying 'looking at someone's record collection used to be like LOOKING INTO THEIR SOUL'.

Absolutely correct.

looking at someone's spotify history is more intimate since you see what they actually listen to not just what they own and display

117. unrelated famous musician or other celebrity roped in to explain the importance of music they're clearly not very familiar with, because the producers reckon no one will care otherwise

somehow never discovered this thread before. fantastic read. "it changed my life."

117a - celebrity is Stuart Maconie.

118. Easily licensable photos and/or crummy stock footage of "influences", most of which have diddley shit to do with the featured act.

119. Shot of interviewee finishing their chat and walking out of frame.

Printed Postscript: [insert name here] DIED AFTER THIS INTERVIEW. THIS FILM IS DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF [HE/SHE/THEM].

120. Producer or someone sits in front of a mixing desk with what is apparently the original master tapes loaded into the tape machine - or at least that's the idea - but irritatingly they don't actually describe the production process, or show how the music is mixed, or play any of it back, or anything.

I mention this because there's a documentary about Steely Dan's Aja where they do play alternative drum tracks from "Peg" while sitting at the mixing desk, and it's fascinating. The obvious audience for classic album documentaries is super-nerds, but the producers always insist on aiming them at a general audience who (in the producers' mind) don't need to know about the technical stuff.

I mean, doesn't everybody want to hear Steve Albini talk for half an hour about vintage guitar pedals? I rest my case.

121. "We wanted to get back to basics."

Ha @ 120 -- I was actually thinking about this earlier, how the financial backers of these kinds of things have to pursue a wide audience.... fundamentally at cross purposes with the lore-seeking musicians and music nerds in the audience (or doing the interviews). And so:

122. Palpable sense throughout that hours of genuinely interesting minutia and making-of stories have been left on the cutting-room floor, in favor of anecdotes which anyone remotely familiar with the band/album has already heard millions of times.

123. Band members filmed separately, often thousands of miles apart, because they cannot stand each other and have only been doing it for the money for years.

124. Palpable tension between original producer and 20-year-old assistant when the latter is required to press the spacebar on a ProTools rig.

125. Studio being used for playback scenes not the original studio, which is long gone and replaced by a mixed-use development of condos and an anchor Starbucks.

126. Band member/creative genius with a long history of "recovery" wearing shades during every interview.

125(A). Scene of band members pulling up to said Starbucks in disbelief.

"Bloody hell!... Anybody for a latte?"

125 (B) “So this is where the control room was…the drums were usually set up where that espresso machine is…oh, and the bathroom, that was the vocal booth. Let’s check it out…[snaps fingers]…wow! Still got that sound!”

Did anyone ever see BBC Four's When Albums Ruled the World or whatever it was called, and the narrative was that MTV came along and ruined the fun (somehow). And I can't remember who it was but some talking head in a very quivering voice came on at this point, to talk about how things were before MTV, saying 'looking at someone's record collection used to be like LOOKING INTO THEIR SOUL'.