Preface 1: As audiences, it’s always about who we give the credit to. We understand that most things in life, especially modern western art, are collaborative processes. Nevertheless, we generally need a “brains” or a leader, to whom we give the praise reverence. I don’t know whether this is an American thing, or a more expansive human phenomenon.
Preface 2: We don’t treat out musicians like we treat our filmmakers. In film, the director is the brains, or spokesperson. When a movie is good, it’s the director’s movie. The screenwriter, though he often had the great idea in the first place, is just the writer. The producer, though it’s often his creative vision, is just the moneyman. The actors, though they actually are the screen representation of the movie (and admittedly get a certain degree of credit themselves in the acting world), are just the director’s puppets. For all intents and purposes, it is always the director’s movie.
We don’t view music in this way, at least not anymore. In 2010, the performer is also the writer – we call him the musician. The record company, which would be the “moneyman”, isn’t really a factor anymore, for reasons irrelevant to this analogy. Most importantly though, a producer/engineer is given nowhere near the same degree of credit for a finished recording as a director is given for a finished film. Simply put, no album is a producer’s album.*
This is pretty unfortunate, considering that the success of almost every indie band since the year 2000 has rested on the texture, authenticity, and overall feel of their sound recordings. However, it is this unsophisticated observer’s honest opinion that much of that “feel” can be credited to Dave Fridmann.
If that name sounds familiar, it’s because you read it on the back of your Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots CD jewel case back in 2002. Fridmann co-produced that album with the Flaming Lips, as he has every one of their albums since Priest Driven Ambulance (with the exception of Satellite Heart).
Fridmann began, believe it or not, as the bassist for the seminal theatric-nineties band Mercury Rev. He was involved in the recording process of their music from day one, but came to forefront of the engineering chair with their best-known album, Deserter’s Songs.
That album may serve as the prototype for what many modern indie bands seek to achieve when they enter the recording studio: crystalline, symphonic instrumentation, high-pitched, though still melodic, vocals, and drums that are indistinguishable between live and preprogrammed. I suppose one could argue that the modern indie sound began with this album. However, I think it may have come to a T with an album called the Soft Bulletin, which the Flaming Lips put out in 1999.
Bulletin had some of the same defining characteristics as Deserter’s Songs. There is uncharacteristic orchestral atmosphere to the entire album, with lots of synthesized strings; Wayne Coyne’s signature Neil Young-esque vocals are present, but now with layer upon layer of choral backup vocals; and there is a very strange mesh between this sleek orchestral instrumentation and a grittier, grimier percussion section.
A small list of other albums Fridmann has produced or worked on: Weezer – Pinkerton, Mogwai – Rock Action, Sparklehorse - Dreamt for Light Years in the Belly of a Mountain, Elf Power – A Dream In Sound, Longwave – The Strangest Things, Low – Drums and Guns, Thursday – Common Existence, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah – Some Loud Thunder, Tapes N’ Tapes – Walk It Off, MGMT – Oracular Spectacular, OK Go – Of The Blue Colour of The Sky, and Tame Impala – Innerspeaker.
While the list of bands Fridmann has worked with is impressive, what’s possibly more impressive to me is the list of bands that currently emulate the type of sound he pioneered. The pseudo-electronic/stereo-grit sound that he pioneered on the game-changing Soft Bulletin has now become the industry standard of electronic indie rock.
A short list of bands that arguably utilize Fridmann’ sound: Vampire Weekend, Bibio, Ratatat, the Secret Machines, and everything the DFA has ever produced, which includes the Rapture, LCD Soundsystem, and Holy Ghost. Honestly, the list is endless.
You may take issue with that. Fine; but don’t misunderstand me. Nothing I’m saying is meant to detract from the bands that emulate the sound that Fridmann should be credited with because, as I mentioned, we view music differently than film. None of the albums Fridmann has produced are his albums**, and he isn’t credited with creating a genre of music, just a type of sound. The Soft Bulletin is a Flaming Lips album. That sound though? That’s all Fridmann.
*Sole Exception: Captain Beefheart – Trout Mask Replica is really Frank Zappa’s album.
**The obvious exception being Mercury Rev, of which he is a member.
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