Examples of record companies pressuring creative choices?

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.

The Turtles, "Shell Shock"

... the quintet assembled at Sunset Sound studios in late 1969 and began recording their usual mix of originals and outside-written tracks. Produced by Jerry Yester, the band again sought to record another intelligent and musically diverse album as Turtle Soup, this time a bit more commercial. Songs known to have been recorded during these sessions include: original songs “Can I Go On”, “If We Only Had The Time”, “There You Sit Lonely”, “We Ain’t Gonna Party No More” and guitarist Al Nichol’s “You Want To Be A Woman”; the Bonner/Gordon leftovers “Goodbye Surprise” and “Like It Or Not”; an authentic cover of Jan & Arnie’s “Gas Money”; and a cover of the band's live staple, Lee Andrews & The Hearts’ “Teardrops”. But midway through the sessions, White Whale wished The Turtles to have a hit single, and suggested that Kaylan and Volman fly to Memphis and record vocal overdubs on a pre-recorded backing track for the ridiculously corny song “Who Would Ever Thought That I Would Marry Margaret”, penned by professional songwriters Dino and Sembello. Kaylan and Volman refused, claiming this transgression would reduce their rock band into transparent pop idols. In retaliation for their refusal to turn their band into a pair of fake pop singers, White Whale chained the doors to their studio at Sunset Sound and even posted guards outside the door, not allowing The Turtles to even retrieve their own gear, let alone finish the album!

In a desperate attempt to save the Shell Shock recordings and the hope to somehow finish the album, Kaylan and Volman agreed to record “Margaret”, although they refused to add anything other than their necessary lead and backing vocals. This ‘unfinished’ mix was released to dismal critical and commercial attention—just as the pair had predicted—and the single was a flop. Despite Kaylan and Volman’s participation, White Whale still refused to let The Turtles finish Shell Shock and both parties sued each other: White Whale sued The Turtles for a breach of contract and The Turtles sued White Whale for a missing $2,500,000 that was owed to them. The band soon called it quits amidst litigation. In one final plea to salvage the band’s reputation, White Whale allowed Kaylan, Volman and Nichol to record vocals for a final Turtles single, the beautiful “Lady-O”. Written and performed acoustically by Judee Sill, it was a gentle goodbye to the band.

The product of two years of labor, "Tim Hardin" found the artist moving away from his earlier white-blues catalog towards folk-rock. Backed by an eclectic cast, including The Lovin' Spoonful's John Sebastian, the combination of Hardin's world weary drawl, several classic tunes ("Reason To Believe", "Hang On To a Dream" and "Don't Make Promises") and his pretty boy looks proved irresistible to critics who raved over the set. Ironically, Hardin was reportedly furious with the string arrangements and other postproduction work.

Strings on Chelsea Girls were by Larry Fallon, btw, who also did the string arrangements on Astral Weeks.

"Neil Young is the only artist in the history of modern recording to be sued for refusing to be himself. The suit, filed by Geffen Records, Young’s label for much of the Eighties, charged that he was violating his contract by recording ‘unrepresentative’ albums. In other words, Neil Young wasn’t making Neil Young music."

Van Morrison: Bert Berns, Them’s producer and composer of their 1965 hit, "Here Comes the Night", persuaded Morrison to return to New York to record solo for his new label, Bang Records.[55] Morrison flew over and signed a contract he had not fully studied.[56] Then, during a two-day recording session at A & R Studios starting 28 March 1967, eight songs were recorded, originally intended to be used as four singles.[57] Instead, these songs were released as the album Blowin' Your Mind! without Morrison being consulted. He said he only became aware of the album's release when a friend mentioned on a phone call that he had just bought a copy of it. He later commented to Donal Corvin in a 1973 interview: "I wasn't really happy with it. He picked the bands and tunes. I had a different concept of it."[58]

And the funny part: Following the death of Berns in 1967, Morrison became involved in a contract dispute with Berns' widow, Ilene Berns, that prevented him from performing on stage or recording in the New York area.[62] The song "Big Time Operators", released in 1993, is thought to allude to his dealings with the New York music business during this time period.[63] He then moved to Boston, Massachusetts, and was soon confronted with personal and financial problems; he had "slipped into a malaise" and had trouble finding concert bookings.[64] However, through the few gigs he could find, he regained his professional footing and started recording with Warner Bros. Records.[65][66] The record company managed to buy out his contract with Bang Records. Morrison fulfilled a clause that bound him to submit thirty-six original songs within a year to Web IV Music, Berns' music publishing company, by recording thirty-one songs in one session; however, Ilene Berns thought the songs "nonsense music … about ringworms" and did not use them.[67][68] The throwaway compositions would come to be known as the "revenge" songs.[69]

Mark Prindle on this whole situation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_BGmEJW6OM

having trouble finding the source of this anecdote but I could've sworn there was some oral history recently about the Humpty Dance where Shock G credited some label/mgmt person as encouraging them to do a whole song as the character