Sometimes they feel like the power behind the throne: Sam Philips who discovered Elvis Presley because he wanted “a white boy with the black sound”, George Martin who worked with a band of some repute, Gambel and Huff who invented “Philly Soul”, Giorgio Moroder who was involved with so many famous artists that it can’t be coincidence, Eddie Kramer who, with his work with Hendrix, Led Zep, and Kiss can be considered the one of the guiding lights of seventies “hard rock”, Don Dixon who gave REM, the Smithereens, and Guadacanal Diary their boost into 80’s alt-Rockdom… the list goes on.
Or is it just me and I’m totally wrong, and REM would’ve sounded like REM regardless of who produced them - Sam Philips, George Martin, Puff Daddy, or Brian Eno?
To a great extent, yes. Although there are no such universals.
The producer, on most music tracks, is more akin to the director of a movie than to a movie producer. To that extent, they tend to have a great deal of creative control over the music track.
However, each artist is an individual, and there are producers and there are producers. There’s also the question of what the person in question decides to call him/herself. Steve Albini, considered one of the great modern producers, denies the label; his projects tend to say only “recorded by.” Many “producers” call themselves engineers, and then you have people like Prince and Kate Bush, who tend to just do ALL the work themselves, not necessarily labelling each hat as they change them.
So, in general, yes; but it’s rock’n’roll, dude; it’s all about exceptions, not rules.
I’m going to say no. But some of the great ones could be said to rise to that level. For example, Tom Dowd was not only involved with a ton of landmark albums, he got the best performances out of the artists he worked with.
You have to differentiate between different genres. . . The role/power of producers is different in Hip Hop than it is in Pop, and both are different from a Metal producer is different from Country.
On the Pop (maybe some hip-hop, too) end of things, the producer may be the single most important factor, and it’s arguable that they are the “true” artist (with the singer being an interchangeable mask). The Producer shapes the song (often written by a third party) and molds it into something that will best display that “special something” that the talent excels at. A bad producer will do a poor job, a good producer is the man behind the curtain.
In other genres, the producer’s role is more to shape the existing sound that other musicians have brought to the metaphorical table. They are engineers and “directors” (as someone already mentioned), figuring out what techniques are going to best show off the sound of the band, and might help do some arrangement to shape the final (recorded) project. I’m not minimizing what they do - the production has a huge effect on what the album sounds like and therefore a huge effect on its success. But in these genres the producer is by no means the only significant factor in the music.
So as to your question about R.E.M. - well, they would have still been identifiable as R.E.M. but the album would probably have sounded noticably different if produced by those different producers. (FYI, bands often use different producers on different albums. Aerosmith and Metallica are two bands whose albums display the different producer’s touch. . . )
WRT the other examples you gave - don’t misidentify the causal component: That Kramer (for example) was a great producer doesn’t necessarily mean that he made those acts. He helped make those acts better and contributed to their success. But if they’d had another producer, there’s still a good chance that they could have been successful - yes, even super-star successful. While his artistry helped his acts, he didn’t in fact write the music, didn’t play the music, didn’t develop the core sound or message of the group.
Another example – Quincy Jones (who produced “Thriller,” and thus might be considered somehow responsible for inflicting the horrorshow that is Michael Jackson on us).
k.d. lang, a huge favorite of mine, started her recording career with a scorching rackabilly album produced by Dave Edmunds (which sold like crap) and followed it up with an over-the-top classic country album by Owen Bradley (which sold decently and got her lots of media attention and a spot on the Carson show). It’s always recognizably her, but each album really has the producer’ stamp on it.
Sometimes an album by a great artist and a great producer can be a mismatched dud (Van Lear Rose, anybody?). And sometimes a terrific producer can take some borderline material and deliver a killer album (Robert Fripp produced the eponymous The Roches, which blows any other Roches album completely out of the water).
To see what one good producer can do with a vaiety of artists, pick up Stay Awake, an anthology of songs from Disney animation, not to be confused with the vastly inferior Simply Mad About the Mouse. A lot of cutting-edge artists from the late 80s are on this album (Michael Stipe, Natalie Merchant, Sun Ra, Los Lobos, Yma Sumac, maybe a dozen others), but the star is the producer, Hal Willner.
k.d.lang came to mind for me, as well. She’s a great voice, but not a great . . . artist. She is very dependent on her producer. Her big hit, Ingenue, was produced by Ben Mink, who’s a large part of what made that such a brilliant album. His style of lush, sophisticated pop really worked well to focus k.d.'s particular talents. His presence, however, really worked against Eddi Reader on the album he produced for her, and the results sucked. Eddi’s brilliant and wild, and her best album Mirmama–among my lifetime top 3 or 4 albums of all times–has almost every track produced by a different producer. The result is a kaleidescopic masterpiece. Her eponymous followup is AAA crap, thanks to being mismatched with Ben Mink.
Hmm. ONe of the greatest albums, of any genre, of the last decade. One of the most inspired matches of producer to artist ever. EVER.
Hal Willner is a genius. But I think he’s an executive producer, no? More like a movie producer, as opposed to director. I’m not sure he had any actual production duties, on the actual tracks, on any of his brilliant projects.
Another producer whose every album is a unique amalgamation of talent brought together just for that one particular project is Hector Zazou. Oh, and another who works like that is Ivo Watts-Russell, who assembles a new group of artists for each This Mortal Coil album. Still another who works like this is Anton Fier, whose projects come together under the name The Golden Palominos.
Marley23 - great namecheck for Tom Dowd. I assume you’ve seen the documentary The Language of Music - brilliant.
My drummer is, in his day job, a record producer - he works with folks like Vince Clark - Depeche Mode, Yaz, Erasure; Neneh Cherry; David Byrne, etc. (sorry if you have read me state this before - I know it sounds like boasting; I am just trying to establish my background…)
Anyway, the point is: What matters is the relationship between the producer and the artist and the taste-compatibility of both. My friend tells of having to be very patient to win over the trust of big rock stars to the point where he (my friend) can offer suggestions. For instance, many artists come to a session with home demos. The demos often use all the available tracks for simple songs - so a 4-piece band uses 128 tracks, with 60 guitar tracks, 40 drum tracks, etc. The problem? The more tracks you use, the more likely the song won’t sound “big” - you end up with a blanket of sound that buries any distinct tracks. My friend works with artists to get them comfortable stripping out tracks.
By the same token, there are countless examples of producers building up tracks - George Martin with Sgt. Peppers, Queen with Bohemian Rhapsody, etc. where there are a huge number of tracks - yet it still sounds very big. Clearly the producer has applied skilled recording techniques to keep the fundamental structure of the sound intact and not buried under too many loose tracks.
My friend also helps with tone - he is working with a band now that comes from a techno background but they are trying to do a song with real instruments. They are used to a solid-state tone, when electric guitars sound better thru tube amps, etc. My buddy is giving them an education in electric guitar tone and these young kids are drinking it up and evolving their sound accordingly. Hopefully I will be able to come back here and tell you their name - the band is currently being courted by all the major labels…
So bottom line - it is about the relationship and the trust that is there…
Glad to see lissener already jumped on this one. The album is genius, and really gave Loretta a chance to shine once her heartbreaker voice (and worldly yet simple pen) was put on the proper pedestal every single song by Jack White. It’s a dangerous combination, and could have gone horribly wrong. But whatever it was, even if it didn’t sell platinum, it was certainly no dud.
The first example that came to mind was Jimmy Miller. It’s no coincidence that what is perceived by many to be the Rolling Stones’ golden period, i.e. that string of four incredible albums (Beggar’s Banquet, Let It Bleed, Sticky Fingers and Exile On Main Street, came after the Stones fired Andrew Loog Oldham as their producer and hired Jimmy Miller.
The band Traffic would have been inconceivable without Miller.
Another who comes to mind is Glyn Johns. If he had done nothing but produce Who’s Next, his place in history would be assured, but he also did much to construct the laid-back sound of the early Eagles.
You can argue that Jimmy Miller make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. Recording in Keef’s steamy, dank Riviera mansion - Keef strung out on drugs, recording lying on his back, random comings and goings. At the time, the sounds was considered a muddled mess because of the poor quality of the rooms - also, the album was recorded to sound good on car radios of the time, which emphasized certain frequencies - so the vocals were buried a bit more than normal with the thinking that they’d pop out on the radio. All of this ended up contributing to an overall sound for the record. Bottom line is that Keef and Mick were great songwriters and Jimmy figured out how to get the best performances and overall sound out of what was available - and those limitations defined a style that worked amazingly, wonderfully well.
Glyn Johns is another brilliant producer - anything from the Beatles, Elton John, etc. - but again, you have to start with the musicians and their relationship with the producer. You can argue that with Mutt Lange and Def Leppard, he built them into his own image - not unlike his later work with his now-wife Shania Twain. But the Producer-as-Svengali is not a model that works a lot with enduring acts. Quincy Jones was amazing, but Michael brought the songs and his amazing talent to the table before Q got to work.
In hip hop, obviously the Neptunes, Timbaland, Teddy Riley and countless others are amazing producers - look at Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg. But if Snoop didn’t have his flow, Dre’s beats wouldn’t matter. Maybe you could cite the Hank Shocklee and the Bomb Squad for Public Enemy - completely revolutionizing hip hop production - but without Chuck D’s lyrics and vocal style, it wouldn’t’ve mattered…
Well, if the producer is “the” driving force behind quality records, why did George Martin produce so little decent music without John, Paul, George and Ringo?
Martin was and is a smart, talented man who helped the Beatles achieve far more than they could have without him, but was he “the driving force” behind “Revolver” or “Abbey Road”? Hardly! He certainly made those albums better than they would have been with a more pedestrian producer, but Lennon and McCartney were still the real creative geniuses.
I think Todd Rundgren and Mutt Lange are examples that tend to support the OP. TR didn’t (to my knowledge) produce anything that wasn’t great, and he worked with artists whose albums I wouldn’t be caught buying.
Jim Steinman shopped around for years before he could get anybody interested in the songs that went on Bat Out of Hell. Obviously, the songs weren’t doing it for anyone in their bare bones form but with the Todd touch they are incredible. I think your producer makes most of the difference. I mean, BOOH is an excellent example. For my money, Todd was the difference between that album cracking the big time and just totally bombing.
