Favourite Morrissey producer

[sid james]

Yes - another boring poll, but I find this one stunningly hard to decide on myself.

Stephen Street gave a great sound to the early Morrissey material with Viva Hate still sounding great today; Mick Ronson's glam rock sound on 'Your Arsenal' was genius; Tony Visconti's work on 'Ringleader' is similarly sonically dense; and while Steve Lillywhyte went off the boil somehat (particuarly with the muted and bland 'Maladjusted') let's not forget the lush sounds of 'Vauxhaul and I'. Even Danton Supple did some great stuff with those 'Maladjusted' B-Sides sounding 100% better than most of the album itself.

The only producers I don't really rate are Langer & Winstanley (some reasonable early singles but 'Kill Uncle' wasn't much cop) and Jerry Finn ('You Are The Quarry' was direct but rather boring production-wise - I actually preferred most of the live versions of the songs from the 2002 tour).

I think I'll plump for Mick Ronson, but its a very tough choice...

 

[bored]

I think Mick wins this one in a landslide.... but I'm usually wrong about everything so it will probably be Clive/Alan

 

[Nikita]

Lillywhite produced his best album but since he also did his two worse ... I would vote for Visconti

Finn is of course the worst by far

 

[++++++]

It'd be easy to pick Steve Lillywhyte- the songs on Vauxhall are wonderful, and I can picture them being ruined by a lesser producer. I'm sure Finn would've turned it into a Radiohead-lite disaster. And Maladjusted was (in my opinion) a good collection of diverse, quirky songs. Lillywhyte's done good by Morrissey.

With respect to the producer's merits and how he influenced Morrissey's sound, though, I think Mick Ronson has been the best knob twister to date. Your Arsenal is a masterpiece, and the deceptively simple production (e.g. You're Gonna Need Someone on Your Side) added a raw, unpolished feel to the work that later albums have sorely lacked. The recent talk from Visconti about how he wished he could've produced Your Arsenal leads to some tantalizing speculation on what it could've sounded like, but honestly I don't know if he could've topped what Ronson, Moz, and the band achieved.

 

[dazzak]

Mick Ronson has been the best knob twister to date.

Please don't speak ill of the dead.

 

[++++++]

Not those knobs.

 

[Maradona]

I went for Ronson immediately and was pleasantly surprised to see him out in the lead by quite a way....