Interesting, in their heyday Duran Duran had some of the best pop sound around. Rio was so slickly produced they were regarded as a 'teen commercial' band rather than artists. When they lost drummer Roger Taylor and bass John Taylor they hired Steve Ferrone to play drums and they produced another good sounding but harsher souding album in Notorious but it was the end of the famous energetic rhythmic Duran sound. Seven and the Ragged Tiger is a monument to audio engineering - even if you don't care for the music or struggling vocals.
In those days, audio engineers Trevor Horn, Alan Parsons and Peter Walsh competed to produce exceptional sounding material.
Duran used Colin Thurston (Human League and perhaps who started that whole 80's sound) and Alex Sadkin in their heydey....perhaps these geriatric stars have gone over to the ugly U2 raw sound started by Steve Lillywhite (producer of many extremely ugly sounding pop albums that were successful largely becuase of the way they sound raw on FM radio in a car)
Pretty much everything in the POP realm sounds positively disgusting these days....destroyed by compression. Re-masters usually sound worse than the originals. Even Toto's Grammy award winning sound gets the compressed harsh edgy modern treatment by Mastering Engineer Joseph M. Palmaccio on the "Essentials" compilation. Ironically some tin eared people with tin can stereos like all this distortion...
In those days, audio engineers Trevor Horn, Alan Parsons and Peter Walsh competed to produce exceptional sounding material.
Duran used Colin Thurston (Human League and perhaps who started that whole 80's sound) and Alex Sadkin in their heydey....perhaps these geriatric stars have gone over to the ugly U2 raw sound started by Steve Lillywhite (producer of many extremely ugly sounding pop albums that were successful largely becuase of the way they sound raw on FM radio in a car)
Pretty much everything in the POP realm sounds positively disgusting these days....destroyed by compression. Re-masters usually sound worse than the originals. Even Toto's Grammy award winning sound gets the compressed harsh edgy modern treatment by Mastering Engineer Joseph M. Palmaccio on the "Essentials" compilation. Ironically some tin eared people with tin can stereos like all this distortion...