I’ve stated about a gazillion times on this blog that I’m a freaking freaky freak about production values in music. I don’t listen to artists that much… I listen to the production chops on their releases. I think each era in music has had its stable of 5-star producers, so I don’t agree with the sentiment that “all music on the radio now is shit”. On the contrary, I’m studying the methods of several people who are producing some unique sounds and using tools and techniques that I’m very interested in, even in genres I wouldn’t necessary claim as favorites.

I’ve been thinking about production a lot lately as I’ve finished up Eastern Chronicle. (Speaking of which, I released a sneak peek of a new track from the record yesterday for “World Music Day”. Check it out here.) I want to do something I’ve never done here: Highlight fifteen records that I feel have really shaped my production abilities and directed me to a personal sound that, of course, is an alchemy of all that these records represent. If it is true that we are all products of our influences, then it will be clear why my music sounds the way it does after I remind you of some of these wonderful gems.

Do something for me though, will you? Leave me a comment letting me know a few records that have shaped you as an artist. I’d really love to know a little more about how you make the musical choices you make and where those tendencies come from. I’m super interested in that.

With that, here are …

15 Great Albums That Ruined My Life… For Good

Escape – Journey (1981)

My musical “education” started pretty early on — when I was about five years old — but it really wasn’t until I was 7 when I started listening on my own and really experimenting around with my dad’s record collection. I remember being just as enamored with the music I was hearing as I was with the cool colors the JVC turntable LEDs made when the platters spun around.

Journey’s “Escape” might be the first cognitive memory I have of music with a group dynamic; in other words, I clearly remember thinking “Wow! How do they all make that happen at the same time?!” Don’t Stop Believin’ is probably the public favorite from this record (and maybe now even annoyingly so, thanks to friggin’ GLEE!) but it was Stone In Love, Still They Ride, and the title track Escape that made me start investigating how people could put instruments and voices together to create such an incredible final sound. I also believe that this record was one of the first where I truly recognized the power of melodic soloing, brought forth naturally through Neal Schon’s incredible lead lines. Where I was used to hearing most guys just shred the shit out of everything (as was par for the era), Neal really showed a lot of restraint and journeyman playing on this album and I continue to be respectful of that to this day. Now, when I work with guitarists, I’m much more interested in whether they have a strong sense of melody than how many notes they can cram into a measure.

Sports – Huey Lewis and The News (1983)

Easter Sunday, 1983, my dad came home with this cassette and said, “Take a listen to THIS one!” Years later, I overheard him explaining to someone why The Heart of Rock and Roll was a perfectly produced track by asking them, “Do you hear anything that sounds like it doesn’t fit?” “No…nothing”, they said. “Exactly!” My dad, I thought to myself, is such a fuckin’ genius! 

There truly is NOTHING out-of-place in any of the songs from “Sports”. For a bar band, these guys were so sharp on that record. Everything from the horn arrangements (via the Tower of Power horn section), to Chris Hayes’ masterful guitar soloing (truly some of the most underrated work from any guitarist…go back and listen!) was crisp and polished to perfection. The stuff following this album from the “Back to the Future” franchise was merely an extension of their craftsmanship from this period of creativity. They lost it later in subsequent releases like “Hard at Play” and some of their compilations, but HL&TN were undoubtedly influential on my early appreciation of production technique and how to creatively leave “space” in music.

90125 – Yes (1983)

After sitting and critically listening for months on end to various records out that year, I had already delved hard into production techniques and learned to hear “behind the music”, so to speak. Yet, there was another level of the vernacular that “90125″ brought my way — odd time signatures (“Changes”) and “playing against time” (“Hold On”) — due mostly to the reintroduction of keyboardist Tony Kaye.

Besides all that, the orchestral breaks in Owner of a Lonely Heart were a sound that I instantly found interesting, thus sending me on a wild goose chase to learn everything I could about Trevor Horn’s production techniques. (Those breaks, by the way, were leftovers of Horn’s “Art Of Noise” projects.) Too bad I would have to wait for years (Seal’s 1994 release) before I could truly study anything of Horn’s worth listening to again, as the eroticism in Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s “Relax”" scared the bejesus out of me and his later work with “Art of Noise” always seemed cartoonish to me in the midst of so many well produced records of the 1980′s.

Reckless – Bryan Adams (1984)

About the time I was learning to write my own music, I was given this album by my mother for my 10th birthday. All I have to say is….Keith Scott. Scott’s skills really were featured on “Waking Up the Neighbours”, but everyone really came to know them here on cuts like Heaven and It’s Only Love, not to mention the teenage angst anthem Summer of ’69. I cannot think of a single song on here that isn’t worth hearing, and Keith’s leads are frickin’ legendary here. If I had a dime for every time I’ve been in a studio and heard someone whistling the opening lead from Somebody, I’d be a millionaire.

World Machine – Level 42 (1985)

I thought it would be fun to make this list chronological, but if I had to pick one single record that completely changed my entire life, it would be “World Machine”. On Christmas Day, 1985, my Aunt Jan showed up to dinner with a gift for me: a Casio SK-1. The SK-1 had like two octaves of minikeys and a sampler where you could talk into for like 4 seconds and then it would keymap everything so you could play in different pitches (think Ferris Bueller faking “sick” with his Ensoniq!). I’d seen keyboards on TV but never in real life, let alone owned one of my own, so this meant that I would now finally have a new reason to lock myself in my bedroom for 10 hours a day and only demand food and water be slid under the door when necessary!

My introduction to L42 was just like almost every other American’s — Something About You. I remember it on MTV (a truly dismal video), with the guys on the train and Mark King dressed up like a freaky-looking mime. The only real redeeming quality for me was a quick shot of Mike Lindup about 3/4 of the way through in a white room playing a DX7. That’s when it hit me: “Holy shit! That’s like that thing Auntie Jan gave me that I’ve tried to figure out!” After that, I developed a possibly unhealthy obsession with 80′s pop synthesizer players. To me, Mike Lindup was the best of them, and in the mid to late 80′s, he harnessed the then new power of MIDI sequencing better than any other synth player I can think of. The intricacies of his arrangements really made me stop to realize that he was essentially using synths like instruments in an orchestra. I know it sounds elementary, but to an 11-year old kid, it was a complete awakening, and I never saw music the same again.

Songs From the Big Chair – Tears for Fears (1985)

That same year brought the amazing Brit-pop band “Tears for Fears” to my attention. “Head Over Heels” is still one of my top five favorite songs of all time. It is so well written, well produced, and has so many nuances in it that I swear I could daily find something new that I never heard before. Roland Orzabal is a phenomenal talent and Curt Smith’s bass playing is always some of the most creative stuff you will hear. Full of real talent like Jerry Marotta, Ian Stanley, and Annie McCaig, SFTBC probably spawned three of the biggest hits of the 1980′s: “Head Over Heels”, “Shout”, and “Everybody Wants to Rule the World”. The programming in those three tunes alone is some sick-ass crap! And you know I tried to reproduce as much of it as I could on my trusty little SK-1!

Back in the High Life – Steve Winwood (1986)

About this time, I saw a Sanyo Dual Bay Cassette Boom Box at a Payless Drug Store that I wanted REALLY bad! Why? Because I saw a big red RECORD button on one of the decks, and I thought “That’s what I’m missing! A big red RECORD button!” My dad obliged, and soon I was up and running with the first incarnation of the “Musicave” – a $60 dual deck boom box, my drums, a cheap Radio Shack 1/8 microphone, and my Casio Sk-1. I quickly realized I could record as much stuff in one track as I wanted by bouncing things down on the dual deck (as long as I was cool with the resulting generation loss) and I started to record my own stuff for the first time. I was 11 years old and I thought I was king!

Then came “Higher Love”, a chart-topper (and eventually Record of the Year) by a guy named Steve Winwood I’d only heard my dad mention in passing, usually in reference to another guy I didn’t know much about yet, Eric Clapton. I bought “Back in the High Life” a little late in the game, after I heard Winwood’s wicked MiniMoog soloing on “The Finer Things”, the third single from the album. The songwriting on that album is still to this day some of the best. Winwood is an incredible songwriter, but the Jennings/Winwood pairing is still as good as any musical marriage that’s ever been. This was also the album that brought the genius of studio legend John “JR” Robinson into my musical understanding. The notes on how JR came up with the intro to “Higher Love” are worth the price of admission.

The Way It Is – Bruce Hornsby and The Range (1986)

I’ll never forget this. My dad and I were driving back from a great three-day trip of white water rafting in central Oregon and it was late in the day. The sun was setting. The female DJ came over the airwaves and said “Here’s one from a new band, Bruce Hornsby and The Range. It’s a little different, hope you like it.” I’ll never forget, as Hornsby played some of the sweetest licks to ever come out of a Baldwin Grand, my dad and I looked at each other in amazement at what we were hearing. I went out the next day and bought the record with my paper route money. I spent probably the next four or five months obsessing over that record, learning as many of Hornsby’s signature licks as I could. I researched him, reading every interview that I could get my hands on. I found out, through reading his interviews, about Charles Ives, John Cage, and Steve Reich. My musical palette was broadened even further as I began to seek out and buy recordings by each of those incredible pioneers as well. By the time “Scenes From the Southside” hit the charts in ’88 with “Valley Road”, I was completely emerged in Hornsby’s sound, having recorded several of his bootleg performances off of the radio and video-taped every video released to try to see where his hands were on the ivories at any particular moment.

Hysteria – Def Leppard (1987)

Being a total pop boy, I wasn’t really hip to the hard rock glam thing until Bon Jovi hit with “Slippery When Wet” in ’86. I was busy studying production techniques and how music “worked” on record, and I wasn’t really into the shredded jeans and cigarettes “cool” of rock and roll yet. That all changed when I was at a skating rink with my cousin Bryan and “Step inside // Walk this way // You and me, babe // HEY HEY!” came over the sound system and just about every single girl in the place screamed as loud as they could. I looked at Bryan and he looked at me and we both said at the same time, “Who the fuck is THIS?”

Combine that experience with the day that I overheard this super-hot girl in my class named Jocelyn tell a friend that if a guy really wanted to know how to turn her on “… he should just listen to Hysteria five times in a row,” and I was pretty much an instant hardcore Def Leppard disciple from then on.

Most of the time, I’m a bigger fan of producers than I am of the artist. If a film is born in the editing room, then a record is certainly born in the mind of a producer, and as many producers have ruined good songs as have made them into hits. Robert John “Mutt” Lange is a producer that can take the lamest song and make it into a classic radio hit. This album was a combination of amazing songs coupled with Mutt’s ear for detail and hook. Brilliant.

The Symphony Sessions – David Foster (1988)

As I was entering junior high school, I sort of abandoned the radio scene and started getting into Windham Hill stuff and some of the more New Age type stuff that was making its way to radio at the time (Enya was just hitting big with “Orinocco Flow” and Kenny G was HUGE, even though his music made me want to kiss the front grill of an oncoming train at bullet speed… and still does!). I still had my lame-ass little set-up at home of the Sanyo and the Casio, and I practiced keyboard as much, if not more, than I was practicing my drums. I remembered hearing David Foster’s “St. Elmo’s Fire” theme on the radio several years earlier (who didn’t!), but being such a “production” snob, I never bothered to check into who Humberto Gatica was, because hey… that was a movie music thing! Essentially, I was in the dark to anything but Pop Radio.

But a couple of years later, in 1988, another drummer who was a few years ahead of me in school named Bryan Curb heard that I was into instrumental music and gave me a copy of David Foster’s orchestral recording “The Symphony Sessions”. I can honestly say that this is the definitive album that made me realize what I wanted to spend a serious chunk of my time doing: Studying and pursuing instrumental music, and later — unbeknownst to me — cinematic film music. I cannot say enough about how much influence this guy has had on me both as a composer and as a producer. This record turned me on to orchestra, and then the rest of his solo catalog followed. The Vancouver Symphony Orchestra (conducted by Jeremy Lubbock) is in fine form and Foster’s arrangements of wholly original works are an experience that could only be bettered had I heard it live in a concert hall. For me, it completely blew my mind and still is one of my all-time favorite listens. “The Symphony Sessions” absolutely changed the way I thought about music and it opened up the realization that pop radio, which I thought was everything, was really a very limited facet of music. Everything I knew about music was born out of classical music, and I’d better learn about it real fast if I ever wanted to do anything but make up 8-bit synth lines with my Casio in my bedroom at night!

One More Story – Peter Cetera (1988)

About the same time I was discovering orchestral music, this little gem emerged from the rubble of hair band American radio. At the time, for me, this record was a culmination of all that I had learned about music and the players that made popular music what it was then. This time its producer Patrick Leonard, hot on the heels of his success with Madonna’s “True Blue” project, who makes these songs hum. “One Good Woman” is a great tune, again with JR Robinson on drums. This album (along with another Leonard-produced record, Kenny Loggins’ “Back to Avalon”) also introduced me to the genius guitar work of Dann Huff and the incredible feet of drummer Jonathan “Sugarfoot” Moffet. One of my fave songs in the world is the David Foster co-written “Save Me”, which features the always talented Bonnie Raitt on slide guitar and background vocals. Also onboard is Seidah Garrett, whose voice is so incredible its a shame she was never tapped for solo success.

Listen Without Prejudice, Vol. 1 – George Michael (1990)

LWP:V1 was probably the first album to come out (besides any number of Journey’s records) where I remember being silently stunned by a vocal performance. George Michael’s cover os Stevie Wonder’s haunting “They Won’t Go When I Go” was and still is essentially a 4 minute course on why 99.9% of all vocalists should just pack their shit and go home. This one track is why I write and record instrumental music: every time I hear Michael belt out the bridge of this arrangement, I think “Why bother.”

This entire album is amazing. George has pulled some pretty stupid crap in the last several years, but the guy can sing like a bird, and this album was written during a period when he wasn’t all that high on himself, which is refreshing. It was essentially George’s apology to Andrew Ridgeley for screwing him over by quitting Wham! and not telling him before he told the press. But when it came out, I found it to be an impressive effort of recording exceptional hooks with as little instrumentation as possible. Oh yeah…plus “Freedom ’90″ had the greatest video full of some of the hottest models of our generation. That was a major plus!

Time to Burn — Giant (1992)

I spoke about guitarist Dann Huff a few entries back, but to devote an entire entry to him is still a complete disservice to what the man has contributed to modern American music. Pull out a few albums from 1979 to 2004 and you’ll probably find Huff’s name on every 2 out of 3. As probably one of the most recorded musicians in history, Dann finally wanted to do something of his own, and upon learning he could sing rock as well as he could play it, launched out with brother David and started “Giant” with Mike Brignardello and Alan Pasqua. Their first album in 1990 was “Last of the Runaways”, and Dann showed everyone up with the band’s biggest hit “(I’ll See You) In My Dreams”, but it wasn’t until the band’s sophomore effort in 1992 with the less commercial “Time to Burn” that Dann served up a triple threat, co-writing all the songs as well as fronting the band and playing some of the most intricate and syncopated guitar parts to ever hit tape. Basically, this is where he decided “To hell with playing on other people’s crap, these two are for me!” And then the world lit on fire and never spun again. (I should have said THAT to begin with!)

Deep Forest – Deep Forest (1992)

By the time I was ready to graduate from high school, my little mind alchemy of musical tastes was broader than it had ever been before. However, constrained mostly to American and British pop and rock, I had yet to venture out and find anything lying beyond the modest conventions of American Top 40 radio. While on the road to some gig with one the bands I was playing with at the time, I struck up a conversation with a music store clerk in a small town in central Oregon. We discovered that we both were complete freaks about the music of Peter Gabriel, and he asked me if I’d ever heard anything off Gabriel’s Real World label. He pulled out a section of stuff from the genre and I went to town with the headphones, sampling everything he had for sale. I found out about several groups that day, including Enigma’s deeper catalog (most people think they petered out after “Sadeness”), Maire Brennan, Wes, Alane Eskinazi, and these guys – two Frenchmen who went and gathered a bunch of records made from chants of the Pygmy tribes of Africa and came back and skillfully set it all to European dance drum and bass grooves.

If there was ever an example of how to program amazing melodies to incredibly beautiful music… and not understand one single word of it, this is the project. You would think, because of the dance pop nature of the project, that the music would be very static and non-fluid, but this music really moves melodically and the album, at the time, totally rocked my world and still sounds amazing.

I’m totally ready for there to be comparisons drawn between what I did with Eastern Chronicle and the first Deep Forest record. I’ve always been highly fascinated by it and I don’t shy away from admitting that at all. But I think Eastern Chronicle is a different animal in the sense that it’s a lot less “dance-oriented” than Deep Forest ever was and it focuses much more on bringing a Western bent into the Eastern world without completely turning the project into a tribute to cultural differences. But I still often wonder if I’m really French and there was just a massive mix-up at the hospital!

This record initiated the demise of my preference for the “band” concept, as all of my bandmates had a great time making fun of my “pygmy music” fixation. But it wouldn’t be long before they were out, and the lifestyle that I still enjoy to this day — making MY music in MY studio without OTHERS in the room — would replace all of their no-rent-paying annoying-girlfriend-having asses!

Secret World Live – Peter Gabriel (1994)

After I got into this whole world of ethnic and world music, I started to really get into Gabriel’s stuff from a different approach. In fact, for Kathrine Bigelow’s 1995 “Strange Days”, Gabriel teamed up with the aforementioned Deep Forest on an incredibly cool tune called While the Earth Sleeps, which lent an otherworldly feel to the already stylized film starring Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Lewis. “Secret World Live” came out before the “Strange Days” collaboration, but I didn’t get my hands on it until after I heard the collaborative track.

“Secret World Live” gets a bad rap for being a subtle take on Gabriel’s later material, but I don’t care — Manu Katche, Tony Levin, Gabriel, an as yet undiscovered Paula Cole, and Shankar all together on one record is pure magic. When I see a show as a spectator, I really dig listening to how the artist changes things up to make it more interesting of an experience. I completely love each arrangement that Gabriel and company come to the table with here, particularly on Come Talk to Me and Digging In the Dirt. I saw the “Growing Up” tour twice and Gabriel can really electrify an arena with not much work. His show has an energy that I’ve never seen in any performance and the effects he employs are always amazing, yet simple and very effective. I would love to tour with an act like PG. I wish more and more concerts were a “spectacle” like his are, not just a bunch of guys running around the stage and being uninteresting, thinking we are all happy enough to just see them in person.

Don’t even get me started on LiveNation!!!!!!

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