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

You could make a case for The Endless River as Floyd's "four guys sitting in David Gilmour's houseboat" album. This extra Division Bell material was known to exist and like many latter-era Floyd rumors, its legendary status grew in proportion to how much you love the '68-'72 era of the band. I'd love to hear another More or Obscured By Clouds, but the end product (even as manipulated as it was) still sounds like "four guys sitting in David Gilmour's houseboat looking for ideas"

Three guys, surely?

Floyd (and/or Gilmour or Mason solo) has been using Guy Pratt since the 80s. He's more or less in the Darryl Jones role.

Fall Out Boy

“I remember when Patrick first played the demo for ‘Love From The Other Side’, and it felt new and old at the same time,” continues Pete. “It was something we would have wanted to do [back then], but we wouldn’t have really known how to do it.” Not only did Pete instantly know that the track needed to be the lead single for their eighth album, but it was the moment he bought into Patrick’s “back to basics” vision. “I knew we could build a statement around that song.”

Royal Blood

When Mike Kerr and Ben Thatcher sat down to talk about making a new album, they knew what they wanted to achieve. It involved a conscious return to their roots, back when they had made music that was influenced by Daft Punk, Justice, and Philippe Zdar of Cassius. It also called for a similar back-to-basics approach to what had made their self-titled debut album so thrilling, visceral and original.

Are any of these 'back to basics' records successful in that regard, or are they all merely desperate attempts to revive a flagging muse?

And a flagging career.

I'm pretty sure Honking on Bobo was a huge success

Have there been any ironic or "meta" takes on the "back to basics" album

Not quite the same thing, but Quadrophenia was originally supposed to be sequenced as a "history of the Who", with the first disc starting off with 1965-style arrangements, and only gradually introducing keyboards, horns and synthesizers as the record went on.

Pink Floyd certainly qualifies as an aging rock act, although they really didn't have any basics to get back to.

I remember a defensive quote from Richard Wright, maybe in the early 90s: "we could make a great record with just a guitar, a Hammond organ and a drum kit..."

Are any of these 'back to basics' records successful in that regard

Despite a dismissive comment above, I thought the general take on Accelerate was that R.E.M. had stopped their downward slope and at least deserved an honorable mention. I thought it was about as good as Around the Sun, though certainly more energetic (and shorter).

Not quite the same thing, but Quadrophenia was originally supposed to be sequenced as a "history of the Who", with the first disc starting off with 1965-style arrangements, and only gradually introducing keyboards, horns and synthesizers as the record went on.

Yes and no. The original project was called Rock Is Dead - Long Live Rock, and it was indeed envisioned as a kind of Who history. Among the tracks completed were "Long Live Rock," "Is It In My Head?", and "Love, Reign O'er Me." Around that time (May, 1972), they also recorded and/or completed a few songs originally meant for Lifehouse: "Put The Money Down," "Join Together," and "Relay" which were to be incorporated into RID-LLR. There were also three songs that only circulate as Townshend demos (and may not have been recorded by the Who): "Get Inside," "Women's Liberation," and "Can't You See I'm Easy" that were to be part of the project.

The album unfinished, they did a European tour in the summer of 1972, then Townshend got involved with an orchestral performance/recording of Tommy, and then set up Eric Clapton's comeback concert, which is when he started thinking about mod again, began writing Quadrophenia, and incorporated two of the 1972 songs into it. Parts of Quadrophenia -- "The Real Me" and "5.15" -- are four-guys-in-a-room, but most of it is three-guys-in-a-room-overdubbing-onto-Pete's-demos and, separately, one-guy-in-a-room-singing-onto-Pete's-demos; Daltrey would only record his vocals if Pete was not present at the studio. And Entwistle would take the multitracks home after a session and overdub multiple horn parts at his home studio.

"I thought the general take on Accelerate was that R.E.M. had stopped their downward slope and at least deserved an honorable mention."

*Accelerate* is so effing loud. The songs are IMHO great but have no room to breathe. It is probably quite typical that a lot of acts’ "back to basics" album has worse sound than their early work that dated from an era of greater dynamic range.

By the time a band puts out their 14th album, their ears are probably so fucked that they have no idea how it sounds

I really love about 2/3 of Accelerate. The vinyl is much less compressed.

xps

"We decided to go honk-to-Bobo for this album"

Reviving a flagging Bobo

Honkin' on Boebert

https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/26/media/cnn-after-chris-licht-reliable-sources/index.html

just a bunch of anchors in a room with teleprompters goin wall to wall on the stories you love

0m50s

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

"With this we wanted it to feel like these guys in a room playing together. To that end it's trying to keep this side of it" (points to microphone) "as minimal as possible and get it out of the way so it doesn't fuck with the energy in the forward motion."

Trying too hard

just record in the dark ffs

No electricity is the new thing

Dude there was this whole thing a few years ago - American Epic. Jack White & friends recorded direct to vinyl on an vintage apparatus powered by gravity.

At one point the strap holding the counterweight broke, and Jack made a big deal about going to find an upholstery shop and sewing it himself, because of COURSE he did, as the world's most famous ex-upholsterer. Showboating prick.

I suspect it could have been fixed with a few safety pins and some duct tape but then it wouldn't have been Jack White saving the day.

It did provide this crystalline perfect performance from Ashley Monroe, though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtD7LfsTnkY

I heard you and your band have sold your microphones and bought a room

Should have bought four guys

Recorded our last album at a Five Guys:

https://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-p/13/16/dd/10/photo0jpg.jpg

One room...a few mics...three screaming kids...and a ton of fries.

I feel like the phrase “it came together organically” is a close cousin to the BTB aesthetic

World needs an album by an aging act put together entirely by AI—so they can say it came together synthetically.

It’s maybe the whole point of AI.

Also this has been done already hundreds of times, right? Just um,without AI.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHUlfOD5lPM

12'34" incase the stamp doesn't work

in case you don't want to watch: "we want to bring back guitar music, and the band in a room sound."

well spotted i say

Zach Myers on Shinedown's new album, Planet Zero: “It's the sound of a band in a room playing rock 'n' roll – I think a lot of our fans missed that”

https://www.guitarworld.com/features/shinedown-zach-myers-planet-zero

It's not just you. I listened to some of Bigger Bang yesterday, noticing a real spark in the playing there that you get when it's a bunch of guys who've played together forever actually playing together and responding to each other in real time (or at least a better simulation thereof).

― an icon of a worried-looking, long-haired, bespectacled man (C. Grisso/McCain), Monday, 23 October 2023 04:44 (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

The band went actual years without ever once playing in the same room.

On Nov. 17, Bissell’s new project Car Colors will release "Old Death," his first new song in more than 20 years

Some work ethic this guy.

Layne Staley on Jar of Flies:

“For us, it was just the experience of four guys getting together in the studio and making some music.”

A back to basics classic of the genre.

Just one guy, dying alone in his apartment

yikes

A cheat, because live concert, but Ned over on the Laetitia Sadier thread:

Just her, her guitar, some preprogramming, live loops at points and at one point her trombone.

Lot of this in the Black Crowes profile in the NYT:

As one of six brothers himself, Joyce said he “was expecting drama and fights, but there was very little of it.” They recorded the 10-song album in a few weeks, with the band playing live. “It was old-school: everyone in the same room, no click tracks, no B.S.,” Joyce said. “It’s rare to do a record like that these days. They’re a dying breed.”

Chris likens the compact energy of “Happiness Bastards” to “Shake Your Money Maker.” “It’s a rock ’n’ roll record. Focused. Riff-oriented. Before we get older and can’t do that anymore.”

I would listen to an unfocused black crows album bereft of riffs

“It was old-school: everyone in the same room, no click tracks, no B.S.,” Joyce said. “It’s rare to do a record like that these days. They’re a dying breed.”

He's obviously unfamiliar with this thread.

Not quite aging (yet), but -

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/mar/17/big-thief-adrianne-lenker-bright-future-solo-album-interview

Disconnecting from technology was crucial for the process. “The energy of a cell phone or a computer does something to the energy field,” says Lenker. “It can be this thing that almost latches on to your eyeballs and sucks you in and takes part of your soul or something.” The album’s recording process was fully analogue: recorded on tape, mixed on an analogue console and cut directly on to the acetate used to make records. Everyone recorded together, not wearing headphones; they left not having listened back to a single take, trusting that Weinrobe had captured everything.

sounds kinda awesome

what's it gonna taaaaaaaaaaaaake

record directly onto the WAV file you'll upload to spotify u cowards

jk it does sound kinda awesome

“‘A La Sala,’ I used to scream it around my house when I was a little girl, to get everybody in the living room; to get my family together. That’s kind of what recording the new album felt like. Emotionally there was a desire to get back to square-one between the three of us, to where we came from–in sonics and in feeling. Let’s get back there.” - Laura Lee Ochoa

Stereogum on Pearl Jam:

Spurred on by recording his 2022 solo LP Earthling with the young super-producer Andrew Watt, Eddie Vedder had an idea. He told Stone Gossard, Jeff Ament, Mike McCready, and Matt Cameron to come down to Watt’s studio in LA, with a “Let’s just see what happens” kind of attitude. In a complete reversal from their past several recordings, the five members of Pearl Jam gathered in a room, banged out ideas together, and wrote a host of songs in a matter of days.

A+

The album’s recording process was fully analogue: recorded on tape, mixed on an analogue console and cut directly on to the acetate used to make records.

The Night Dreamer label does direct-to-disc recordings, mostly by jazz acts but also by some others (Seu Jorge, Seun Kuti & Egypt 80). They're generally really good.