Beautiful Teams

Chapter 31. Producing Music

Tony Visconti

If you don't know Tony Visconti's name already, just go to his website (http://www.tonyvisconti.com) and click on the Discography link. If you've been alive in the past four decades, you almost certainly own at least a few albums that he's produced (including some of our own favorites). He's worked with some of the greatest stars—and biggest egos—in the music business, and he's created lasting albums that were both artistic and commercial successes. We wanted to know how he did it…and to our amazement, he sat down with Andrew and told us! And it turns out that what he has to say is surprisingly relevant to the way we build software.

Andrew: Thanks so much for taking the time to do this. Since you're a producer, I want to start out by talking about just what it is that you do. Because I think a lot of people don't really have any idea what a producer does. There's an old Rocky and Bullwinkle episode where Boris Badenov hires Bullwinkle as a movie producer. Bullwinkle asks Boris what a producer produces, and Boris says, "Money." I've definitely noticed that people who have job titles like "producer," "art director," "editor," and "project manager" seem to have a lot in common. So, how would you describe what you do?

Tony: Well, those job definitions are very vague at best, because what someone brings to a job needs to be defined. My style of production is different from, say, a Hugh Padgham style of production, or even George Martin's ...