Roots Archives Forum

BB Seaton's Colour Is Not The Answer LP, many tracks ruined by horrible lead guitar work.

http://www.roots-archives.com/release/4437

Hear:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxsJR-NA0KQ

(much worse in reality, the flat sounding youtube file reduces the mess)

Otherwise, this could have been good, even great....

Other examples?

What's your problem? Not ruined IMHO.

I don't know said album and "ruined" seems a bit harsh, but I can totally understand what Vlad means. A lot of potentially great tracks are ruined by some instrument that goes on my nerves. In my case it's mostly too innovative drumming. Of course Sly rules and I refuse to criticize him for being an innovator, please don't get me wrong here, but sometime for my ears he (and sometimes Santa) want to be too different, when a "normal" drumming would have made the track way better imho.

Not a big lead guitar fan myself. First example that comes to my mind is always Wayne Jarrett's "Every Tongue" for Wackies. Otherwise a wicked track ruined for me by that f-ing guitar. Tastes are different. I think someone here mentioned that he loves this particular guitar. We gotta be careful with this thread you kno, that nobody is pissed or feels dissed. So everything always IMHO aight?

IMHO (good comment Gabranth) Earl Sixteen's awesome "Trials and Crosses" 12" is spoiled by too much R2D2/Star Wars/Laser Gun noise - the sound you hear before the drum intro even kicks in. Way overdone. To the point that I can barely listen to the otherwise superb tune and great backing/dub all the way though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=An88Nq9lR0I

This has been mentioned a lot, but Jah Shaka's Commandments of Dub 1 is (IMHO) severely worsened by the overuse of the siren effect. Instead of what would probably be one of my favorites of the Commandments of Dub series, it's one of my least. And I don't even mind an occasional siren/blip/bloop/laser beam in a tune, but it's just so frequent that it becomes unbearably distracting. Someone should re-mix the album and delete the damn sirens- I would pay money for that.

IMHO most of the Pablov Black album, Mr Music Originally.

Album is great i love the riddims, pablov's melodies are sometimes quite original but always soulful.
But the drumming feels so, unorganic, out of touch with rest. Especially this one snare (i think it is, or is it overdubed with a drum machine?), that constantly appears, on pretty much all the tracks, all the time. I cant even leave the LP on my turntable more than two songs anymore, just because of it.

I am wondering, now listening to some clips of the album on youtube, if this particular sound is on the original album or only on represses (like i have at home), because this particular sound feels much less annoying. Or it is like Vlad said, the flat sounding youtube file reduces the mess

Interested in having your opinion on this particular LP.

I feel that way about a few of the tracks on the Carlton Livingston album Sowetto. I could do without some of the sound effects.

I dislike Dub albums with an abundance of vocals. Don't really understand what the point is of leaving 25-50% of the vocals in the song. But maybe it's just me.

I love dub with vocals snippets left here and there. Especially like it when the engineer, in rearranging sentences or words by leaving only a portion of it, give a new birth to the lyrics and modify your perception of the track. 50% of the track i feel its too much tho, it has to be snippets.

Many of my friends dislike dub with vocals. No consensus on this one i guess.

I have never had a problem with any particular instrument or playing style ruining a song. I know most Reggae fans don't like Rock guitar in their music, but I'm a guitar player from a Hard Rock / Blues background, so I don't mind that.

What I don't like is out of tune instruments (or vocals for that matter) and I have never heard out of tune instruments like in Reggae, mostly horns and organ. This seems to mostly happen when overdubbing onto an existing riddim, and I understand the mechanics of that, but there are solutions. Sometimes a Saxophone for example might be so far off it's close to being in a different key... Why did they do this?