Zare said:
But that's the far as it goes. Producer won't direct your music. If they're up to doing '80s, that's their idea, not Rubins. Rubin can just do whatever he knows to implement that sound.
OK, yesterday when Zare posted this stinking load of horse dung, I was too tired to reply. So I just kicked him 5 times (I love being a mod!) and went to bed.
"Producer won't direct your music." Let's deal with that pile of horseshit first.
First of all, let's be clear about what an engineer is. That is a person who is trained to actually capture the sound on a recording media. He deals with microphones, sound levels, EQ and all that sort of stuff. There is so much of that to be dealt with that all major producers work with an engineer, who handles the bulk of that work.
The engineer's contributions are often important enough to get listed on the record sleeve. Most producers start their career as engineers. A famous example is Alan Parsons, who was the engineer for Pink Floyd's
Dark Side Of The Moon. In that capacity, he created (as one example) the tape loop that plays during "Money" - including the studio apparatus to keep that loop playing in the days before computers.
Now it can be stated that Zare is right about some producers: they act like little more than glorified engineers. While I don't mean to demean the Caveman, Kevin Shirley's work with Maiden falls in that category. Or: last night I was reading about Grand Funk Railroad's album
Good Singin' Good Playin', which was produced by Frank Zappa. However, Zappa admitted to being a glorified engineer, who simply tried to capture the sound of the band as best he could.
A producer will often do much engineering work on an album. Often, the producer will engineer the initial sound, and then the engineer will take over making sure all songs sound like that.
However, there are countless cases where the producer did in fact help the band shape (or even write) the songs in a substantial manner.
George Martin was often considered the fifth Beatle due to his enormous contributions to their music. He wrote all the orchestral parts. In the early days, he even told them what tempo to play their songs. "Please Please Me" is a famous example - it was written as a slow ballad, and Martin told them to speed it up to pop music.
Mutt Lange was basically the sixth member of Def Leppard during the Pyromania/Hysteria period. He arranged all the backing vocals, and helped arrange the layered guitars.
Even Mike Clink, when producing
Appetite For Destruction with Guns N Roses, had a major impact. "Sweet Child O Mine" was originally a short song, but Clink was the one who said (approximately): "After the last chorus, why don't you extend the song and let Slash do a long solo?" Result: one of the greatest guitar solos
ever. Having extended the song and needing a new ending, Axl asked Clink: "Where do we go now?" Clink replied: "Just sing that!"
These are but 3 of countless examples.
"If they're up to doing '80s, that's their idea, not Rubins." (sic) Metallica has stated over and over and over and over in interviews that they contacted Rubin simply because of his excellent reputation, and it was Rubin
's idea to return to how they wrote songs in the 80s. They fully agreed, but
it was the producer who sent them in that direction in the first place. If the new album has better songs than their recent albums, the first person to thank will be Rubin.
Summation: the whole point of having a producer is to direct the artist's music. That is why bands who need no direction usually produce their own albums. Make no mistake: in terms of traditional usage of the term, Steve Harris produces Iron Maiden, and Kevin Shirley is a glorified engineer. Metallica hired Rubin precisely to get different guidance than they had been getting from Bob Rock. Saying Rubin only "knows to implement that sound" is beyond wrong: it borders on astounding ignorance.
