That's some finely tuned passive aggression.

Never knew there was fake drums on GT, always just thought they were very poorly recorded, very compressed/flat sounding. Now we know. Thank you!

I agree with him! It should be up to the band, not the producer. Everyone knows the real thing will always be better than anything fake. The USA version has real drums

What's even crazier is that for the U.S. release the record company reworked several of the album's songs with a session drummer.

I adore Sean, thank you so much for giving us so much of him in your film! I really appreciate it :)

Sean is still pissed off after all these yesrs

I'd love to see a producer today tell Sean he had to programme the drums for their next album.

After listening to some US version tracks, live/real drums would have transformed the album. Cutting it down to say 10 songs too would have made it sell considerably more...much more. Not 16 million but certainly would have hit the million mark (but within the space of a year). Hindsight is a wonderful thing

It speaks!

James and Sean corralled Richey's words into the songs they did. Never forget how important Sean was in that

As a fan I really hope they see their way to redoing the album someday. Same songs, just produced properly with real drums on every track. This was such a bad decision from the producer. Programmed drums don't necessarily sound bad and Sean did a great job with what he had to work with, but the sound samples themselves just weren't up to scratch.

The programmed drums on "love's sweet exile" sound really good

Only found this out a couple of months ago - That must've been such a pain to do, as Sean says' in a different interview, he thinks it was because Steve Brown simply didn't know how to record real drums.

* Researching velocity curves.

Sean seems a nice guy from interviews. Cannot understand why they'd request programmed drums though?

I’m just thinking if the Manics can add real drums to GT because it’s all recorded separately.

This is EXACTLY what Albini always used to say about. Producers at that time wanted sonic-ly more controllable samples and would force bands into it. Even the guy at a local rinky dink studio tried to force my friends into using a dum machine on their cassette demo in '94, lol. Pure laziness.

This is interesting. As a drummer I had always assumed it was Sean playing, but when he said it I can totally hear it. And I wasn't sure who Steve Brown was without looking him up. Turns out he produced Wham!'s first album (as well as The Cult, Freddie Mercury, Alison Moyet) so I guess he was going for an approach that was probably more radio-friendly. GT certainly sounds a lot more polished than the New Art Riot EP. That said, any good producer can get any type of sound with a real drum kit. And a lot of pop producers mix drum machines and real kits to great effect, like Beat It, or even on The Everlasting. Would a real drum kit have meant more sales or less sales? I guess we'll never know! But I can understand Sean's frustration.

When they turn into the Manic Street Preachers, Sean is still going to look like a 12 year old.

What was the reason for the request to use programmed drums? Anyone know

Which tracks do you think were live-drummed? I can only make out Damn Dog on the UK release. The rest all sound robotic on one quick flick-through.

Journal For Plague Lovers sounded amazing because Albini just does what the musicians ask, he was the ideal recording engineer for the Manics but he wasnt really a big deal back in the early 90s.

he’s so cute

Awee da cutie

Even when I first listened to it 30 years ago, the drums sounded off. I could never put my finger on what was off about them but as I got older, I just assumed that they were completely programmed with maybe some overdubs to flesh them out. Also, the bass on GT is fucking dogshit garbage. I don't know if a full re-master would work though

Dude seems frosty