Songs with top-notch production that still amazes you

How to do this, that and the other. Share, learn, teach. How did X do that? How can I sound like Y?
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Promised You a Miracle by Simple Minds:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tX55HEX0hb0

Funny thing, the video shows the band playing analog/acoustic instruments. There are some places where the bass does sound like a fat Fender, but clearly at other places the bass-line is some type of synth.

There's everything that was good about 80's new wave pop (yes there were some great songs out of that) - this one has a simply killer bass line that rivals anything by Chic from the 70's/80's. And that opening synth chordal riff is one of the best opening phrase. Now I'm off listening to other Simple Minds like "Up on the Catwalk" (Killer sound on the drums - remember that was 1983 when recorded - Steve Lillywhite, thank you!) Waterfront, Speed Your Love to Me, all had that huge Lillywhite drum sound.

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This song was wayyyy ahead of its time: Prodigy - "Smack My B Up"

http://vimeo.com/43574586

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I was just watching a video about the making of the album.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHcF1aJhJbc

Bat Out of Hell - Meat Loaf

What an amazing track, singing, production, playing etc.
Anyone who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.

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rockstar_not wrote:Promised You a Miracle by Simple Minds:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tX55HEX0hb0

Funny thing, the video shows the band playing analog/acoustic instruments. There are some places where the bass does sound like a fat Fender, but clearly at other places the bass-line is some type of synth.

There's everything that was good about 80's new wave pop (yes there were some great songs out of that) - this one has a simply killer bass line that rivals anything by Chic from the 70's/80's. And that opening synth chordal riff is one of the best opening phrase. Now I'm off listening to other Simple Minds like "Up on the Catwalk" (Killer sound on the drums - remember that was 1983 when recorded - Steve Lillywhite, thank you!) Waterfront, Speed Your Love to Me, all had that huge Lillywhite drum sound.
Yes, good, repetitive riffs are quite a mighty tool.

I did not know that song, but I love their old song Someone somewhere in summertime, always been a favorite of mine :)

There are several songs where I never really knew whether the bass was electric or synth, like Ain't nobody by Rufus, which also sounds very good, but it is so famous that we don't really pay attention to it anymore in terms of music (although it has been named one of the best songs in music history by the Rolling Stones magazine). It often plays in the background, which is a shame.

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Time for some Soul in yer hole?

3 Classics

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOg_8hCC4u4

RIP Bobby Womack

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Z66wVo7uNw

and this'un

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGGRi2CEFu8

You know tunes are good when you play 'em to kids who've never heard 'em before and they start shaking booty within hearing the opening couple of bars.
Just make the music that you enjoy (failing that go for a walk, watch some porn, have a fight with a random bloke until something else happens).

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Speaking of Rufus, there were a couple of great tracks on Chaka Khan's first solo album (1984, same year as Ain't nobody). Her songs tend to increase a lot in density towards the end...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rGC2AtF7xw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGpGPROEg-I

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I remember the first time I heard this song by the Temptations, I had the volume on my stereo too loud, almost fell from my chair. I did not see that kind of bass drum and bass coming from the Temptations :hihi:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBJpCjw0B_s

They often had one or two great songs on their albums, while the rest was mediocre at best.

Like this on an older album of theirs, sounded also pretty good back then:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L44TOrHyBcU

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Yeager wrote:And this : It SOUNDS very beautiful detailed and open,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-o3l8uKloM
Amazing album!!!!!!!! The production is perfect.
eh?

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If you allow me...

A self-produced song based around the singer's voice and lyrics,

A bit outdated perhaps, but unique IMO, at every aspects (quality and intelligence of the lyrics as well as the originality of the theme/subject, uniqueness of the background orchestration, richness of the melody and their ornaments when played by background instrument and, of course because being "the jimi hendrix of vocalist" the expressiveness of the voice

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdtFHLT8u4Q

Here the lyrics page from the site of the artist :

http://sofasound.com/phcds/iclyrics.htm#5

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Everything from the last Boards of Canada album, Tomorrow's Harvest.

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Brzzzzzzt.

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just listening to these at the mo on my phone:
The Flat Earth
Therapy/Growth
Leipzig.. all Thomas Dolby

the hissing of summer lawns by Joni Mitchel .. astonishing there is not one note out of true,, amazing work...
think of some more shortly i would think..

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yNAABKD4IA

And all that David Bottrill have produced... ;-)

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Sure, the sound quality as such is better today, but I think they did a great job for what was possible back then, a classic instrumental piece:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BP1_1DpeBE

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