phillyfan26 said:
Achtung Baby was arguably Edge's best guitar album, and yet you can't hear his guitar parts half the time. That's what pisses me off the most, though there's plenty of pissed off to go around.
I can make a list, in fact:
Zoo Station Chorus
Even Better Than the Real Thing Riff
Until the End of the World Outro
The Fly: Second Half of the Solo/Chorus, Last Verse, Outro
TTTYAATW: All Guitar
Love Is Blindness Solo (Bono Drowns it Out)
Zoo Station chorus guitar sounds panned right to mid, not really all that more buried than anything else. This is analog recording and it's U2 at their most indirect attempt to sound direct. The overdubbed harmony is louder because it's more important. I don't disagree with this mix.
Even Better....two different verse guitars going. One in the right channel is playing the "riff" and you are right it is quiet, too quiet.
My guess=they had to accomodate the two vocal dubs, not disturb the bass and drums without making it sound jarbled. Is that a word? Maybe it should be louder, I think they made a concentrated decision to get that vocal harmony right. Score.
Until the End of the World, I don't even have to bring up the song to listen to it. I agree but I'd also refer to down below #3.
On the album the Fly solo and outro is fine, of course I heard it in 1991 before 1,000 live versions that followed it. The live versions beat the entire hell out of the studio version, so it seems that the listener has been cheated here. Hard to make an argument against the Fly in 1991, now it's easy. That was a mindfuck single.
Again, Love is Blindness, before the live versions THAT was the song. Afterwards, yeah you can see where the solo is diminshed. The aim of that song on the album is to be haunting. Success. It's not supposed to be a guitar solo wank.
I don't totally disagree overall, I think there are a few factors at play.
1. You younger folk are, no mattter how much you object, generally oblivious to the sound quality of every album before Pop. Louder does not equal better. Muddier doesn't mean lack of quality of mixing or mastering, it means technology was inferior.
It's hard to prove the point unless you are a young audiophile.
2. Accepting that even some of the younger folk get that much, on Acthung there were (thank God) 6, 7 tracks going on at the same time, diverse ideas, someting going on besides the melody brow beat. In that mix, it diminshes everything else. Take the example that a ....say, 4 track mix is X, every track you add diminishes the sound quality of X.
3. After years of hearing improved live versions, if you hear the Sydney version of Love is Blindness first, or at the same time or even listen to it at the most, it gives your ear a natural bias.
When Achtung Baby came out in late 1991, you wouldn't find many people griping about the sound, in fact the only gripes were that u2 were a studio band and Eno and Lanois crafted this album around their marginal talents.
It's a worse mix but it's relative. Also, there are things that can't be apologized for, like the end of Until the End of the World.