Question about country LP's

[guitarman50]

I've been trying to rebuild the LP collection that I had in the 70's and 80's. This mainly consists of Classic Rock and Country LP's.
I've noticed with country LP's from the 80's that most of them have a very trebly almost peircing high end. It seems the odd artist is fine. I collected all the Ricky Skaggs albums from the 80's (mint shape) and they sound excellent. Also my 80's era Merle Haggard have exceptional sound quality. But most other artists seem to have a trebly mix that is almost annoying at times. Just wonder if any other country fans that collect vinyl notice this?

 

[Estring]

Quit buying Minnie Pearl records.

 

[guitarman50]

Quit buying Minnie Pearl records.

Pretty sure she didn't put any modern country out in the 80's. Cause I've got the ones she put out in the 50's and those ones rival the audiophiles of today.

 

[Estring]

Can't say that I have noticed any piercing high end on any of the 80's country albums I have heard. The production is definitely 80's on many of them. Big gated drum sound, and chorused guitars.

 

[eb2jim]

I go along with that. 80's country production veered into a sound mix that got into a higher-end focus. The style of the day emphasized the chorused Tele guitar sound and gradually adopted synths and roundwound bass. It may have cut through and sounded better on AM radio. It started earlier maybe. Some of those late 70s Conway Twitty lps sound pretty thin.

 

[michaelhigh]

It's got to be a left-over philosophy that bass rumble knocks the needle out of the groove. I recognize the trend as being caution taken to an extreme. When rock producers realized the wealth of sessionmen in Nashville, and invaded it to make rock records, this is when the opinions about this loosened a bit, and before you know it, Mutt Lange's making Shania Twain records...

 

[Splatter Pak]

Of course, we all know that country music should only have been released on eight-track tapes...

 

[gimpy]

You mention Conway Twitty, one of my all time favorite singers. Wish I had a couple of his albums.

 

[KentTeffeteller]

Probably less than 18% of country listener setups then were capable of tracking loudly cut records with heavy bass notes. Those compact and console stereos common with country lovers chewed records quicker. And there were fewer of those country records pressed to begin with unless a big crossover hit. There were some early 1980's country hits with less than 10,000 copy pressing orders on 45 singles. Most of those went to jukeboxes.