so yeah.
what are top 5, or 5 favourite produced albums... Like, the production on them, not the songs or writing, but actual production.

mine would be something like...

Feist - The Reminder
Broken Social Scene - You Forgot It in People
Broken Social Scene - Broken Social Scene
Camera Obscura - Let's Get Out Of This Country
Death Cab for Cutie - Transatlanticism
The Decemberists - Picaresque
Radiohead - OK Computer
The Beach Boys - Pet Sounds
TV on The Radio - Return To Cookie Mountain
White Stripes -White Blood Cells

Ohh this is going to be tough. Cool thread. I'm excited.

Death Cab - Transatlanticsm
Zero 7 - When It Falls
Radiohead - Amnesiac
The Knife - Silent Shout
Madvillain - Madvillainy
Xiu Xiu - Fabulous Muscles
The Microphones - It was Hot We, Stayed in the Water
Sparklehorse - It's a Wonderful Life
The Roots - Things Fall Apart
Iron and Wine - The Creek Drank the Cradle

I guess that's 10.

I don't have any knowledge about production...i'm happy as long as the album sounds good.

Same. I don't really know what I'm listening for when I try to judge a producer...

oh...

This is a really cool idea and I think about it a LOT! I think I have reasons for why I like each album that I place here, so I'll kind of explain it. I mostly judge them by the fact that I can sit all the way through them and enjoy every bit of them.

Rubber Soul (The Beatles)
Rubber Soul is good because, to me, it's the peak of the Beatles. It's their phase between phases, and luckily everything snapped into place. If you have the chance, check out both the 80's stereo version and the origional mono versions as well as some bootleg takes to see how the songs evolved. This album is country, rock, french, transatlantic blues, folk, and slightly world, all in one disk... this is the beginning of the popularization of the "sitar" in pop music. This, which was made in '65, is also one of the best editing jobs ever in history, even though it was all on tape. So many things were overdubbed, mixed down, sped up, etc that you wouldn't even believe it.

Aja (Steely Dan)
Jazz-Rock. The chords on this thing are super good, and the arrangements, too. This album has the perfect blend of lyrics and music, although the lyrics lack sometimes. Check out the drums towards the end of Aja, this is played by one guy, mind you, and it is said to have been the first take.

Smap 012 Viva Amigos! (SMAP)
This is a J-pop album from '96. It has a lot of Jazz/Rock elements in it and has some REALLY good drumming and nice rhythms. Suga Shikao wrote Yozora no Mukou for SMAP on this album and covered his own song earlier this year and made it better than the smap version (it's hard to find on youtube, but if you can, it's totally worth it)

Pet Sounds (The Beach Boys)
The harmonies on this album are amazing, and the instrumentation is superb!! This is the album where Brian Wilson pretty much blew his load, and it reaks of it! Seriously though, his idea of recording most of the instruments at the same time and using a lot of doubling created these cool new sounds that even to this day is hard to replicate.

Kind of Blue/'59 Sessions (Miles Davis)
This is the basically the birth of Modal Jazz and in my opinion the highlight of Miles's career. Bill Evans, on piano, basically reinspired jazz with his playing.

Time Out (Dave Brubeck)
If you're into crazy time signatures or anything, check this out!! He plays with time to the point where everything kinda gets mixed up haha. I think the famous one off of here is take five. The opening track was actually during the football scene of wedding crashers when vince vaughn is getting his ass handed to him, 'cause "nature always wins" according to mr. walken.

Songs in the Key of Life (Stevie Wonder)
Basically all of Stevie Wonder's albums during the 70's were the bomb, it's just that this is a double album, so it's more bang for your buck. Seriously though, this guy is a genious. The only gripe that I have is that he obviously did like 90% of these albums with synth, although he actually did it right.

The Band (The Band)
The Band is one of those groups where the sum is greater than the whole, and in this album, when they were all collaborating in a pretty healthy manner, they created a masterpiece. These guys recorded their albums in simple settings (like in houses) and let the rooms reverberate and all that... the way everything sounds is so raw and great, I honestly think this is a lot of what chris walla talks about. "The night they drove old dixie down" and "King harvest" and "Unfaithful servant", to me, are the best part of this album... If you haven't checked it out, watch the Last Waltz... a lot of it is on youtube. (although according to their drummer, levon helm, it was a fiasco)

Dark Side of the Moon (Pink Floyd)
This album is one of the best things to listen to with headphones. These guys are seriously not that good technically, but on this album they all worked together to create something that really did it. The overdubbing and all that that was done was so expansive, and you can tell that they put a lot of effort into every single part. My favorite part of the album is the amount of talking, or call and response, that is done between Rick Wright's Organ/Electric Piano and David Gilmour's electric rhythm guitaring... it's really quite nice. The background singers with the phasers sound awesome, too.

Transatlanticism (Death Cab for Cutie)
To me this album is good 'cause it really introduced to me what I like to call "noise theory". Chris Walla seems to have a thing about adding noise to songs, and he knows how to do it just right. That weird sound at the beginning of new year and the sound of cars driving by during lack of color, they're timed just right. I also love the completely off percussion in transatlanticism and the dirty crunches in title and registration... The drawback, though, is often the song structure... 'cause they're not exactly pop-oriented (but that's nice for a change in many ways).

radiohead - kid a + amnesiac (they go hand-in-hand)
weezer - pinkerton
death cab for cutie - transatlanticism
the most serene republic - underwater cinematographer
pink floyd - wish you were here
caribou(formerly manitoba) - up in flames

i tried to narrow it down to the ones i really love, but i don't have the heart to eliminate any more, so here. glad to see we all agree on transatlanticism.

quote:

Originally posted by hey, man:
radiohead - kid a + amnesiac (they go hand-in-hand)
weezer - pinkerton
death cab for cutie - transatlanticism
the most serene republic - underwater cinematographer
pink floyd - wish you were here
caribou(formerly manitoba) - up in flames

i tried to narrow it down to the ones i really love, but i don't have the heart to eliminate any more, so here. glad to see we all agree on transatlanticism.

Man... why'd you choose WYWH over some of the other pink floyd albums???

quote:

Originally posted by hey, man:
the most serene republic - underwater cinematographer

I agree wholeheartedly.