Alanis Morissette

MTV Unplugged

mediocre peformance, horrible sound quality

Review Score:

(2/10)
There are very few CDs that I actually regret buying and this is one of them. Apart from a rather mediocre performance (compared to her other live performances), this CD has awful sound quality. This is a 1999 CD and its one of the worst sounding CDs I own. Other bad sounding CDs I have come from the 1980s so they have an excuse as CD was still new and engineers were still learning.

Basically, the recording is bright with hashy and spitty treble and is coupled with an extremely murky and opaque midrange. There is no soundstage to speak of and all the instruments are a total mess. (this is the US press)

I am at a loss to explain why this CD sounds so bad. Looking at the credits, I note that the CD was mixed and mastered by a relatively unknown studio in Australia. This of course is surprising since many of the Australian pop stars who cross over to the us/european markets go for US mixing and mastering houses. Why would a major US star go to an Australian mixing/mastering house when all the expertise/equipment is in the US? To cut costs?

Due recognition must go to the efforts of Bob Ludwig in the East Coast and Doug Sax in the West Coast (and so many others more) for their care and effort in mastering so many great sounding CDs.

I remember Tina Arena's (an Australian singer) badly recorded debut album. It had so many problems but thanks to Doug Sax's golden touch in mastering the CD, he basically rescued the vocals though he couldn't do much for the other instruments. If Tina Arena's debut CD was mixed and mastered the same way this Alanis CD was, I think she would have sold far less CDs.

In this case, its a mediocre performance made worse by bad mixing and mastering. Avoid at all cost.

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