10 sonically best rock recordings ?

Stephen Stills: Stephen Stills, HDCD remastered first album, with Hendrix, Clapton, Booker T.

Doors: Strange Days remastered, this is what remastering is supposed to do: bring Morrison back to life!

Beatles: Abbey Road, the better your system, the better it sounds

Dire Straits: On Every Street, or most any other DS

Pink Floyd: Wish You Were Here, and they almost are

Sting's latest sounds pretty good

Santana: Abraxas remastered

Who: Tommy, remastered, an album I have heard at least 500 times, but never like this

CCR: Born on the Bayou, remastered

Supertramp: Crime of the Century, okay so they're 70's schlock, but it still sounds great, and your toe WILL tap

I omit Hendrix and Zep because the remasters are excessively bright. Love the music, but they've ruined the sound.

These are recordings that I enjoy and whose sound quality is excellent to superb. In no particular order:
1.) P.J. Harvey, To Bring You My Love (one of the producer Flood's best recordings, but some tracks are highly compressed)
2.) John Parish & P.J. Harvey, Dance Hall at Louse Point (winner of most explosive rock album award)
3.) Tori Amos, To Venus and Back (anything from "Martian Engineering" studios is dense and very innovative, if highly artificial)
4.) Helmet, Betty (winner of most heavy album award).
5.) Joy Division, Closer (on the "Heart and Soul" reissue)
6.) Thurston Moore, Psychic Hearts (winner of the best electric guitar and drum sound award)
7.) Radio Head, Kid A/Insomniac (some bass distortion and overload, but imaginative and eclectic)
8.) Beatles, Past Masters Vol. 2 (uneven, but contains the best recording of the Beatles: "The Inner Light")
9.) Todd Rundgren, Something, Anything (uneven, but eclectic and explicitly meant as a studio tour de force)
10.) Spooky Tooth, Its All About (the original Fontana vinyl is rare and very good, but the Edsel CD Reissue is magnificent)
BTW, in full agreement with "madisonears" about The Doors, Strange Days: the best reissue of the Doors. Overall, it is depressing how many great rock bands were recorded SO poorly and quickly.

Speaking of PJ Harvey, I really like "Rid of me" in particular from the many albums recorded by Steve Albini. I think that we are talking about here is recording technique, and I think that he has one of the most alive/natural sounding recording styles. I like the fact that "Rid Of Me" has real dynamics, something that you will not find on most rock records. For instance, the first cut angst ridden but quiet works itself into bursts in rage and defiance, Ranks really high on the emotional conveyance meter. Check out Bill Lazwell too.

Roger Waters "Amused To Death"

Souporhero, Albini (over-)mikes drum kits with alot of Neumanns and constantly searches for a powerful room reverb. But too much of the dynamics of "Rid of Me" are mechanical, as if the instruments had only a few volume levels that they moved between (almost a parody of grunge-song dynamics: soft-loud-soft-very loud 2X); then, there are the thin and annoyingly harsh guitar sounds throughout; an un-natural final equalization, esp. upper bass (same story with Nirvana's "In Utero"); and a "sadistic" treatment of P.J. Harvey's voice. Albini's personality (he is a cynic with a penchant for black humor and misogny--read Courtney Love on this) interfered with P.J.'s performance. Yet that album has some of her best songs ("Rid of Me" "Rub'Til It Bleeds" "Hook" "Yuri-G" "Dry") and her best band. But the demos for "Rid of Me" make me wonder what would have happened if Albini had not been the producer. Albini's best production (he himself knows it) was on an obscure album by a Kentucky math-rock band Slint, "Spiderland": same drum sound, under-mixed almost indecipherable vocals, but very direct and immediate electric guitars, superb instrument placement and much more complex dynamics than "Rid of Me."