Producer is the God

Listen to these three songs. The links go to iTunes – if you have iTunes installed you can listen to 30 seconds samples.

Def Leppard: Stand Up (Kick Love into Motion)
Bryan Adams: Thought I’d Died and Gone to Heaven
Heart: Will You be There (In the Morning)

Who is really in charge, the artist or the producer (and songwriter)?

Robert John "Mutt" Lange, the guy behind the curtain, taught me two things. One is to throw away the illusion that the artist is always the creator. The other is that just because you wrote the song doesn’t mean you get the credit (or at least recognized by everybody).

Well he is now hooked up with Shania Twain (and wrote all of her hit tunes) and is finally recognized outside the hard rock industry. Def Leppard seems to be wandering in the limbo haunted by Mutt Lange’s legacy.