I voted Quincy Jones. He produced the best selling album of all time and yes, it is a fucking good album.

I'm just grateful Brendan O'Brian failed to make the list.

what?? he only produced one track on each of those and both of them were the weak weak weak, highly suspicious, most likely label appeasing tracks.

There are producers who are more influencial, or more impressive from a perspective of craft, but in terms of thinking "ooh, this album is produced by X, I should check it out", my favourite will always be John Cale. The man did treportedly did most of the arrangements for the first two VU records, and produced the debut records by the Stooges, Patti Smith and the Modern Lovers, in addition to doing pretty much all the production, arranging and instrumentation on a lot of Nico's best stuff, and some fantastic solo stuff. Can't beat that.

Someone who did quite a lot of "pop" stuff in the 70's and 80's is Gus Dudgeon, who worked with the likes of Queen and Dame Elton of John. And I'd also include Mickie Most, who turned the Human League from an arty synth ensemble to a bona fide pop group. And let's not forget Messrs Chinn and Chapman, who worked with not just the "Jesus wept!" likes of Mud and The Sweet (bovver boots glam ahoy!), but also with Blondie.

bollocks

i said spector, but perry is my fave outa them. i just listened to super ape in the car, its definitely not pop music man, a little too abstract. maybve sometimes, like the congos. but hes hardly someone on the level of fame as spector or someone.

Yeah, it'd be difficult to put someone like Perry alongside say Spector as a pop producer. i just didn't know what else to refer to them all as collectively. If I'd simply put music, then there's a whole raft of jazz and classical producers that would've probably warranted a mention. I think all of the ones mentioned have worked in 'popular music' at some point at least, so i suppose it was the only realistic option. I know what you mean though.

Guy Stevens.