17 Hills dilemma
Just so you know, I don’t make musical decisions by committee. I believe ultimately as an artist you have to be selfish and please yourself, rather than trying to second-guess your audience.
However, one of the songs from my upcoming EP ‘Amerikana’ has two different vocal takes. The first went down live in the studio along with bass, drums, guitar and grand piano. The second I did several months later as an overdub. I’ve worked a lot on the song over the interim and I’m very close to it at this point, probably too close, and I was finding it hard to judge which was the best vocal.
So as an experiment I sent 16 friends two mixes each, just piano and vocal, A (live) and B (overdub.) Same piano track on both. Some of them are musicians, some are just friends I trust. I will paste their reactions below:
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generally, prefer B….
it’s more english, and the words are clearer
which is important in this one..
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B gets my vote. You’re telling the story more clearly without mawkishness..
A is a wee bit too melancholy for me though there is a section of A which is better.
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B. Love and warm vibes
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It is clearly vocal B that I feel is the stronger one. In vocal A, I don’t feel that you are really hearing the words and telling the story that you are singing. For example, the beginning of the first bridge. In vocal A, it sounds like part of the song. In vocal B, you stop to tell us that story. You make a change.
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B. It’s the one which makes me want sing along. It’s the one which makes me really listen to the words. It’s the one that makes me tear-up.
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I vote “B”. IMO “A” is not a confident, committed telling of the tale like “B”. “B” is a
unified piece, angrier in the right place, more vocally dynamic and far more
confident where the melody takes an unexpected turn and challenges the ear.
I would delete “A” and feel excited and positive about “B”.
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my vote is for version B. It sounds lived in.
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There is something in your voice on A that is impossible to repeat, and as music is a moment, the
moment is captured there so beuatifully. Not that the other vocal isn’t good. But A is the one. Trust me!
And thanks for asking my opinion.
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I’m going to say vocal B! More personal and earnest, sounds like you “mean it” more, and reminds me of your Flat Earth era vocals.
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B is very much the thomas that we know…..english, slightly more introverted
deeply soulful….closer to the airwaves thomas 
…and very
importantly I can hear all the words…
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“A” makes more sense to me. “A” would be my choice if I were in your shoes.
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B is the most engaging of the vocals by far – I understand you’re going for a world weary approach with A, but it’s a bit of a whinge to be honest – B is Best – good tone and I actually want to listen to his story whereas the A fellow, well I’d happily pull the switch!
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Vocal B sounds more decisive to me esp at the beginning.
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Listening to the recent version I hear that it DOES sound like you’ve lived with this tune a long time… and I think that’s a good thing. So I’m not sure how much of a “gut decision” it represents, but I would be inclined to go with version B.
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I vote for this one… Vocal B. I love your connection to the lyric on this one!
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we prefer B. Both are gorgeous, Version B seems to have more clarity
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I have not filtered these comments. They were 16:2 in favor of B, with two lone souls preferring A.
Most of the criteria I felt were important—the storytelling and the emotion—I suspected A had the edge, but people actually got more of those same qualities from B. Funny how people perceive things differently! The aggregate of comments about A was ‘indecisive, worldweary, whingey,’… the story was not as well told and the words were not as clear.
I read the responses as they came in, feeling more and more comfortable with the idea of going with vocal B. The two lone detractors twinged something in my heartstrings, but I brushed over that. I was relieved they were almost unanimously in favour of B, because A is a technical nightmare—the vocal mic has piano all over it, making it virtually impossible to tweak for tuning and timing, or to get rid of lip smacks and asthmatic breaths.
Yet I am genuinely torn because my heart says in A I was feeling it more; plus wouldn’t life be great if I could do one-take vocals and never have to worry about them again!
Then I got this email from the guy that’s going to engineer/mix it with me next week, a man with a long an distinguished track record who did a great job mixing one of my previous albums. Yikes.
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Thomas
There is no comparison, as I suspect you knew, but just needed affirmation. The live vocal (A) is perfect. well.. it’s hard to understand “cell block E”, “cell block A”, and what exactly the crooked lawyer did, but please, you know its right. There’s loads we can do in protools, as long as we lock in the mix on fresh ears, before the tweezing.
It’s fucking gorgeous.
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The plot thickens…..
Go with the heart and pick A. The fresh ears to value are the ones from the person who has to mix it. If he says something can be done with it that’s the one to pick.
Heart rules the mind (almost) all of the time…
As a musician and long time admirer, I would love to have had the option of hearing both versions myself and express my own opinion. But, from the comments above, I would say go with “B” We’ll hear the “A” version when you do the song live.
right mr promo, GOOD POINT!…..I’m still with the B crowd, especially as I was one of them! (or is that showing off?)…but you could always dither and comp
m xxx
Put A on the album…B as a bonus track? From the way you’re writing it seems like you want to use A. To my ears you’ve had it right for four albums on the trot, and if B were to be released as an extra then the people can have the best of both worlds.
I think, Tom, you are just going to have to mix both…as its a download, should be easy to provide alternates!….we can all then share your dilemma to eternity
myself, i’d record a few more vocals with A in your mind. you could even listen to A as you are singing D and E, etc. then you can cut and paste the best of all of them.
while you’re at it, there are parts of the toadlicker vocals that could be up in the mix a bit.
A
Like Matthew, I’m a proud member of the B crowd and I don’t think there is any need for further vocal recordings personally. I could never honestly tell someone to follow their head rather than their heart though. It would be a lovely extra to let you fans hear the alternative version I think, whichever version that becomes… Good luck with the mix next week.
Andrew
I just noticed we have an astronaut and a heretic posting replies here! Cool.
So glad you’re working with Bottrell again. Trust his ears! He will make it work.
This is a no brainer – Go with A.
Some of the greatest records ever made are technically flawed performances but they are great songs and have that emotional intensity and freshness AND THATS the magic – (just ask Glyn Johns -performance always wins out over perfection every time).
If it felt amazing in the studio at the time and it gelled – then thats the one – even if you’ve recorded cleaner versions since. What makes a record – is the performance and the emotion – not the perfection.
Trust yourself – Trust Bill – Think of all those great records made at Olympic – spill’s not evil if the mojo is working.
I want a performance and emotion I don’t want perfection.
For me – its not about perfection – its about the performance.
Thats why its a no brainer.
If you want to make a great record – leave perfection outside at the door.
A great record has all that atmopshere and vibe and spill and chance – all that magic going on.
Thats why they called them a ‘record’ – because they were a record of the performance.
Most vocals these days are Pro Tools comps of tuned up perfection and all the more dull for it.
I will echo the other true fans here by requesting BOTH versions, please, even if your least favorite ends up a ‘bonus’ track. I want to hear everything you’ve recorded, even the music you may think is not worthy of consumption by the masses. I know that’s isn’t reasonable, but I’m a long-time fan, and it doesn’t hurt to ask.
Creative decisions = the most nerve-wracking in the world.
The expression of creativity cannot be perfect (as was attempted on version B) since the emotion from which it was created is usually imperfect (i.e. version A). Which is the truer expression? The more raw recording of that emotion or the embellished/perfected version? That is a hard choice, and neither is necessarily wrong. But if the artist is drawn to the imperfect, there has to be a reason and therefore an artistic truth to that version. Go with the gut. (The alternate version can always be released later if you feel the need to.)
It’s interesting to read the comments by those who haven’t heard the two recordings. If I hadn’t heard them, I’d be saying the exact same thing… and, as it happens, I am saying the same thing… which is, go with your heart. Go with the imperfections and emotion. Go with the feeling you had when you first recorded it.
However… and here’s the thing… I picked ‘B’ because of the profound emotional effect it had on me… not because it was a ‘better’ recording. I just felt the story (the important bit) was ‘told’ in that version… and it did make me want to sing along… it did make me really want to listen to the words. And yeah, tears prick my eyes at the end… call me soft.
But you know it wouldn’t matter if every single Thomas Dolby fan had listened to these two versions and most had picked ‘B’ (as results seems to indicate would be the case) because it’s a personal choice. It’s about doing what you feel to be right… whether that’s going with an imperfect but truly emotional moment or a slightly more crafted result. Or even a mix of the two.
I’m with those who vote for the one you don’t ultimately choose being a bonus track. That way you’ll feel good about your choice of what the ‘official version’ is and we get to choose our favourite between the two. As Freddie Mercury sang, ‘I Want It All’!
My 2 1/2 cents . . .
From a compositional standpoint, I would recommend choosing the version that best suits the SONG, i.e. which version best captures the spirit of the song’s sentiment and communicates that sentiment most effectively. If the song is telling a story, which vocal tells that story most engagingly.
I’m sure, given your ear for tone and timbre, that you can ultimately tell which is best suited to the song’s content.
Choose WISELY . . .
Oh man! as soon as I got through the first paragraph my underdog started a’twitchin…Gotta be “A”