MTF: 15.3.07
The role of the producer.
We looked at the sonic fingerprints of a few producers this week.
The role of the producer seems to be intriguing and profound.
The producer is both the facilitator for and partner with the artist in their creative expression.
The role seems to be one of deliberate impartation of something into the music. But it seems to be balanced by a deliberate effort at allowing the artist to draw the best out of themselves. Maybe I’m reading too much into it, but at the moment it feels like being a producer is a high calling indeed. Although I suppose it needn’t be…
During our seminar, I couldn’t help but think of the infamous 80s legends: Stock, Aitken and Waterman (a production team that were involved with artists like Rick Astley, Bananarama, early Kylie Minogue, and many more – a real rogues gallery!!). Something Steve said in a previous lecture was that he found it helpful to have extreme examples of certain things – because they help to illustrate a point. He said he likes to use songs that have too much bass, or too much brightness as part of his audio referencing (while mixing) – because this enables him to see where the boundaries need to be. In that same spirit, I just kept thinking about this production team as a great ‘extreme’ example of a production ethos that probably stamped too much of its fingerprints on the music they helped make.
These guys managed to turn the process of manufacturing pop idols into a science. They churned out ridiculous numbers of hits, and got buckets of radio and club play. All of the music that they had a hand in has very generic 80s synth-pop fingerprints all over it. It could accurately be described as overproduced and under-performed. That is, the production team seems to have had such a large creative input that the artists involved have had very little.
It’s been helpful for me to think about their ‘overproduction’ as it sheds light (albeit in an extreme sense) on the producer role.
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3 comments:
Ahh, Ken. Your style of communication always makes me laugh. It's interesting hearing from someone who actually lived in the 80's, I did - very briefly however...
I agree with your ideas on how much some artists rely on a producer to become, I suppose more successful, and I truly believe in this after having time to think about it over the weekend.
Sounds like if you were to use a few "extremes" those producers you listed would come in handy.
I think it's great how you mentioned your reflections of 80's music and the way you wrote your blog seemed to capture exactly what you were trying to say!!
hey, you make the role of a music producer sound very exciting and interesting. You wen't into great detail their importance within the music industry. Well done.
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