John Leckie Productions

John Leckie worked with some amazing artists and became known for working with new artists and making some great albums. Like a lot of great producers he worked as  a mixer and engineer before being a producer. This pick is based around just some of his production work from part of his career. A few of my favorites. I divided it up into two periods. The punky arty section to the more guitar alt indy section. A couple of people figure in here twice Brix E Smith with the Fall and Adult Net and Andy Partrdige (and the rest) with XTC and Dukes Of Stratosphere.

John Leckie Productions

01 Ultravox! - Hiroshima Mon Amour

02 Magazine - Shot By Both Sides

03 The Fall - Totally Wired

04 Public Image Ltd - Poptones

05 Siouxsie & The Banshees - Spellbound

06 XTC - Senses Working Overtime

07 The Dukes Of Stratosphear - Vanishing Girl

08 Be Bop Deluxe - Ships In The Night

09 Bill Nelson - Do You Dream in Colour

10 Adult Net - Edie

11 The Lilac Time - All For Love And Love For All

12 The Stone Roses - She Bangs The Drums

13 Ride - Vapour Trail

14 The Verve - Slide Away

15 Radiohead - Just

16 Muse - Sunburn

17 The Posies - Golden Blunders

18 New Order - Krafty

19 Simple Minds - I Travel

Rupert Hine Pick

I can't even say this is his best work, although it is good. I probably could have done all of his work as a musician. Which this pick has a lot of. Or only work of his as a producer and there is a lot of that too. But I chose to pick a little of each. Just enough to give you a taste so you'd go looking for more. I always liked everything on the Welcome To Woop Woop soundtrack (even though I hear some people hated the movie and the soundtrack, too bad for them). When I saw that Hine had played with Poe as well as produced the track, I had to include it. Saga and Rush was never in question. I did want to include a track from the Better Off Dead soundtrack, but, oh well. I did love that movie too. I saw the French band Les Negresses Vertes live once in NY and it was a great show. I'd see them again. They were followed by some French groupies who were surprised that they could get so close to the band (as they were just starting out playing in the US). I was happy to meet them, but happier to hear them play live. At the time I had no idea that Rupert Hine would produce them.

Rupert Hine Pick

01 Spin 1Ne 2Wo - Can't Find My Way Home

02 Thinkman - The Formula

03 Rupert Hine - The Heart Of The Matter

04 Howard Jones - What Is Love

05 Thompson Twins - Get That Love

06 Rupert Hine - I Hang On To My Vertigo

07 Rush - Show Don't Tell

08 Rupert Hine - Misplaced Love

09 Tina Turner - Better Be Good To Me

10 Poe - I Cain't Say No

11 Peter Gabriel, Suzanne Vega & Geoffrey Oryema - One White Field

12 Stevie Nicks - Rooms on Fire

13 Quantum Jump - The Lone Ranger

14 Yvonne Elliman - I Can't Explain

15 The Waterboys - A Girl Called Johnny

16 Saga - On The Loose

17 Jon Pertwee - Who Is The Doctor

18 Fixx - One Thing Leads To Another

19 Les Negresses Vertes - A Quoi Bon

Steve Lillywhite Productions

This pick of Steve Lillywhite will only scratch the surface of his productions since he has over 500 to his name. But they are indicative of my favorites. Songs I own. I am not going to get into everything he's done and how famous he is, especially in Britain. Go to the internet and look it up. I'm sure they have gobs of pages there about him. I could care less. But I do care about bands like The Members and the album he produced. Stuff like Ultravox! when they were punky and edgy. Psychedelic Furs, Talking Heads, Big Country, Siouxsie, XTC, Pogues, etc. Lots of bands went through his hands and mostly for the better. Just listen and you will hear it. Thanks Steve.

Steve Lillywhite Productions

01 30 Seconds To Mars - Kings And Queens

02 Members - Sound Of The Suburbs

03 The Psychedelic Furs - Sister Europe (Remastered Album Version)

04 Peter Gabriel - Games Without Frontiers

05 Ultravox! - My Sex

06 Dave Matthews Band - Crash Into Me

07 Marshall Crenshaw - Whenever You're On My Mind

08 Talking Heads - (Nothing But) Flowers

09 Rolling Stones - Harlem Shuffle

10 The La's - There She Goes

11 Big Country - In A Big Country

12 Switchfoot - Awakening

13 Steel Pulse - Ku Klux Klan

14 The Pogues - If I Should Fall From Grace With God

15 U2 - Vertigo

16 Phish - Waste

17 Siouxsie & The Banshees - Hong Kong Garden (Strings Intro)

18 XTC - Making Plans for Nigel

19 Morrissey - The More You Ignore Me, The Closer I Get

Mutt Lange Production Pick

A little different than yesterday's pick. These are all Mutt Lange productions. Some he produced the whole album and others just a song, but all his work in the producers chair. A few he also wrote or cowrote, but the production is the key here. Notice that there are no doubles with the songs here and yesterday. He has quite a bit to choose from. Mutt Lange is probably known for his work with Shania Twain and AC-DC and Bryan Adams, but you will see quite a bit of other stuff in here too. I hadn't realized that XTC and Boomtown Rats were on this list until I started looking. I knew about the Cars and Foreigner and the rockers in here, but I was surprised about Lady Gaga until I listened to the song again. I couldn't find any Thomas Dolby songs written or produced by Lange, but it was cool to see Dolby appear on a few of these productions.

Mutt Lange Production Pick

18 Cars - Drive

19 Nickelback - If Today Was Your Last Day

20 Tina Turner - Why Must We Wait Until Tonight

21 Supercharge - Get Down Boogie

22 AC-DC - Back In Black

23 Maroon 5 - Misery

24 Bryan Adams - Can't Stop This Thing We Started

25 Backstreet Boys - If You Want It To Be Good Girl

26 Foreigner - Urgent

27 Billy Ocean - When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Get Going (Single Version)

28 Def Leppard - Photograph

29 Muse - Psycho

30 Lady Gaga - You And I

31 Shania Twain - Whose Bed Have Your Boots Been Under

32 Romeo's Daughter - Don't Break My Heart

33 XTC - This Is Pop (Single Version)

34 Boomtown Rats - Rat Trap

35 Graham Parker - Heat Treatment

36 Michael Bolton - Said I Loved You... But I Lied

Trevor Horn Pick

Trevor Horn is one of those producers that I often talk about as a guy who makes such a difference that you can love all of what he does. I had heard of "Buggles" and loved that. Then when I heard "Art Of Noise" and realized that Horn had worked on that, followed by my discovering "Frankie Goes To Hollywood" and "ABC" also had a Trevor Horn hand in those albums. Finding ZTT records and then wham, he was in "Yes"! OMG! Of course he had to have a family pick! Here it is, my pick of Trevor Horn music. Impossible to not leave something out, so of course I did. Sorry if your favorite was left out. Go ahead leave a comment about it.

Trevor Horn Pick

01 10cc - Cry

02 ABC - Poison Arrow

03 Bryan Ferry - Dance With Life (Brilliant Light)

04 Art of Noise - Close (To The Edit)

05 Frankie Goes To Hollywood - Two Tribes

06 Grace Jones - Slave To The Rhythm

07 Yes - Into The Lens

08 Geoffrey Downes & the New Dance Orchestra - You Can Fly From Here

09 Buggles - Video Killed The Radio Star

10 Propaganda - Dr. Mabuse

11 Pet Shop Boys - Left To My Own Devices

12 Seal - Killer (Single Version)

13 LeAnn Rimes - Can't Fight The Moonlight

14 Rod Stewart - Leave Virginia Alone

15 Paul McCartney - Figure Of Eight

16 Marc Almond - What Is Love

17 Tina Turner - Missing You