Mike Elizondo

Mike Elizondo
Landmark work Eminem, “The Real Slim Shady”; 50 Cent “In da Club”; Fiona Apple, Extraordinary Machine
Ass-kicking recent release Rilo Kiley, Under the Blacklight
Wrestling name Never Heard of Him!
Who? While some producers rise to celebrity status, Mike Elizondo has remained behind the boards. A session bassist before he became a producer, he initially gravitated to hip-hop: check out Eminem’s “The Real Slim Shady,” which Elizondo co-wrote, or his collaboration with Dr. Dre on 50 Cent’s “In Da Club,” which essentially defined the genre of gangsta bubblegum. Elizondo’s masterpiece, however, remains Fiona Apple’s deliciously tortured 2005 album Extraordinary Machine. After Apple scrapped most of the initial work by the quirky Jon Brion (see above), Elizondo made a classic producer’s move — he got out of the way. He put Apple’s distinctive voice out front, polished the keyboards to a gleam, added crisp grooves (some from drummer Ahmir Thompson of the Roots), and, on one song, did almost nothing at all (the beautiful “Parting Gift” features only voice and piano). Elizondo brought the same touch to Rilo Kiley’s new Under the Blacklight, a mix of vintage disco and FM rock that somehow sounds fresh and modern. He’s still making his name, working with trendy acts such as Maroon 5 and Natasha Bedingfield, but Elizondo has a magic combination — the ethos of a craftsman and the ear of an artist.
— Rafer Guzmán

Brian Eno

Brian Eno
Landmark work Talking Heads, Remain in Light; U2, The Joshua Tree
Highly anticipating upcoming release U2 and Coldplay’s next albums, as yet unnamed
Wrestling name The Ambienator!
A decade or so ago, you probably heard Brian Eno every day and didn’t even know it. Every time you logged on to Windows 95 — that fluttering, chiming six-second start-up sound? He composed it. In a way, it’s emblematic of Eno’s ubiquity, and of how he’s glided through many musical eras, shaping the sounds we listen to — sometimes without us even realizing it. As a musician, of course, he’s nonpareil: Roxy Music; his strange and seminal ’70s solo albums; Frippertronics (the tape-loop tinkering he pioneered with Robert Fripp); those erudite ambient experiments. But as a producer, he’s made his aural mark in more subtle ways. He’s had a hand in dozens and dozens of other artists’ albums, including some of the greatest ever recorded. The same man helped mold Devo’s jerky new wave; the moody atmospherics of David Bowie’s Berlin trilogy; the head-spinning tribal polyrhythm on Talking Heads’ Remain in Light and the funky, sample-heavy David Byrne collaboration, My Life in the Bush of Ghosts — recently reissued in open-source, re-mixable form — that followed; the laboriously layered guitar grandeur of U2’s The Joshua Tree and the spacey Euro-techno of the same band’s Zooropa. Eno was just in Morocco with Daniel Lanois, recording U2’s 15th album. After that, he got to work on Coldplay’s new record (Eno claims it’ll be “very different from what they’ve done before”), which is due out next year. “I have a definite talent for convincing people to try something new,” Eno has said. “I am a good salesman. When I’m on form, I can sell anything.” We’ll buy that.
— Mike Miliard

Nigel Godrich

Nigel Godrich
Landmark work Beck, Sea Change; Radiohead, Kid A
Ass-kicking recent release Radiohead, In Rainbows
Wrestling name The Scientist!
Since their 1997 watershed album OK Computer, Nigel Godrich has been to Radiohead what George Martin was to the Beatles — the unofficial sixth member of the most important rock band of the past decade, much in the same way Martin was the “fifth Beatle.” In fact, it was Martin who suggested Godrich to Paul McCartney when Macca was looking for someone to produce his 2005 solo album, Chaos and Creation in the Backyard, for which Godrich was nominated for a Producer of the Year Grammy. And like Sir George, who helped the Fab Four navigate the waters of revolutionary studio experimentation, Godrich helped steer Radiohead from a relatively standard Brit-rock sound to darker electronic pastures. One of his strengths is his ability to marry futuristic-sounding electronic elements with more traditional sounds, including lush string orchestrations. Godrich has also been responsible for awakening the earnest singer-songwriter in Beck, eliciting a gorgeous swan song from Pavement, and helming Air’s Talkie Walkie, one of the most beautiful electro-organic albums in recent memory.
— Will Spitz