Some of the best indie rock music is made by bands that work closely together as a tight-knit unit and commit to recording what the exact synchronized vision for their sound is. And yet, other times… a record producer can really make or break an album.
Let’s not spend any time on the negative, though, but rather, let’s discuss a few records that really shone BECAUSE the band worked with a producer who helped support and inspire them… starting with…
Mark Ronson / Kaiser Chiefs’ Off with Their Heads
Leeds-founded rockers Kaiser Chiefs are, easily, one of the most beloved indie rock bands of the ’00s. Mark Ronson is one of the most celebrated producers in pop music. Along with co-producer Eliot James (Two Door Cinema Club, Bloc Party), they made one of Kaiser Chiefs’ most acclaimed albums: Off with Their Heads (2008).
Marking their third studio album, Off with Their Heads was not necessarily a departure from the band’s established sound through their first two albums, but it was about 50 percent more guitar-driven and clearly… as the kids would say… an all-around bop. There is just this embellished infectiousness to it, which is very obviously Ronson bringing his skillset to the table and helping the band amplify their songwriting.
Rick Rubin / The Mars Volta’s De-Loused in the Comatorium
Attempting to identify what it is, specifically, that Rick Rubin brings to music production is like trying to determine the makeup of the Earth’s inner core… there’s plenty of data to research, but even if you exhaustively explore every bit of it, you’ll still be left with just a hypothesis.
Following the dissolution of Texas post-hardcore legends At The Drive-In, Omar Rodríguez-López and Cedric Bixler-Zavala formed The Mars Volta and released their debut album De-Loused in the Comatorium in 2003.
Team with Bixler-Zavala to produce the project, Rubin seems to have done what he does best, weaving his otherworldly perception into the band’s sound, making for their most critically and commercially successful album to date.
Steve Albini / Low’s Things We Lost in the Fire
Steve Albini was one of the greatest music producers the world has ever seen, being behind some of the greatest albums made in the ’90s, such as Nirvana’s In Utero, The Jesus Lizard’s Goat, and PJ Harvey’s Rid of Me.
Spilling over into the New Millennium, Albini was helping bands get more visceral in different ways, like working with Neuriosis on the heavier side and iconic indie rock band Low to be more of an emotional gut-punch than they already were, which essentially gave them fucking superpowers to make you cry until your body was devoid of any moisture.
Albini was behind the scenes of many Low projects, but we have to note Things We Lost in the Fire, as it remains not only the band’s most well-received and respected album, but is widely considered to be one of the greatest indie rock albums ever released.
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