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Post by Kapitan on Jul 20, 2020 21:02:03 GMT
Producers. They produce things. (How's that intro?)
Seriously, the role of the producer is tough to pin down because it varies over time and space from people choosing material to turning knobs to co-writing and arranging. I decided to start the thread when I heard an interesting comment from podcaster Mitch Lafon talking to Anthrax drummer Charlie Benante about superstar producer Bob Ezrin (in the context of KISS). Lafon said:
"I love Bob as a producer, but I've always said that Bob makes Bob Ezrin solo albums and it's like, y'know, Bob Ezrin presents Welcome to My Nightmare featuring Alice Cooper; Bob Ezrin makes Destroyer, featuring KISS."
Not sure whether that's fair about Ezrin (and I like Ezrin), but I know what he means. Many of us--serious music fans--do follow and listen to producers almost to the degree we do artists sometimes. And let's be honest, over time, we also can start to identify (whether really or projected) their fingerprints.
So anyway, talk about producers here. Favorites, least favorites, styles, whatever.
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Post by kds on Jul 21, 2020 12:22:42 GMT
While I can kind of see what Lafon is talking about, I can't say I agree 100%. I think that would be a more apt description for Mutt Lange. I think Ezrin, like any good producer is a master at getting the best out of his artists. Alice Cooper was a strange, experimental psych rock band before Ezrin heard a rough demo of "I'm Eighteen." The rest is history. He transformed Roger Waters' pretty tuneless, sour demo of The Wall into one of the greatest albums of all time. Even today, the albums he's done with Deep Purple in the 2010s are their best in a long time.
I'm a big Martin Birch fan too. From Purple, Rainbow, early 80s BOC, (edit) the first two Dio Sabbath albums (edit), and the Maiden albums he produced, I'm not sure if anybody has ever made heavy metal sound as good as he made Maiden sound from 1981-1992. As much as I love their 21st century material, I think Kevin Shirley's sound is a little muddy at times.
Of course, you can't talk about producers without mentioning George Martin. He turned the nobs for the greatest catalog in history (bar Let It Be).
Roy Thomas Baker was the first producer whose name I ever paid attention to thanks to the early Queen albums. I also love his work with The Cars and on the 2nd album by The Darkness.
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Post by Kapitan on Jul 21, 2020 14:05:29 GMT
I didn't quite agree with Lafon either, but at the same time, I get where he was coming from. Ezrin does put his own stamp on things. He's big on background singers (including/especially choirs), he usually adds strings, more keyboards than the bands usually use, a more dramatic presentation.
Personally, I like Ezrin's music. Yes, I think he impacts records pretty heavily, but typically in a good way. Destroyer may not be typical KISS, but it is usually ranked among their best. Berlin has come to be seen as a triumph. The Wall was huge.
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Post by kds on Jul 21, 2020 16:42:32 GMT
Speaking of hard rock and metal, there's are few more polarizing producers than Bob Rock. To his credit, his production on Metallica's Black Album made Metallica the biggest heavy metal band in history. But, Bob Rock is also hated by metalheads because his production on Metallica's Black Album made Metallica the biggest heavy metal band in history.
Personally, I love the sound he got on The Black Album (plus his work with The Cult and Motley Crue). I'd probably lose some metal cred because I like heavy metal that's palatable for radio.
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Post by jk on Jul 21, 2020 19:25:02 GMT
My earliest confrontation with the phenomenon "producer" was in 1963, when each new 45 by The Crystals, The Ronettes and others was described as being "the new Phil Spector record". In the UK it was Joe Meek, although in those days I was highly dismissive of him -- oh the high-handedness of the young. Recently it was made clear to me that the man was as much a genius producer as Brian and Uncle Phil. This is the Meek-produced "Wild Wind" by the actor and self-professed non-singer John Leyton (this video is entirely new to me): en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Meek
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Post by Sheriff John Stone on Jul 23, 2020 11:57:07 GMT
Is there enough written and discussed about the influence of the producer? I don't think so. Obviously the producer's role falls somewhere between a "knob turner" and a dictator. But where? That's a big spectrum. It varies among artists and groups, but we rarely find out just where and how much. Maybe it's a touchy subject. Maybe the artists don't really want their fans to know that they didn't have the final say. Maybe the producer doesn't want to jeopardize their relationship with the artist by taking too much credit. Or, maybe it's not really a big deal to discuss. Ultimately it's collaboration and the bottom line is how the music turned out and it's not important analyzing why.
I'll just mention three of the more popular groups on this board...
Paul Rothchild was a very well-respected producer in the 1960's and 1970's, having worked with The Paul Butterfield Blues Band, Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, Love, and Janis Joplin. Perhaps Rothchild is best known for his production work with The Doors. He produced the band's first five studio albums; all were commercial and critical successes. Rothchild bowed out of producing L.A. Woman, and the album was ultimately produced by The Doors and Bruce Botnick. L.A. Woman had a different "feel" from past Doors' albums and is considered the best album by the group by many fans. It does make you wonder if Rothchild might've been holding the band back in some ways.
In The Kapitan's fine analysis and albums' review of KISS, we hear a band/sound that went from KISS (the first album) produced by Kenny Kerner and Richie Wise to Destroyer produced by Bob Ezrin to albums produced by Vini Poncia, Michael James Jackson, Ron Nevison, Bruce Fairbairn, and Greg Collins. While there were numerous personnel changes in the band, the two main songwriters and vocalists, Paul Stanly and Gene Simmons remained. How much did production affect KISS's career?
And then there's our favorite band. Can any fan of The Beach Boys listen to the albums from 15 Big Ones through Summer In Paradise (and maybe even TWGMTR) and wonder how things might've been different with different (better) producers?
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Post by kds on Jul 23, 2020 12:06:55 GMT
And then there's our favorite band. Can any fan of The Beach Boys listen to the albums from 15 Big Ones through Summer In Paradise (and maybe even TWGMTR) and wonder how things might've been different with different (better) producers?
All the time, with the Boys and their solo albums.
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Post by Kapitan on Jul 23, 2020 13:18:09 GMT
To SJS's first point, I think one reason it's hard to talk about "the producer's role" generally is how broad it is.
Some are musicians who really work with the band on that level, helping write songs, make arrangements, play instruments. (Bob Ezrin, historically Brian Wilson)
Some come up through the engineering route and really get the technology of how to capture sound, but aren't necessarily involved on a musical level (or are even musically illiterate). I recently heard an interview with Mike Fraser, who came up through Bob Rock/Bruce Fairbairn's studio and worked with Aerosmith, AC/DC, Coverdale/Page, and even Joe Satriani, and he admitted he knows next to nothing about music itself. But he knows how to manage the studio, manage time, choose and place the mics, capture the sounds, mix tracks.
Some come up through more an A&R route and seem primarily to handle the business and logistics, but don't really do anything concrete in studios.
I just say all this to note that the importance of a producer depends on which producer in which role for which band! But I do think you can get a feel for the type of work each producer does across bands, as well as those bands' work without that producer.
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Post by jk on Aug 18, 2020 9:18:00 GMT
Lost this last night, gosh darn it. Let's try again in the cold light of day...
Producer George "Shadow" Morton is probably best known for his work with The Shangri-Las. Although the ladies did some great up-tempo songs, it was their sad stuff that most caught the public imagination. Handkerchieves (or perhaps tablecloths) at the ready for this glorious sobfest. "I Can Never Go Home Anymore" (a Shadow Morton composition and production) reached #6 in the US in 1965:
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Post by jk on Oct 1, 2020 9:19:12 GMT
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Post by Kapitan on Apr 21, 2023 19:37:07 GMT
I was just listening to a short clip of a modern interview with a rock guitarist best known for his 80s hard rock output with Dokken (though he is still very active to this day) George Lynch. The interview opens with questions about what was apparently some drama involving that group and producer Tom Werman in the '80s, but Lynch's answer and further comments fit this long-dormant thread quite well.
Lynch talks about the group eventually questioning what Werman's value "as producer" actually was. He could not play an instrument. He did not write songs. So he wasn't really a musician in any sense. And yet he apparently was not an engineer, so he wasn't technically adept at capturing the sounds, either. Lynch says they, as a band that wrote and played them selves, valued engineers far more than producers, and they worked with greats like Geoff Workman and Michael Wagener (who eventually was a producer).
He even goes on to question the value of one of the Mt. Rushmore types of modern producers, Rick Rubin. It's interesting, if you're interested at all in what it is producers do (or rather the diversity of what they do), and what some musicians think about them.
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Post by kds on Apr 24, 2023 13:25:58 GMT
Speaking of Rubin, I was talking to a friend over the weekend about my disappointment in the new Metallica. And, I realized that each of Metallica's last two albums suffer from being overly long and overly samey sounding. And, perhaps its because they don't have a head strong producer to reign them in. Rubin produced Metallica's Death Magnetic (2008) which was a real return to form album for them. The last two albums have been produced by Greg Fidelman, who has worked with Rubin before, and engineered Death Magnetic. Maybe he's not really the type of guy to crack the whip and get the best out of the metal legends.
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Post by Kapitan on Jul 16, 2023 14:34:55 GMT
Here is an interesting article on one of the biggest producers in pop/rock right now, Jack Antonoff. (Co-writer, guitarist, and co-producer of fun., primary artist of Bleachers, and went on to Taylor Swift, Lorde, Lana Del Rey, St. Vincent, and many others.) It has an interesting introduction: www.thedriftmag.com/dream-of-antonoffication/
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