I don't really follow the track records of producers - I know the production and studio treatment can matter so much, but it's more whoever made the music than who was sitting in the producer's chair that concerns me.

Nevertheless, Nick Gold is an absolute champ. He founded World Circuit Records, has therefore been instrumental in bringing a lot of musical talent from Africa and Latin America to the attention of western audiences, and he's produced some of the very best talents from those areas too - Ry Cooder, Ali Farka Toure, Toumani Diabate, Orchestra Boabab, Habib Koite, Ibrahim Ferrer, the Buena Vista Social Club (which he basically formed himself), it's a huge list.

The Sly Dunbar/Robbie Shakespeare, aka Sly & Robbie partnership has worked on a ridiculous amount of rreggae ecords as well - Black Uhuru, Prince Far I, Bunny Wailer, Mighty Diamonds, Peter Tosh, Jimmy Cliff, Gregory Isaacs, Beenie Man and so on. The records they've produced that I've heard have this great, really heavy and rhythm-centric sound, which does a whole lot of good for any of their albums. They've made some great music themselves too, which helps.

I don't really pay as much attention to producers as I should but I really do enjoy Steve Wilson's production. His work on the new Orphaned Land album is sliiiick.

I used to pay more attention than I do now. Names like Rick Rubin, Butch Vig, Steve Albini, etc. used to come up on several albums I liked back in the day, but somewhere along the way I quit paying attention. And I never made a conscious effort to get albums produced by these people unless I was already interested in the band or style of music. Like Bulldog says above...it's who's making the music that matters most. I have a lot of albums produced by Dave Ogilvie, but that's because he produced nearly every Skinny Puppy album in the 80s/90s. I have a lot produced by Hypo/Luxa because that was the production duo of Al Jourgansen and Paul Barker, who produced most of their own albums as Ministry plus many side projects.

Now when it comes to electronic and hip-hop, that's another story. It's all about the producer, as the producer is in most cases the artist.

I don't know about that, I think the producer has just as much input on how an album sounds as the band/artist does a lot of the time.

Yes but the band has a style, is associated with a genre, has a distinct vocalist that people identify said band with. No doubt the producer can have a huge impact on the sound of an album, I'm just saying I'm not likely to follow a producer around because he made one band or one album sound great to me. The next band he produces could have a terrible singer for all I know...I just go for bands that sound good to me.

Flood (Depeche Mode, U2, Pop Will Eat Itself, Nine Inch Nails, Smashing Pumpkins)

Yeah, outside of hip-hop I couldn't give less of a shit about producers. It just doesn't seem to matter to me. I could listen to Bad Brains, Radiohead, and Tom Waits, on three completely different production levels, and couldn't rank one above the other.