Or maybe not the "worst" per se, but producers whose work you usually try to avoid.

For me, it's the ones who make every record they produce into their own, and NOT the artist's whose name is on the cover.

Prime examples:
Jeff Lynne (I just hate him outside of anything ELO)
Daniel Lanois (I don't really hate him, but doesn't everything he touches sound like a Lanois record?)

Anyone you try to avoid?

umm, lanois?
seriously?
the guy produced joshua tree and teatro, 2 of the best albums ever put to tape.

Great records, to be sure.
But outside of those albums, I try to avoid albums that he produces.
They all have that same sound.
The atmospheric synths.
The gated reverb.
Too much.

Although it was an interesting experiment with Willie... an even better one would have been Willie produced by Steve Albini!
Just throw up the mics and let the tape roll, Steve...

John Feldmann

probably brendan o'brien. some decent albums under his belt, but its weighed down by so much crap.

I don't think I've ever avoided an album because of the producer.

The only time I've ever even thought about I think was when Nigel Godrich was producing the early 2000's Radiohead albums but I think I was just annoyed at the direction they were going.


BTW, how can you, PopTodd, pop super fan, hate anything that Jeff Lynne does?

Weren't you listening to Brainwashed earlier today? He did that didn't he?

Also, that Full Moon Fever album totally suffered [/sarcasm]

I am listening to Brainwashed as I type. And it could have been TWICE the album that it is, had Lynne not been on-board.

Like I said, I do love the ELO stuff. And the Travelling Wilburys record is damn good, too. But that is despite Lynne. Everything else I've heard that he's done has suffered for his presence, IMO. INCLUDING and ESPECIALLY Full Moon Fever.

teatro?

Emmylou Harris' "Wrecking Ball" is up there for me, too.

Vini Poncia and Bob Ezrin

Man, Rush has had some pretty crappy-sounding albums.

"free as a bird" is the apex of what hte Beatles were trying to achieve.

scott storch. epitomizes everything that is bland, soulless and wrong with top 40 rap/r&b production.
also, although i'm sure the superfans will disagree, i have to like the early guided by voices records in spite of their awful, muddy, hissy production.

Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick

The guy from F-Troop?

no, the guy from hogan knows best. here he is in all his douchey glory

Wow, I think Lynne's work with Tom Petty is nearly a perfect match for a guy who can be a bit dull. I haven't heard his most recent one with Lynne, but the late 80s stuff and TW record...hell, I listen to them specifically because of the production.

(can't stand the actual work he did with the Anthology sets, though I like his own imitation of their sound elsewhere, contradictory a thought though that might be)

i'm not a fanboy, but he's made some pretty great songs. And many people believe he's who gave Dr. Dre his most recent sound.

I think that was Larry Storch.

i know he had some keyboard credits on 2001, but a lot of the best tracks on that album were just samples re-played with live instruments (i.e. "xxplosive" is from shaft, "the next episode" is david axelrod) as far as the most recent dre stuff, i don't know if thats something to be particularly proud of. that dark ominous synth strings shit is soooo played.

For a while there I was annoyed at Mitchell Froom (and Tchad Blake to a lesser extent), because a.) he sounded like a Daniel Lanois wannabe but less watery, and b.) he kept working with artists I liked and turning out lifeless and kinda generic albums.

But maybe that's because he often worked with a bunch of lifeless and kinda generic Adult Alternative artists like Ron Sexsmith, Tim Finn and Sheryl Crow. And every once in a while he'd hit on something interesting, like those Latin Playboys albums or Suzanne Vega's 99.9Fº. So I wasn't sure whether it was his fault or not.

Mitchell Froom also produced a great Richard Thompson album.
And he and Tchad collaborated on (IMO) the best album from Los Lobos -- Kiko.
They're all about the artists and, while their records to tend to have something of a "sound", that sound is always subbordinate to the sound of the band. Never the featured player. Love those guys.

with Eno. Makes a difference IMHO.

While I don't avoid his material, I still wonder what the big fuss is with Steve Albini as a producer. Is he hired by bands because they're forced to not self-produce by contract? What value does he add?

He is a master engineer.
The man understands the way acoustics work and how to capture the sound of an instrument, the way it sounds in the room.

His recordings sound about as natural as you can get.

Personally, I love it.
Listen, in particular, to the sound of Shellac - At Action Park. A primo example of undiluted Albini.

So it's technical prowess. Got it. Thanks for that. While I assumed the producer had influence and final say in those areas, I didn't think most of them were that hands-on.

I do like a lot of his stuff, but everything I read about him just makes him sounds like a glorified engineer as opposed to someone who would also give input on arrangements and song structure.