I’m listening to the Ramones’ “End Of The Century”. In 1979, Phil Spector producing the Ramones maybe was the most surprising combination. Granted, the Ramones also in a way had had their own wall of sound before, but their sound was very different to what Spector was known for. The result is IMHO ambivalent, it’s not a bad record, but an outlier in the Ramones catalog.
Another pairing that initially definitely caused some raised eyebrows was Johnny Cash and Rick Rubin for “American Recordings”. That turned out to be wonderful and led to Rubin producing many other big traditional acts, so retrospectively it doesn’t seem so strange. What have you?
Albini was thought of as being misogynist because of his band Big Black which was something Kurt was very much against . Kurt went with him anyways because he like the way he recorded drums and loved the Pixies Surfa Rosa and what he did with that album and wanted that punk sound but a lot grittier.
I think during the recording session there was an altercation between Albini and Love.
On first blush, Al Kooper (who had well-established cred as both a performer and a producer) taking on a “novelty act” like The Tubes for their first album was a strange combination. The results were pretty good though.
George Martin producing the hard rock band UFO on “No Place to Run”. The production is fine, it’s smooth and clear without being overdone, but it’s not one of the UFO albums I play much as I find the material pretty mediocre on that one.
I’d argue that Martin producing the Beatles was a weird combination. Martin was best known for producing comedy albums and novelty songs for Parlaphone, considered a low-rent record company. He had barely recorded any popular music, and no rock.
Jeff Lynne, leader of the 1970s prog-pop group Electric Light Orchestra, and who, as a record producer, has mostly worked with musicians like George Harrison, Roy Orbison, and Tom Petty, also produced several songs for Russian-American indie artist Regina Spektor on her 2009 album Far.
It kind of does. Here’s one of the songs he produced for her – when the drums and guitar come in, at about 0:45, there’s definitely an ELO sound in there.
Exactly what I was going to suggest, except I was going to add that Martin, having made his name with The Beatles also produced the wonderfully strange Ivor Cutler. I suppose Cutler and anyone would have to be classed as a strange pairing - but here’s some of Martin’s production work:
Other suggestions: Eno producing U2 was non-obvious; as was Elvis Costello producing The Pogues; and John Cale producing (or attempting to produce) The Police, of which Andy Summers said:
Those sessions were horrendous. The people in charge always think they’ve got the best idea about how you should be a hit band. And they’re always wrong. One idea, and it might’ve come from A&M, was that John Cale should produce us. So we had this one session in the studio and John turned up. I think he was pretty drunk at the time, he was just so untogether. We were who we were, very focused on our music, and this idiot fucking turned up. He had no ideas about anything. I started to play some Led Zeppelin piece and he went: “That’s it! Let’s record that!” And at that point we just packed up and left.
…And how could I forget John Otway and Wild Willy Barrett. Obscure, I know, but stick with me because this is odd. God, I’ve seen the inexplicable Otway dozens of times. Here is one of their earliest singles, produced by…hell, I’m going to spoiler this because it’s so improbable - have a listen and see if you can guess.
Interesting! On a related note…
John Cale ruined Squeeze’s 1978 debut album. As producer, he refused to let the band record any of their existing songs and forced them to churn out a completely different sound – an extremely abrasive one. At this time, Cale was a barely functioning alcoholic, at one point passing out on the soundboard. Yet due to his lofty reputation as part of the Velvet Underground, the band (reluctantly) fell in line with his skewed visions. To this day, the album is one that most Squeeze fans despise.
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