The Jeff Lynne Producer Poll

For me, a cross-in-between "Vol. 1" and "Cloud Nine", but as the former will probably win by a landslide, I voted for the latter.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

what a horrible track record

All excellent in fact. He has yet to produce a bad album.

I don't like any of these records and several of them are the worst by their respective artists (Tom Petty, George Harrison, Ringo)

boy, I really can't agree, Shakey. George recorded some of the worst albums in history when he was sole producer; at least Lynne gave him the kick in the ass. I'm no fan, but how can you argue that Full Moon Fever is a bad album?

If you don't like ELO, you may dislike all of those, as they all sound like ELO albums in some way or another. Which IMO means they sound great.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

no I do like ELO! I think Lynne's production worked so much better on them and their kind of material - but something bad happened when he morphed into his 80s thin-acoustic-guitar-wall-o-crap style. There's a couple George solo albums (Somewhere in England, Gone Troppo) I haven't heard but I'll take "Living in the Material World" and "Dark Horse" over "Cloud Nine" any day (to say nothing of "All Things Must Pass")

"Full Moon Fever" is like half a good record - its easily Petty's worst, at least up to that point. Some really shitty songwriting ("Won't Back Down", "Runnin Down a Dream") and sapped by Lynne's limpwristed production, by and large.

I sort of like that more "acoustic" style of his, although I think his productions would have been better with some synths and strings added. Anyway, that Dave Edmunds album sounds exactly like ELO did.

"I Won't Back Down" is shitty songwriting?

Yeah, that seems stupid, Shakey. I will admit that I thought the song was pretty thin until I heard the Johnny Cash version which is positively biblical.

Which perhaps means that the problem is Lynne's production!

And btw, there may be a reason Wikipedia doesn't mention Lynne's contribution to Robin Gibb's How Old Are You?: he's not credited on it. In fact, I've never even heard that he had anything to do with it -- but now that you mention it, the title track does have a bit of the Lynne vocal arrangement magic.

It's impossible for me to separate the wonderfulness of "Yer So Bad," "Two Gunslingers," and "Runnin' Down a Dream" from Lynne's production.

and, christ, Orbison's "You Got It"!

I tried my own list.