Over compression isn't what bothers me. I just think the mixes tend to be too crowded. Not everything has to be audible in the mix, as far as I'm concerned. There are certain things that affect the song that you might not notice until they are muted, when you realise they are gone. I also don't care for numerous instruments taking up the full sonic range so that the bass, the guitar, the vocals, the keys, etc are not clearly defined from each other. Electric guitars don't need to capture everything from 50hz on up. 50hz is the bass's job. Let the guitar give you the texture and the harmonic content, and properly blended with a good bass sound, it will appear to have lots of low end. And then you don't need a lot of high mids in the bass, if the kick drum is properly supporting the bass, etc.
A great example of one of these mixes that I find to be muddy and messy is Jason Falkner's "She Goes To Bed". But the most important thing is that this mix completely loses the sense of the song and doesn't translate the emotion. We have talked about recordings like Al Green's, which sound like ass, but just fucking kill you with the vibe, soul and emotion of the performance, because Terry was aware of which part of the song's content was the most important: The vibe not the fidelity.
For some more recent JJP examples, I think he does a decent job of the type of separation I described above on the Stereophonics "Madame Helga" while the drums are riding the toms, and it's just bass, guitar and vox. But when everything kinda kicks in, I feel like my ears are being gangbanged. It's like a sonic bukakke, and somebody spooged all over my stereo. (Sorry for the graphic description. Like I said in Klaus's forum, I had too much FZ at a tender age.)
Personally, I think that the sonic ear cramming and insensitivity to the emotional content of a song are long standing traits of his, and I sometimes wonder if having all that fucking gear just makes it worse. Case in point, I remember when they were tracking the Grays record and he threw up a really quick rough on the Neve 8038 console over at Music Grinder for me of one of the songs and manually rode the faders. It was amazing. Powerful, dynamic and sentimental. Then, when the CD was done and I listened to that same song, I was like "what the fuck happened to that cool vibe that was on the raw tracks"?
Does that answer your question? I'm not saying that every mix he has done sucks or that he's a bad mixer. I just don't think he's worthy of the hype that the pro audio press gives him or the reverance that A&R idiots have for him. It's like watching the Halliburton of mixing automatically get the no bid contracts while tons of guys will do better work for cheaper, and in less time. I'm just the guy who speaks my mind about whoever rubs me the wrong way, I guess. Go to Ross's forum and read what I think about Clive, for an example. I guess this is what happens when you marry a Jersey girl ... you tell people more than you maybe should. LOL. But then again, being a straight shooter means that I usually only have fellow straight shooters around me, and in a place like Hollywood, there's nothing more important than sorting the chicken shit from the shicken salad. No?