Terry wrote:
>To me, production is like makeup on women; when it draws attention to
itself,
>then it's not working.
Nice phrasing, but I don't buy it: I know what makeup is, but what
exactly is "production" in this sentence? Isn't it pretty much
everything on the recording? Should nothing on the recording draw
attention to itself? How is the prominence of one element (say,
strings) inherently more of a problem than the prominence of another
(say, the vocalist).
I'd say on some of my favourite records the production precisely does
call attention to itself - let's take Phil Spector (or Brian Wilson/
Van Dyke Parks's Beach Boys production) for an easy example and Tom
Waits for a somewhat harder one. Spector's big smooth wall of sound -
and Waits's herky-jerky textured carpet of sound - are both the
outcome of production technique, of "playing the studio." It's the
sound of the record, and if it didn't draw attention to itself then
you wouldn't be listening.
This isn't to say all production is good production, Terry. But it
makes far more sense to me to say that you think a record was produced
in bad taste rather than trying to say it was produced too much or too
little, which is more a process question that would require some
knowledge of the recording's history to decipher.
Carl W.
