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I have to say that it is almost always the label people that want to jack with stuff and do things like have Mr. Cookie-cutter mix a project.
They just want a feather in their cap.
Justification for being promoted from the mail room.
Zero artistic vision beyond selleing a bunch of CDs or what-ever.
Everyone wants to have THAT SUCCESSFUL SOUND, but doesn't it just make everything sound pretty much the same?
I mean sure, some guys like the Lord-Alge Bros. make things sound like "records" but it is all kinda' the same sounding.
The personality gets sucked out a bit.
Going back to the record biz people...
In all of my years I have met only a VERY small handfull of label people that were in the same league musically as most of the people I know.
They just always seemed like a band member's relative who sold insurance who came by to visit a studio session.
Their "suggestions" were almost always arrogant and out-of-step with what was going on.
Often it seemed like they said stuff because they felt that they should "contribute" or "call some shots."
Things like "turn the kick drum up one db."
"Do you like compression on the vocals?"
Granted there are talented people with a artistic vision, but more often than not it was always, "Is that F*CKER gone? Is he out of the building? Warn me before he comes back. Man! I need to take a break now."
Of course, as a band you feel that you have to follow their lead and be the good label band.
I once worked with a group that "played the game" with a major label up until shortly after the record was finished.
It was the shittiest sounding example of the band ever put to tape, but it was too late.
The steam-roller was chugging along!
It probebly could have been mixed by someone better than the "name" guy that produced/engineered the whole thing.
After the record came out the band a had a hit with a bullet on Billboard, so that kept everyone playing along.
After a few videos that cost a ton and which MTV barely played the band started realizing that the folks in L.A. were groping in the dark.
The band decided that they were just going to be themselves and this freaked the label out.
The label folks were in L.A. and had no idea what the reaction was to the band's true sound/show. In the end a great band was just lumped in with a bunch of other lesser bands and it all faded away.
Labels don't always make the greatest decisions with the material that they have in front of them!
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