Aging rock act on new album: This time we wanted to go back to the basics

oops tough to tell the difference

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-album-reviews/green-day-father-of-all-motherfuckers-review-948579/

an album released at the nadir of alt-rock’s cultural reach in which they displayed their mastery of vintage rock songcraft

hwæt

re: "vintage rock" - for the minute they were on in my lyft it sounded like green day recognizing that to kids queen, weezer and my chemical romance are all 'vintage rock' and there's not enough bandwidth to stake a brand on any further distinctions.

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/giles-martin-reflects-on-final-abbey-road-recording-sessions-you-actually-wonder-if-the-beatles-could-have-sustained-themselves-161415239.html

“And I love the sound of the E Street Band playing completely live in the studio, in a way we’ve never done before, and with no overdubs. We made the album in only five days, and it turned out to be one of the greatest recording experiences I’ve ever had.”

 “We wanted to get back to what it was like to be in a band when we first started being in bands – remembering what it was like the first time you picked up a guitar, or the first time you sat behind a set of drums,” he says.

https://rockandrollglobe.com/pop/clem-burke-full-moon-empty-hearts/

choice quote

first time I picked up a guitar I held it the wrong way round and probably dropped it

The first time I picked up a guitar it didn't have strings on it.

Looking forward to a full record of someone violently strumming an out of tune acoustic guitar (all open strings because you don’t know how to fret notes yet).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTQEVXLAfc4

Looking forward to a full record of someone violently strumming an out of tune acoustic guitar (all open strings because you don’t know how to fret notes yet).

https://corwoodindustries.com/

Found this in The Wallflowers’ Wikipedia page:

When in the studio, the band were intent on using as little recording equipment as possible. Dylan explained: "If I could have had it my way I would not have seen a microphone or a cable anywhere."

Dylan goes unelectric!

Dylan unrecorded !

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/81JmWMfPv2L._AC_SY450_.jpg

Great title, not great subtitle

Charlie Daniels not known for subt(it)lety

lol

lol that jake Dylan quote, it’s like yeah I know what you mean but it still sounds completely psychotic

lol that jake Dylan quote, it’s like yeah I know what you mean but it still sounds completely psychotic

Would rather read an interview with the engineer in charge of taping microphones to the ceiling out of his field of vision, or sneakily clipping one to the brim of his hat just before he starts singing...

The Wikipedia page says: However, finding a producer who was willing to work with them proved to be difficult. The band was intent on recording live and few producers were willing to produce that way. Paul Fox eventually stepped in and agreed to produce the album.

This was the band's first album, btw. It's kinda funny to read between the lines: "Yeah, Bob Dylan's kid wants to make a record, and record it 'live'... Sorry, I'm all booked up..."

The album also sounds kind of thin and shitty, if you listen to it.

Jakob [to engineer]: "OK, can we listen to that one back?"

engineer: "Yeah, absolutely."

Jakob: "...um...I'm not hearing anything...?"

engineer: "No, see, Jakob, this is exactly what you asked for: no mics. How do you like your new 'back to basics' sound? Also, I'm still on the clock."

the equivalent of this for nu metal bands that were covered in kerrang ! in the 1990s was always "this is our heaviest album yet".

In British literary circles a couple decades back, there was a joke about how one of the most unlikely book titles would be "My Struggle," by Martin Amis.

(Sorry to kill the joke with explanation, but the implication is that it was probably very easy for the sun of a massively successful author to get a book deal.)

I'm thinking that one could construct a similar joke about how the Wallflowers needed to pay their dues by touring in a decrepit minivan, playing in tiny clubs to nonexistent audiences, etc. etc. until finally a brave A&R guy decided to take a chance and give them a record deal.

erg, "son," not "sun." sorry

https://img.discogs.com/SFp5xjKhZFuN8UUg96Ou3FYDlpE=/fit-in/600x628/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-16254996-1606061803-7585.jpeg.jpg

Jansen/Barbieri/Karn - Playing In A Room With People

haha that is the ultimate back to basics title

'Despite a pair of duets with country icons Dolly Parton and Rodney Crowell, Jewel’s Picking Up the Pieces is mostly an intimate, back-to-basics album, focused on the same folksy introspection that made her debut Pieces of You a hit 20 years ago. It’s appropriate, then, that the new video for “Pretty Faced Fool” is simple and straightforward. In the clip above, Jewel strums the acoustic ballad in a recording studio, while Christmas lights glow in the background.' https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-country/watch-jewels-back-to-basics-pretty-faced-fool-video-169060/

Would prefer "we wanted to go back to the basics - an expensive analog mixing desk, a rotating cast of crack session players and cocaine by the ounce."

Anything recent fit that bill?

This is not recent, but see the second paragraph

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.today.com/today/amp/wbna5452205

This is a few years old, but it fits.

Haake tells Metal Hammer: “This album is recorded live. It’s the first time we’ve done that in 20, 25 years. It was time limitations that stopped us doing it before. And it’s been interesting.

“If you put it all together using computers then you often have to fix problems after the fact. I’ve gone back to records where I’ve not known every drum part. And once you do that you can start with drums and then just add layers of guitars and then bass and it all sounds perfect.

”Obzen and Koloss are great albums but, to me, they are a little too perfect. It didn’t really capture what we sounded like honestly.

“But where we recorded live you get to hear the push and pull, one person might be a little ahead and the other might be a little behind. If you kill that, you can kill the energy.”

Haake adds: “So for us it was just about going back to those albums that inspired us when we were growing up, that were important to us in our formative years, and all of those bands had that energy. The albums in the 80s and early 90s had the rawness that I’m talking about – that’s what we wanted to recapture.”

https://www.loudersound.com/news/meshuggah-recorded-violent-sleep-of-reason-live

Perfect

wow that truly has it all in terms of back to basics

*chef's kiss*

What's funny about that is that Obzen always sounded looser and "jammier" (and like they'd been listening to a whole fuckin' lot of Tool) than its immediate predecessors...which was why I didn't like it.

What's the least basic band that claimed to go back to basics?

Tom Jones: Getting Back To Basics On 'Spirit In The Room'

Not the first time Metal Hammer covered a band doing that:

Earlier, we referenced Metallica’s past as a key player in the burgeoning thrash-metal scene of the mid 80s. It’s a period they themselves were forced to revisit on Death Magnetic, under express instruction from their new producer, Rick Rubin.

“Rick kept telling us: ‘Think like you used to think in 1985. Approach it like you did in 1985. Listen to the same records you did in 1985.’ Everything was about transporting yourself back to 1985,” Lars divulges.

Rick, of course, was encouraging a back-to-basics approach. He wanted Metallica to simultaneously recapture the fire of their early days and dispel the painful memories of working with Bob Rock on St Anger.

https://www.loudersound.com/features/metallica-death-magnetic-album-interview-2008

Nicki Minaj Reveals Why She Went Back To Basics

Here's another Green Day one from some 2010 sessions that might not even have ended up on anything.

"It's just been songwriting right now. Instead of doing it later on, we decided to start doing stuff now. ... It's all back to the basics again. Just getting in a room together and start jamming," Armstrong said. "We set up all of our old gear, which was like an experiment. We set up all of our equipment from 1992, and we sat in a room. We got in, and I was like, 'Come on, guys, we're getting back in!' and I [start playing] and go, 'This sounds like sh--!' Everything sounded so bad."

"Me and [drummer] Tre [Cool] were looking at Billie going, 'Really, you've got to pull out that POS amp?' " bassist Mike Dirnt laughed. "I mean, it really sounded like crap."

green day "jamming" is up there with the worst music i can imagine

I'm just getting a kick out of "Me and [drummer] Tre [Cool]".

sounds like they needed some green that day

St Vincent on her new video and “dirt under the fingernails” album, which is like blues for 2021.

“This is just a performance video of me singing a song, dancing and just doing everything in a very practical way. It was going in the same spirit as the music where it’s just a performance. It’s not got heavy-heavy production, but we just did it in the room to capture a moment.”

"return to form"

Most basic band to go back to basics？

Probably AC/DC:

To anyone outside the hard rock tent, it’s laughable to hear that there once was a time when AC/DC yearned to get back to basics.

https://www.loudersound.com/features/ac-dc-the-final-salute-flick-of-the-switch-fly-on-the-wall

Was thinking ramones