The Producer As Star

The NY Times looks at the development in popular music where the producer can be as big a star as artists. The paper suggests that Danger Mouse who is one half of 2006-supergroup Gnarls Barkley is the star even though he doesn’t sing or play a musical instrument:

On the surface, such a methodology might make Danger Mouse sound like Phil Spector, the studio genius, egocentric taskmaster and accused murderer who supposedly threatened musicians with firearms when they did not perform songs to his liking. This would not be accurate. A better comparison might be Brian Eno, the British engineer-musician who used various bands and artists to generate the myriad musical concepts he imagined. There’s at least one crucial difference, however: Though Eno was the intellectual force behind groups like Roxy Music and albums like “Heroes,” he was never the star; the star was always someone else (like Bryan Ferry or David Bowie). What’s atypical about Gnarls Barkley is that the star is Burton, even though he’s barely visible onstage.

The D.J. Auteur – New York Times