The Perfect Recording - A Quest
When I was coming up, most popular artists recorded a single and then, if they got lucky, the cut went on Dick Clark’s American Bandstand (www.dickclark.com) and the kids voted on it. If it got a respectable score, then they started playing it. If they played it enough, then it became a hit, and the artist would get to come on the show and be interviewed by Dick himself.
Invariably the artist would be asked about his plans and he would reply, “I am hoping to cut another single and if it’s successful I hope to get to do an album.”
That was the big dream for young pop artists back then: to do an album.
By the time that Sergeant Pepper came out, every artist was signed to do an album and every artist wanted to make an album better than Sergeant Pepper . That became the quest: to make the perfect album.
When that album came out, I was 21. Five years later, I got to make my first album and now I am recording my 23rd, I believe. Let’s see:
James Lee Stanley / James Lee Stanley, Too / Three’s the Charm / Midnight Radio / Racing the Moon / Eclipse / James Lee Stanley, Live at McCabes / Simpatico / Ripe Four Distraction / The Envoy / Even Cowgirls Get the Blues / Domino Harvest / Two Man Band / Freelance Human Being / Two Man Band Two / Once Again / Traces of the Old Road / A Beachwood Christmas / All Wood and Stones / Live- Backstage at the Coffee Gallery / The Eternal Contradiction / Live in Tehachapi Volumes I and II.
And in all that time and in all those recordings I have been trying to do the same thing: make the perfect album of songs.
Is it possible? I don’t know. I only know that with each recording, I go in with that intent and I work on it for usually two years and then put it out and realize sometime later that I shouldn’t have done this and I should have done that.
I also realize that things that I labored over and over to make right go by without a hitch, and also that things I let slide that bothered me, still bother me. Sometimes the deadlines make you accept things that you didn’t want to and you use the excuse that behind every genius is a guy who stops him from applying the finishing touch.
So here I am, working on the 24th James Lee Stanley release, "Backstage at the Resurrection" and I am still on this quest to create the perfect album. And there are some perfect albums, though they aren’t the same albums for everybody. That’s what makes it possible for one to create the perfect album. It just has to be perfect for you.
I try to make recordings that I want to hear over and over again. Do I succeed? That depends on what you use as the gauge, I guess.
If it’s mass acceptance and lots of money, then I guess I’ve failed. If it’s doing the very best you can at the time and continuing to grow then I’ve succeeded beyond my wildest expectations.
I don’t know, but I can tell you that I try each time to finally make the perfect album. I haven’t done it yet, but maybe this time...
james lee stanley
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4 Comments
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Reader Comments (4)
"Perfection, like beauty, is in "the eye of the beholder" or
"the ear of the listener" and that which is offered with
a sincere heart will be perfectly beautiful to the
recipient"
The perfect album is different for everyone, and, better yet, what was perfect today may not be tomorrow,,,literally...depending on mood and circumstances. Sometimes an album fits as if it were written just for that moment or day or mood, and that's perfection. So really, I think, that everything has it's moments of perfection. It's the rare thing that is perfect ALL the time, no matter what. That's what artists strive for, but along the way they do hit the target more often than they know :)
i think what i'm talking about is an album where you simply love every song on it. it seems that almost every album that exists has a song or two on it that i wish weren't there. maybe not because it's a bad song but just because it seems to interrupt the flow or mood. in any event, i'm still trying to create a cd that simply takes me away and never gives me any moment of being out of that experience.
James,
That's kinda where I was going but I didn't get there as clearly as I hoped :) What you want to achieve is something that is perfect in all ways all the time...an album that you can listen to this year, next year, 10 years from now and it's perfect. What I'm saying is that as you go towards that goal you hit that target with a song,part of an album, most of an album, whatever. It's just not the bull's-eye. And, that perfection being in the ear of the listener, what is perfect can change from mood to mood or time to time, but when you do hit that target dead center it will be perfect for every one every time all the time.
Clear as mud, huh? <G>