My vote is for Trent Reznor, he'll be sitting on his ass in '07 and '08 not recording, that's for damn sure.
Besides that, U2 doesn't neccessarily need an 'ideas' producer, they need a 'sonics' producer. I'll go into more detail later, if I think about it.
typhoon said:
I don't think "we all know Lillywhite can produce good albums." The first three albums were way stuffy. I think it suited Boy, but by War, when they started mixing up their arrangements more, it became very clear the band had outgrown Lillywhite. And Bomb is way overprocessed. All noise, no nuance. "Sweetest Thing" '98 sounded good, but of course, Eno and Lanois lent a hand on that...
Eno and Lanois are amazing, though. All their recordings have a timeless quality. I think it's interesting when one exerts more influence than the other (like how Achtung is more Lanois and Zooropa is all Eno). I've been hoping for an all-Lanois album for a while now.
I don't know why everyone dogs on Flood (although calling Pop "overproduced" is definitely a new one on me). I agree with Layton; Flood took these really chaotically detailed arrangements and made something fairly tight and clean out of them. There's an occasional blip (like that one on the "Last Night On Earth" chorus), but I think he did a good job overall. He did better barely making the release date than the army of producers on Bomb did with numerous delays.
I don't know much about Kanye West, but I think he'd be an interesting choice for the next album. It's not like U2 will have to do a hip-hop album just because he's producing. As long as they stick with one producer and don't give us a sonic mess like Bomb, I'm hopeful.
Johnny Cash's American records sounded great under Rick Rubin, but the Chili Pepper's By the Way was pretty flat (and I don't know what else I've heard that Rubin produced), so I don't know what to think of him. He's all trendy now that everyone loves Johnny Cash again, but I don't know if he's actually anything exceptional.
I totally agree about LIllywhite, people give the production on those first three albums a pass, including myself, but it's nothing to write home about, especially War, all things considered.
Flood also produced outside of POP, people seem to have forgotten this. NIN, PJ Harvey, Depeche Mode, Smashing Pumpkins, albums:Violator, Songs of Faith and Devotion, The Downward Spiral, Pretty Hate Machine, Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness/Adore (assisted), To Bring You My Love
also, an engineer on The Joshua Tree and Achtung Baby, also worked on Zooropa.
He is excellent. If you want to blame the shoddy production on POP on something, blame the fact that it was hurried, period.
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as for Rick Rubin, I've been waiting to say this for some time.
First off, he's made some outstanding albums from Slayer to Public Enemy to the Beasties to RHCP and all kinds in between.
I'll disagree with you on By The Way, it's pretty dynamic for it's simple structure, I don't know how you could think those harmonies or the entire song Throw Away Your Television are flat, but we can disagree about that.
He does have a few clunkers like the last Audioslave album, but that's not important to what I want to say. He's a hands-on control freak and he has a huge ego.
He specializes in capturing the best takes, he's not a producer who walks in and says "play the C#, not the Cm" or whatever.
He's a guy that plays by ear. He thrives on the songs being done and getting the best out of them.
U2, as we all know, don't record like anyone else. They essentially jam until shit starts happening, then they jam some more until it filters down, after months and months they get down to songs, that end up melding together blah blah, most of us already know this.
Rubin, according to the interviews I've read, and I've read several, likes for the artist to trust their instincts, yet another strike agianst U2's process. He described working with Neil Diamond and said essentially that Neil wrote 20 songs, came in they recorded them and took the best 12. It was a simple recording process, his expertise is to capture the moments.
With U2, the entire writing process are moments, with their tendency to prolong studio sessions, we all know they dwell and hang on minute details until it's right, or as Bono says "God walks thru the room" And then they have to hash that out.......
It just seems from the start, a conflict of interest. Possible ego clash, a real creative disconnect, in terms of producing the music itself. The fact that U2 aren't done writing until they stop recording, lends itself to not working well with someone like Rubin. Rubin takes many projects a year, would he spend a year with U2, maybe 6 months? He very well might, odds are that it's not a good match.
NOW ALL THAT SAID.
If U2 spent a year, with Edge and selected engineers recording and forming the best 20 songs, they had extreme confidence in those songs, and took them to Rubin, and worked with him for 5 or 6 months (whatever) to get the best takes, then it could work.
Rubin is a master at what he does, all I am getting at, is that what he's really good at doesn't seem to run side by side with U2's process. Couldn't we see U2 changing things up again and again and just pissing him off? I could. It's just seems to be a conflict of interest. What happened with Chris Thomas, the hardened studio vet, who basically has remained mum on the subject? I think he grew tired of U2 and they of him.
Where does that leave U2, or maybe more importantly the fans?
More waiting? Tour delayed to Nov 06, I got news for you, the next album is a long, long ways off. Do we want to wait even longer?
I don't think U2 in 2006, is willing to turn their system on it's head just to work with the producer of the moment, even if he has been around for nearly 20 years. It just doesn't add up in all the right places. Guys like Eno and Lanois, seem to be fluid, ever changing ideas, possibilities, Rubin seems to be the kind of guy, from his own words, I'll dig up some quotes if you like, that wants to more or less do it his way. Now, he doesn't force the artists hand into doing a song this way or that way, but when he says "leave it be" I think that's his calling card. U2 change constantly, not a match.
