2015 Was The Year Of The Producer, Even In Pop

Inspiration via an editorial by Slate

 

A lot of things have happened in 2015. A lot of them haven’t been that great, relatively speaking. One group of people, however, have profited immensely this year: producers. One might even call them the new rock stars.

The people behind your favorite pop star’s biggest hits have come out of hiding in 2015, or rather, they’ve been discovered. A recent editorial from Slate reminded us that, from the outside, producers aren’t exactly well known. In electronic music, the producer stands king while featured vocalists generally play second fiddle. In pop music, it’s always been the other way around, usually without producers gaining any substantial credit for their work – at least not publicly.

However, in 2015, Jack Ü helped reignite Justin Bieber’s career when they produced “Where Are Ü Now”; Max Martin, the name behind basically every pop hit you can think of, is now at the front of everyone’s lips; then according to Slate, “even Drake’s right-hand-man, producer Noah “40” Shebib, has almost a quarter million Instagram followers.” Skrillex himself has put in work on Bieber’s new album and collaborated with the likes of Vic Mensa and more for some of the biggest pop, EDM and hip/hop songs of the year.

The editorial goes on to laud Kevin Parker of Tame Impala and Jamie xx of The xx, and then shifts gears to highlight the fact that women, even when they’re responsible for production or at least have a hand in it, are often overlooked. Grimes & Björk were prime examples.

Others that the editorial didn’t quite hit on, perhaps they aren’t big enough yet, are Madeon and Zedd, who have worked with Lady Gaga and Selena Gomez, respectively, and who have both put out albums of their own in 2015.

To say nothing of the growing popularity of music production, it’s fascinating to see who is now getting credit. Deadmau5 had his own thoughts on the subject in a heated video recently, stating, “Who aspires to be a part of bullshit?” Well, the producers are now getting their spot in the limelight, and we can only hope that it continues well into the future.

For now, we still know who the real heroes are. Though even in EDM, production credits can sometimes be blurred.