Guasp wrote on Tue, 16 August 2005 09:30 |
Ms Apple has since scrapped that version and started again from scratch with producer Mike Elizondo. only 2 songs survived from the jon brion sessions.
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To correct that, it's produced by Mike Elizondo AND Brian Kehew.
My two cents on Jon are well known. First, a disclaimer: Jon taught me so much about music and how to listen to it, that I would not be half the musician, producer or engineer I am without his influence. He is one of the greatest guitar players alive, a ridiculous keyboard player, drummer, and even kills on double mallet vibes. His ear, understanding of harmony and musical memory for detail are mind numbing. I'd give my left nut to have his musical abilities. Even though I do have a personal axe to grind with him (a different story), I think I can still be completely objective in my opinion.
That being said, I don't care for him as a producer, and I don't care for his newer songs as much as his older songs. I think as a producer, he gets too 'clever'. I honestly feel that on the first Rufus album as well as just about everything else, there's times where it's more about 'notice how clever this is,' rather than 'notice how well this serves the song.' That same self indulgence goes to his writing and letting the artists he works with meander too much in their writing. I'm all for artistic integrity and idealism, but the reality is that people these days have a "next" button available to them. When Yes made
Close To the Edge, kids would smoke some pot, put on a record and listen with headphones ... patiently. You can't ignore the fact that people listen differently these days, so if you are going to let Sony hire you, go over deadline and over budget, you owe it to the artist and the label to make a record that people are going to want to buy. Is it too much to at least ask for one radio single, then you can do
Pet Sounds and pump organ solos for the rest of the record?
A producer's job is to
produce a finished master to the label. This means that you actually have to finish it and you can't decide to fly to Abbey Road to do a third string arrangement because it seems like something cool to do. Jon seems to be unable to commit to a creative decision, and constantly retracks stuff in different ways. I would have more respect for his production if he had more focus. I know a little bit about what Fiona went through, and I feel for her. I don't think it's fair for the producer to take that long, go that far over budget and hand in a record that the label doesn't want to release.
Jon is a genius. And like many geniuses, he suffers from severe myopia. I mean, it's REALLY extreme. I lived with the guy, so just take my word for it. However, I think letting somebody that myopic be in a position as a producer, unchecked, can be a bad thing. Also, I don't know what good being that genius is if all your records don't sell well and those artists never want to work with you again, let alone talk with you.
I'd really like to see Jon have some success as a producer in terms of sales. Maybe his Kanye West thing will do that for him, partially because Kanye has oversight and final say. So many of us believed in Jon and recognized his talent when nobody knew who he was, and he didn't even have money to eat sometimes. I let Jon stay on my couch for half a year, and let the Grays use my rehearsal place for free during the period that they didn't have a deal. I think all of us hoped for a day when people everywhere would recognize his talent, which thankfully they now do. The flipside of that is I think they over indulge his talent. It's like this line I remember from a movie where somebody was talking to a grade school art teacher and commenting on how amazing all the children's paintings were. She asked the teacher how she taught them to paint such beautiful pictures, and the teacher said, "I didn't. I just knew when to take their brush away." Well, I think Jon would benefit greatly from having somebody who knew when to take
his brush away.
Now I know you guys are all going to jump to his defense and flame me, so let's hear it.
EDIT: If you love Jon's music, buy Rusty Anderson's (McCartney's guitarist) solo record,
Undressing Underwater. It's not in stores yet, but it is on iTunes. It reminds me so much of Jon's stuff 15 years ago, especially songs like "Hurt Myself".