Mistakes on classic records

[simonhpieman]

Songs by well known bands, supposedly with the money to create a well produced album, that have mistakes in them. I'm not talking studio chit chat that got left in or anything like that, I mean badly played musical mistakes. Here's a couple to start you off:

Guns n Roses - Sweet Child o Mine

At the beginning, the drums do a crescendo build up then the drummer accidentally goes to the hihat before quickly changing to the ride.


Coldplay - Green Eyes

In the last few bars before the drums drop out at the end the drummer drops out 2 bars early, then picks up half a bar later and carries on. Lazy stuff.

[thisisnickpaige]

Beatles - Slow Down (verse found on Past Masters I, I’ve never heard the others)

In the end of the second verse Lennon’s doubled vocal screws up/says different words for the line, "now you've got a boyfriend down the street". Though Lennon is known for flubbing lyrics.

[soggy mittens]

not overly popular but they stick with me...

Blonde Redhead - 23 (2007)\05 Spring And By Summer Fall [bass at 3:47]

The Shins - Chutes Too Narrow (2003) 01 Kissing The Lipless [guitar bum note at the start]

Daniel Land & The Modern Painters - Love Songs For The Chemical Generation (2009)\07 Love Lies Bleeding [bass... forgot will edit later]

Army of Bones - Army of Bones (2017) 01 Don't Be Long [guitar at 0:56]

[ifallalot]

In Satisfaction Keith is all over the place when he has the fuzzbox on or off

[Pepe Silvia]

What's the frequency, Kenneth? Slows down a bit by the end as Mike Mills was in pain and slowed his bass playing down.

[Singlebladepickup]

Beatles - Let it Be - Dig a Pony - The two guitars playing the main riff aren't together when they play it the last (I think) time. It doesn't screw up the song, although it is noticeable. Paul McCartney unnecessarily "fixed" it when he remastered for "Let it Be: Naked".

Sonic Youth - Hold That Tiger (classic to me, my favorite by them) - Pipeline/Kill Time - Thurston fucks up the words and then says "fuck! I fucked up the words!"

[MechaBulletBill]

Beatles - Slow Down (verse found on Past Masters I, I’ve never heard the others)

In the end of the second verse Lennon’s doubled vocal screws up/says different words for the line, "now you've got a boyfriend down the street". Though Lennon is known for flubbing lyrics.

That happens a fair bit when double tracking vocals back in the old days. I think there's a couple of examples on Piper at the Gates of Dawn, and probably all over the Doors' discog (Morrison basically always DT'd his voice but didn't always remember the right words).

[nucleardonut]

Perhaps the most infamous: the Kingsmen's "Louie Louie" about a minute into it the drummer dropped his stick and yells "fuck!"

[eggwheat]

David Bowie - The Jean Genie - Bass comes in a bar too early into the first chorus...then bowie shouts 'get back on it!'. It a good mistake though!

[scottT]

Perhaps the most infamous: the Kingsmen's "Louie Louie" about a minute into it the drummer dropped his stick and yells "fuck!"

Also it sounds like the singer comes in on that one verse early then stops and starts again. Denny does that too on the chorus of "I Saw Her Again", by the Mamas & The Papas.

[060267]

the whole solo in " its all over now" by the stones. just sloppy stuff.

[takeittothemall]

Mike Bloomfield's guitar sounds quite out of tune on Queen Jane Approximately on Highway 61 Revisited. Still one of my favorite songs though.

[NickD]

After 30 million or so copies of the album sold, I think the decision to leave it in has been justified.

One could say there are recording 'mistakes' in Kind of Blue and Giant Steps (both have mike distortion, on the saxes I think), and you could accuse some players of being sloppy, Keith Richards, sure, and Jimmy Page at times, but to be honest, they are their records, they made them how they wanted them to sound - if 'Satisfaction' or 'All over now' sound loose, then that's probably because they are meant to.

There will be some pragmatism, as above, and read how Def Leppard made their albums in the 80s, laborious stuff, but I'm not really sure what the value of pointing the mistakes out is. I won't be listening for them on my next run through any of these tracks.

[sammynb]

But that's it isn't it, as øøøøøøø and NickD said mistakes were part of the humanity, part of technology or lack there of and they were also part of the budget restrictions.
People forget how much studios use to charge back when a analogue technology meant you needed half a room just for the multi-track recorder.
GnR may have had a budget but in a $10000/day studio that budget went quicker than a gram up Axel's nostril.

Wayne Shorter's classic JuJu IMHO is one of the best recordings ever.
You can hear everything, the heart, pain, spirit in Shorter's playing but what makes it the most is at one point he is blowing so hard he just runs out of breath and you can hear him trying to play through it.
When Blue Note re-released it ten 15 years ago they put on an alternative take of the same song and it's not half the piece the original release was.

In a world of sanitised Biebers and the like, the music industry could use a few more mistakes.

[shadowplay]

^^^

Yeah I don't care if it's perfect or not, just that it sounds good, I'm not even bothered about any sort of musical competance either, I've never found any particular correlation between good records and 'good' players. Sometimes quite primitive records are made by people playing at or even beyond their meagre abilities but music is art and not sport and sometimes great things come from a sort of beyond that doesn't square with left brain thinking.

Sometimes I feel that the post CD 'perfect sound' world has been hellbent on fixing things most folk don't really care about. I'm not even talking about mistakes but the fact that sometimes the flaws of the format become integral to the sound, like how sometimes stuff sounds better against all odds as a sandstorm afflicted flexidisc, or how Rockabilly only really sounds it's best on a 45rpm single and never the same pressed onto a compilation.

I think a lot of this is borne out in other fields, like you can 'fix' someone's face with plastic surgery but they'll never look as good as a true born natural beauty. In fact we are often attracted to people with quirks and flaws in their beauty that a surgeon might want to fix or which could never be recreated through surgery.

D