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Last Active 08-17-21 12:24 am Joined 10-27-13
Review Comments 9,025
| Albums that cost a shit ton to make
These are albums that cost a lot to make in studio due to technology or equipment or time or whatever, it's just another pointless list from sonoma because i cant sleep
For reference, most albums can be made for like $5,000, even professional albums usually don't cost any more than $60,000. $1 million in studio production money is like a $300 million dollar summer blockbuster. | 1 | | Michael Jackson Invincible
$30 million... like holy fuck, but no surprise MJ holds the record for the most expensive album ever produced.
MJ is said to have recorded 187 songs, all completely finished, and booked three studios at once simply because he didn't know which studio he'd be "feeling" when he'd wake up that morning. All three studios were some of the most expensive places to book in LA, and he had some pretty outrageous demands. He also took recording sessions in NYC, Miami, Philadelphia, and Toronto, across a total of 13 recording studios. On top of that, there was a $25 million budget for marketing, so the full budget came to $55 million. And after all of that, they still managed to get the most boring album cover art ever. | 2 | | Guns N' Roses Chinese Democracy
$13 million
Not a shocker. The album was delayed for nearly a full decade, and over 10 studios were used. The entire album was completely scrapped and rerecorded a total of 3 times, and at one point the band was spending $350,000 a month. This included buying the rights to an MLK speech, which was not cheap. Several songs were scrapped, including numerous electronica tracks that were very costly and time-consuming to create. The final album lineup had like 19 members and Axl had a lot of dumb stuff demanded because he's Axl. Buckethead apparently also demanded a chicken coop be in the studio, with live chickens and all. Good investment. | 3 | | Def Leppard Hysteria
$5 million ($9.9 million inflated)
The band demanded a lot of the most up-to-date equipment, which changed frequently. The album also payed for the drummers arm amputation, which occurred during this album's production. At 65 minutes long, the length was very uncommon for this kind of thing, and new vinyls were designed and distributed for the sole purpose of playing this album in its entirety. | 4 | | Queen A Night at the Opera
Like $1 million in today's monay
The choir effect on "Bohemian Rhapsody" alone is said to have cost a few hundred grand. I cant find too much info about this one, but my best guess is that it was a very experimental recording process, as some songs have 180 layers pasted over each other at once. | 5 | | Metallica Death Magnetic
A shit ton, metalsucks speculated $6 to $7 million, which I'd believe.
This really isn't surprising. You watch footage of the band and they spend a lot of time just sitting around doing nothing. Apparently a full two months went by and the band didn't even record or write a single thing, all while using the studio for relaxing reasons. | 6 | | The Darkness One Way Ticket To Hell And Back
$2 million
Some of the songs have over 200 tracks playing simultaneously, and months were spent recording the t/t alone. Several months delayed, the album almost faced cancellation and the label actually tried suing the band over it, I guess because cancelling the album would mean the label had lost millions of dollars. | 7 | | Fleetwood Mac Tusk
$1.5 million in 1973 dollars
Most of it was on cocaine, cocaine, cocaine, and brand new luxury car for the band members every 6 weeks. According to bassist John McVie, three members basically wrote and recorded their entire solo albums in their entirety and mixed them together, taking the best of the best. The album was also extremely long for the time. | 8 | | My Bloody Valentine Loveless
$1 million (speculated) and honestly i dont believe it cuz it sounds like it could've been made for much cheaper. Kevin Shields claims it was made for a max of $160,000 which sounds about right, considering the circumstances.
The label believed the album could be recorded in a week, which later turned into 6 months and a total of 19 studios. Some entirely mixed and finished tracks were rerecorded from scratch. | 9 | | Eagles Their Greatest Hits (1971-1975)
$3 million inflated...how the fuck a compilation costs that much money idk
Idk my guess is marketing or maybe some new technology into remastering old tracks. Maybe a different studio made the compilation and had to buy the rights to all the songs? I'm not sure man. | 10 | | Mariah Carey Glitter
$28 million, but mostly due to contracts and not recording
Carey was given an $80 million contract and decided to produce a movie to go along with her album. I think that speaks for itself. | 11 | | Gorillaz Plastic Beach
$3 million
The label paid extensively for Hewlett's artwork, who hated doing the work and often procrastinated. Like 55 tracks were recorded with some expensive celebrities, (rumors include Michael Jackson, Ozzy Osbourne and Keith Urban, among others) who didn't make the final cut because Damon didn't like the tracks, even after paying them a shit ton to cameo. Lots of shots were fired at each other, and it was a pretty hostile environment. Albarn's nightmarish experience with the production process also led Gorillaz to go on hiatus...well, it was one of the reasons. | 12 | | Kanye West My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
$3 million
It's Kanye. Moving on. | 13 | | Brian Wilson Smile
$1 million total
Brian Wilson is really hard to work with and spent half a million in 1966 money and a further shit ton on the album's resurrection. Originally completed in 1966 under The Beach Boys, Smile cost $500,000 UNINFLATED (3.6 million today) due to errors in recording, legal battles, and the perfectionist nature of Brian Wilson. Wilson later became super duper paranoid and thought someone within the band had been leaking tapes, and he also thought the album was terrible, which caused him to singlehandedly cancel the most expensive album of its time. In 2004, he started working on it again and rerecorded it a total of 5 times with several ghost musicians, thus bringing another $500,000 to the table. | 14 | | Steely Dan Gaucho
$3 to $5 million
The album took 2 years longer than estimated and the studio hated the new direction Dan wanted to try out. The Dan's basically recorded two albums; one being the album he wanted, and the other being the album the studio wanted. | 15 | | Metallica St. Anger
$3 million
Although it sounds like shit, delays and incompetence made this more expensive than it sounds. Jason quit bass early into production, and the band just sat around and did nothing for a long time. At one point, the band had booked 4 studios at once, some of which were never used, and entire months passed where the band literally just sat around and did nothing. Already a year overdue, James took a surprise two month hunting trip to Russia mid studio date, and Lars and Kirk took up college classes, all of which delayed recording. They created a studio from scratch out of old bunkers, which meant $$$. The label also paid for James's alcohol rehab, which further delayed recording for an additional 8 months. 45 tracks were recorded, most of them being weird psychedelic, barely metal stuff, and their manager wanted the album to be heavier. This resulted in several songs being completely erased and rewritten to be HEAVIER. The album came out 3 years after they entered the studio. | 16 | | Garth Brooks In the Life of Chris Gaines
$19 million
I cant really find much info on this one...well I can, but not enough to support $19 million. Garth Brooks partook the fictional persona of Chris Gaines for a movie he wanted to write, direct, and star in, and he'd be doing Guns N Roses-style hard rock instead of country, which the label was livid about and refused to do. Over 50 tracks were recorded in top notch facilities, and the only ones that made the album were the ones that sounded the most country, much to the dismay of Brooks, who thought the studio was completely missing the point of the character. There was a total lineup that nearly eclipses that of Chinese Democracy. The movie was never made because of the financial troubles and creative clashes with this album. | 17 | | Korn Untouchables
$4 million
Apparently the band used a lot of brand new experimental equipment that cost fortunes to acquire. The band also paid for all 15 people of their crew to be housed and fed for a two year period. The main riff to "Here To Stay" has a total of 50 tracks layered over it, which probably cost a hefty few. 6 studios were involved. The band, however, insists that the album only cost $750,000 to make, which is still a shit ton. | 18 | | Metallica Metallica
$1.4 million
Surprisingly enough, I cant find a whole lot for this. The documentary shows the band just dicking around, and the band stayed in studio for a long ass time, so these two things probably contributed heavily. | 19 | | Tears for Fears The Seeds of Love
$1.6 million unadjusted
The entire album had been recorded, mastered, and finished, but the producers and band members weren't happy with the result and scrapped the entire album, starting from square one. Due to massive frustrations brought on by the recording process, the album had a massive rotating lineup and the band stayed in studio for nearly 4 years. | 20 | | Green Day American Idiot
After combining the original album that got stolen and the "Jesus Of Suburbia" reissue together, this cost a shit ton to make. Their original album had been completely recorded and was in the final mixing processes when it was reported as stolen, meaning the band had to start all over again. On top of this, the album was a double album, meaning double the work was gone. They basically lived in studio due to the frustration of their album being lost and recorded an estimated total of 200 songs, some only 30 seconds long, and finalized the mixes of about 40 of these tracks. | 21 | | Staind Break the Cycle
$850,000
Fred Durst, being Fred Durst and all, spent a lot of the album money on cars and wigger shit, and the band also fought against the "Loudness war" plague that hit this album as well. Nearly 50 tracks were recorded and finalized, half of which being soft acoustic ballads. The band also rerecorded the entire album as an acoustic rendition and planned to make it a 2 disc companion piece, one disc heavy and one disc acoustic. For unknown reasons, the studio didn't follow through with this idea. Only one of these original acoustic songs made the album, being "Epiphany", and a few of these songs were saved for later and recycled on their next albums "14 Shades Of Grey", "Chapter V", and "The Illusion Of Progress" which is partially why those albums abandoned their nu metal sound for a more post grunge, hard rock flavor. | |
AwesomeFunGhostAmigo
04.25.16 | load of poppycock, the latest ethereal release Gore by Deftones is worth all of these albums combined and then some, and it didnt even cost 1 million to make. Discusting | AwesomeFunGhostAmigo
04.25.16 | Chino Moreno is a national treasure and a artist of the highest caliber to be listed along with the likes of shakespeare, dali, and da vinci. it is truly a shame money is spent on gruel instead of a 5 star course. | brainmelter
04.25.16 | LOOOL didn't know that about Chinese democracy. makes that album even funnier now | Zig
04.25.16 | 3M$ for a compilation !? | AnimalsAsSummit
04.25.16 | Godddamn had no idea it cost so much to make st anger lol | altertide0
04.25.16 | lifeless | anat
04.25.16 | It'd be interesting to see their profit margins if the info is available, I'd love to know the most expensive album with the least buys. | DoofusWainwright
04.25.16 | I remember 2 hit the bargain bins within a week | torts
04.25.16 | funny cause like 90% of these or complete dog shit | Shemson
04.25.16 | Wasn't Lars hitting a bargain bin all the way through St Anger? | virpi
04.25.16 | good one. | Aftertheascension
04.25.16 | damn a lot of these suck ass | BlacKapes
04.25.16 | 1 million on mbv - loveless and it still sounds like shit | MyNameIsPencil
04.25.16 | Loveless is a masterpiece though | BlacKapes
04.25.16 | nah | MyNameIsPencil
04.25.16 | ALLEGEDLY THIER GUITAR TONES AND THE VOLUME THEY WERE PLAYED AT WOULD CAUSE PEOPLE TO VOMIT DUE TO THE SOUND FREQUENCIES
not 100% if true but I'd believe it out of how hilarious it is | onionbubs
04.25.16 | bet green days trilogy took a lot to make.
the one thing green day has done more effectively since AI has been wasting money | BallsDeep
04.25.16 | worst 13 million dollars ever spent | romulanrancor
04.25.16 | nice list b0ss
too bad a lot of these albums didnt turn out great | ConcubinaryCode
04.25.16 | Cool, interesting list man. If you feel like doing a part does that's be cool two. | teamster
04.25.16 | Only one I knew about was Untouchables - and even tho I am not a big fan of them, that album rules hard and has the best production of any album I have ever heard. Great list and thanks. | BeyondCosby
04.25.16 | Nice list man! I knew about "Chinese Democracy" but it was funny to hear that Metallica would just sit around and not do shit. That would drive me crazy. | Flugmorph
04.25.16 | 17 is the best album on here | Flugmorph
04.25.16 | list needs a feature btw. great work! | Asdfp277
04.25.16 | money does not equal quality it seems, all of these suck | Flugmorph
04.25.16 | riff on here to stay is so fucking dense tho
worth it | bloc
04.25.16 | Very informative list, I liked it | Supercoolguy64
04.26.16 | interesting read actually, but you cant help but get super pissed when you think about all the studio time/money wasted on some of these albums.
like at least MJ was productive | Anthracks
04.26.16 | Cool & informative list, thank you. | dmp3131
04.26.16 | Really interesting read, good list! The thing about Korn paying for all the crew members is really cool. | WillieD
04.26.16 | It's funny how much St. Anger and Death Magnetic cost to make considering they sound incredibly bad thanks to extremely loud mastering among other things (especially Death Magnetic). You can easily make a $1000 album that sounds better. | Asdfp277
04.26.16 | ~expensive wall-of-sound mixing~ | Flugmorph
04.26.16 | call devin for your wall of sound needs | Asdfp277
04.26.16 | appropriate wall of sound* | jagride
04.26.16 | dunno the cost but gene clark's No Other is supposed to be one of the quintessential self indulgent 70s 'cooped up in the studio for months doing coke off the mixing board' records. plus unlike these it has a couple of good songs | Calc
04.26.16 | cool list bro | TheSonomaDude
04.26.16 | Making this list actually made me listen to 1 and 2 | JigglyPDiddy
04.26.16 | List was cool to read.
The "Here to Stay" thing is fucking shocking, Bahaha And I never knew American Idiot's og version got stolen. | 50iL
04.26.16 | This is the best list I've seen in a while. Very interesting, keep doing things like this. | TheSonomaDude
04.26.16 | Did not expect a feature out of this, I was actually expecting this to get a lot of hate for some reason. Hahaha this is a good feeling... | TalonsOfFire
04.26.16 | Great list.
Very interesting, keep doing things like this. [2] | AlexKzillion
04.26.16 | "45 tracks were recorded, most of them being weird psychedelic, barely metal stuff"
Heard about these'experimental' tracks on St. Anger, very curious to what they sound like. You can clearly hear one of them in the Some Kind Of Monster documentary. Hopefully they release them one day, would love to hear them. | TheSonomaDude
04.26.16 | "This is far and away the most worthwhile thing you've ever contributed to the site, so it makes sense."
I think my "Creed singles ranked" list was pretty good too, def painful for me. But otherwise I guess getting butthurt about everything and bloglisting means I had a lot of room to improve. | macman76
04.26.16 | "$1 million in studio production money is like a $300 million dollar summer blockbuster."
false | TheSonomaDude
04.26.16 | go ahead | macman76
04.26.16 | no film has cost more than like 378 million including marketing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_expensive_films
If you went by simple interpolation, MJ's album would cost 30*300 million dollars.
If you went by general occurrence, there have been 2 movies over 300 million and most of the albums you listed here went above a million.
There are probably more albums produced, so where you may be right is in the distribution of album production costs.
Where I am right is that I am a contrarian. lol | TheSonomaDude
04.26.16 | Yah I guess you're right macman. I didnt mean it literally, just a reasonable comparison to show that it's a shit load of money ya feel me yo | macman76
04.26.16 | word | ScuroFantasma
04.26.16 | TIME II costs an arm and a sauna I hear | Asdfp277
04.26.16 | it's funny coz it legit costs more than an arm and a sauna | ScuroFantasma
04.26.16 | Yeah you're right. I would include studio costs but I'm not sure how much a studio literally costs | Keyblade
04.26.16 | loveless cost 500k which is absolutely insane for a relatively small indie label in 1991 | SitarHero
04.26.16 | "[Def Leppard] demanded a lot of the most up-to-date equipment, which changed frequently."
Pretty sure it was Mutt Lange who did that. Dude was/is a genius, but an exacting one. | omnipanzer
04.26.16 | "The album took 2 years longer than estimated and the studio hated the new direction Dan wanted to try out. He basically recorded two albums; one being the album he wanted, and the other being the album the studio wanted."
Please don't do that. | omnipanzer
04.26.16 | Some of these are worth it and I'm sure a majority made their money back and much more.
I adore the 99' re-release of 19. | AtomicWaste
04.26.16 | >>Steely Dan
>> "He"
Rest of these are an interesting read! | Spacesh1p
04.26.16 | Mr. Dan is a man, I don't know what you're talking about. Perhaps you're not a fan, but I'll slam you into the stand if you don't recant your bland sand you've thrown into my plans. | Keyblade
04.26.16 | 1 was worth it for You Rock My World alone. 30 mil song right there | gryndstone
04.26.16 | LIFELESS | TheSonomaDude
04.26.16 | Mr Dan, who's our man, if anyone can do it, Danny can | klap
04.26.16 | fred durst was in staind? | Relinquished
04.26.16 | no klap | klap
04.26.16 | did i miss the joke then or is that just a typo | oltnabrick
04.26.16 | wigger shit | oltnabrick
04.26.16 | fred durst got staind signed i think | klap
04.26.16 | ahh word | ZackSh33
04.27.16 | cool list, was awesome to read | Supercoolguy64
04.27.16 | #8 is "Loveless" not "Lifeless" btw | SharkTooth
04.27.16 | what's the difference? | TheSonomaDude
04.27.16 | without love there is no life | DatsNotDaMetulz
04.27.16 | Could also throw in the fact that while Buckethead was in GnR he demanded a chicken coop in the studio | DinosaurJones
04.27.16 | It's things like that that make me love Buckethead more. | ScuroFantasma
04.28.16 | That's awesome | furyroad97
05.05.16 | If Dre's Detox was released instead of shelved, it probably would've been up here. | neekafat
09.24.18 | this is a super cool list man | Asdfp277
09.24.18 | they're not even good smh | Storm In A Teacup
09.24.18 | where the fuck is my 40 track plastic beach b-side album then? im depressed knowing there are 40 more songs from the best gorillaz album | Cisumla
09.24.18 | Sweet bump | sonictheplumber
09.24.18 | this lisrt sucks | Cisumla
09.24.18 | List is one big homo | Storm In A Teacup
09.24.18 | yeah i could have done without learning what i've learned itt | Cisumla
09.24.18 | Gorillaz release their unreleased content all the time, not sure why this time is a nono | sonictheplumber
09.24.18 | i fart on u | Asdfp277
09.24.18 | you do? | sonictheplumber
09.24.18 | shut up | Papa Universe
09.24.18 | Interesting that most of these albums are shit. | Cisumla
09.24.18 | I'm guessing sonic is drunk? |
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