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Criteria: I have to be able to hear the fucking bass guitar and the tom toms, the snare has to be crisp and back the vocals and guitar off a bit. Seriously, singer-songwriter, we are all sick of you. And when I say "we," I only mean the voices in my head.

Disclaimer: I am a novice at best, and my opinion is worth next to nothing on this topic.

10) Missing - Arcwelder. Best distorted vocals, ever. And wow, I can hear the toms.
9) Down in the Park - Gary Numan. This was a really hard choice as I really like a lot of his early mixes as a solo artist and with his first band. But this song, with a lot going on (keyboards/drums/guitars/bass, etc.) balances things nicely.
Tie - Green Cans - Rifle Sport and Kick in the Eye - Bauhaus. I have nothing to write other than they both sure sound neat-o. Maybe it's Green Can's arrangement, using the bass guitar to crescendo...I dunno. Great performances, too.
7) Uncontrolable Urge - Devo. I love how the guitars aren't over distorted, essentially keeping them from overwhelming the other instruments and tones.
6) Heroes - David Bowie. It has to be the long version. I'm not sure if I can hear the bass or not, but everything else, especially the long intro, is perfect.
5) Dead Souls - Joy Division. Okay, so the snare is kind of farty sounding, but I can hear the bass and toms, and the guitars don't overwhelm the mix.
4) 0 + 2 = 1 - NoMeansNo. Quite possibly the best psyncopation (sp?) of drums and bass, like ever.
3) Here Comes Dudley - Jesus Lizard. Totally gay to include this on this board, and I debated it heavily, at times coming to blows with myself, but in the end, it is one of the best confluences of band and engineer, ever.
2) Live at Leeds - The Who (entire album). Bass on one side, guitar on the other, drums down the middle and all of it burying Daltrey.
1) Tomorrow Never Knows - The Beatles. Real tape loops, best snare sound ever, vocals through one of them spinning speaker things. C'mon, this is, hands down, the best and most interesting mix, ever.

Most Disapointing mixes:
5) Toadstool - What the hell is the name of this album? A Pirner production of great songs turned awful.
4) Anything by Steel Pole Bathtub. They were a GREAT live band and not one ounce of that intensity was transfered to tape.
3) Anything by Echo and the Bunnymen. Sure I love their recordings, but they come nowhere near close enough to their live sound, and that is disapointing.
2) Everything by My Bloody Valentine for the same reasons I wrote about Echo and the Bunnymen. Maybe that is just the nature of tape - that it can't always capture the massive intensity of some music.
1) Anything by Husker Du. I love many of their songs, but were these albums mixed with the crack smoking going on?

for worst: almost everything put out on SST.

fuck spot.

When I saw the subject line I was going to reply "any Beatles produced by George Martin". I should stop now, because how can anything more be said about him and the Beatles? But I won't.

[off topic]

This guy really was the 5th Beatle. It's hard to imagine they could have become what they did without him. In some ways he was the total opposite of the Albini-school in that we would write, arrange, play, and contribute to all aspects of the record as if he was in the band.

(Anyone doubting his skills as a musician listen again (you have heard it right?) to the second orchestral side of the Yellow Submarine album. That's all him. The first cut, "Pepperland", is as good a musical prologue as you are likely to find in any film score.)

On the other hand he ultimately *was* Albini-like in that he never pushed the band in any direction that they didn't already want to go in. He wasn't there to protect the profits of the label. He always stayed in the background, and he was always there to serve the band.

[/off topic]

Anyway, I can't remember a time when I wished I could tweak the mix of a George Martin produced Beatles record. (I can't say the same about the Phil Spector record). Any faults were due to the edge of the technology of the day, and frankly I never notice them.

This may be an obvious choice...but it had to be said nevertheless.

I agree completely with the Beatles stuff. In addition I would like to bring up two records which after listening to them for many years I am still picking out new things in the mix:

Black Sabbath- Sabotage and Garbage- Version 2.0

There is so much stuff happening on those records, layers upon layers of all sorts of sounds. I can't imagine the track count on the Garbage disc. That's a lot of stuff to sort out and give its own little nitch in the mix.

Tom Waits - Foreign Affairs
Not just the mixing as such. The whole recording, mixing, production package... and the performance.

Fun House by The Stooges and Back in Black by AC/DC (though I wish the guitars sounded as distorted and wild as on the George Young records, great mix though).

Behind these hazel eyes - Kelly Clarkson.

Hell, any of that Breakaway record.

Maybe it's too shimmery for the electrical crowd, but I've always loved the bass/kick on Pink Floyd/The Wall. It always sound good to me on any stereo. You can always hear the bass but it's never overwhelming. On road trips I put my subwoofer behind my front seat, and when that bass/kick/hh thing hits after the helicopter noise I poop myself.

The worst bass mix I can think of is Beta Band/Three EPs. Way too much. But alright in crowded noisy bars I guess.

Take cheap shots at me for this if you like...

"Here you come again" by Dolly Parton

The Beach Boys' "Sloop John B." - the original, not the stereo remix -

It's an amazing mono work of art. All those voices, all the session musicians - yet the mix never sounds crowded.