What producer produced your favorite Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers + TP solo sound?

Forgot to add She’s The One to Rick Rubin, my bad 🤷‍♂️

You forgot George Drakoulias who produced The Last DJ.

That's a moving target there. Today Jimmy.

RICK RUBIN PRODUCED THOSE?!?!?

WHAT HAS THIS MAN NOT DONE

I went with Ryan, Mojo and Hypnotic Eye. Here’s why- I don’t know of another band or recording artist that’s musical integrity stood the test of time. They ended on a high, and I can’t help but think Ryan played a part. He was an integral part at capturing the live sound on those albums. That sound is the heart of the band. He had been working with them for quite a while and I think that shows in the the quality of those albums.

I love Rick Rubin. Honestly, I don’t know what he does that gets the job done, but I think part of it is his presence, his vibe & demeanor. He brings a calm to the storm and I think that highlights the raw emotions and energy of Wildflowers and Echo. He really seems to just guide WF in a natural direction. Not many are familiar with She’s the One, but it has some of my favorite Petty music. With that said, I think Tom is the driving factor in those albums overall.

Anyway, I love discussing this stuff!

Hard choice. The production on Torpedoes and Hard Promises is hard to argue against from the moment the drums kick off Refugee. That said, Wildflowers wouldn’t sound right if you were to apply that same production Ste to that album. I’ll also add that while I love the music, Jeff Lynne’s production is my least favorite. A bit too polished and shimmery for my liking.

My list would be:

1. Rick Rubin

2. Jimmy Iovine

3. Ryan Ulyate

4. Jeff Lynne

5. Denny Cordell

Torpedoes may be the most iconic album, but Mojo works for me every time, all the time. There’s not a B-side song on it, and it’s the album I’d pick if I had to choose only one to listen to for the rest of my days.

Ulyate also did "Live Anthology" (with some help from Petty & Campbell), and he did the Wildflowers boxed set - including "Finding Wildflowers" which was released as a separate CD.

I find the production on "Finding Wildflowers" far superior to the original Rubin "Wildflowers". I also think the production on "Hypnotic Eye" is better than anything any prior Petty producer has done, whether that's Iovine, Lynne, Rubin, Cordell, Stewart, Drakoulias, or Tom & Mike (Let Me Up was done without an outside producer).

But realize that the equipment used by each producer was successively better. So Iovine had better equipment to work with than Cordell, Lynne had better equipment than Iovine, Rubin had better equipment than Lynne (except on Highway Companion), and Ulyate had better equipment to work with than all the others. It does make a difference.

I would still rank Iovine as the best of their producers, for doing what he did with the equipment he had at the time. But without making an adjustment for equipment of the time, I'd give the prize to Ulyate.

And I don't quite understand the love for Rubin, I'd rank him as their worst producer. I don't think his sound quality is particularly good, and he gimmicks up the songs with things like double-tracking Tom's voice and adding silly orchestral flourishes. As if he's trying to be George Martin, but he's definitely not near the league of the Beatles great producer.

When you compare "Finding Wildflowers" with the original Rubin-produced "Wildflowers" album, you can see where Rubin comes up short vs. a good producer in Ulyate. I think some people like the lyrics and sentiment of the original Wildflowers so much, that they think Rubin is a good producer (which he isn't, IMO). I believe that people who voted for Rubin are really voting for the songs of Wildflowers, not Rubin's production.

I gave it to Rick Rubin, but Jeff Lynne is a very close 2nd.

I think it’s interesting that each of the 3 highly regarded producers (Iovine, Lynne, and Rubin), each made one of his best, but each made one of Petty’s weakest (IMO) albums; those being Long After Dark, Into the Great Wide Open and Echo (sorry if you disagree with those)

For as great as Iovine was as a sound engineer, he wasn’t as creative as Lynne or Rubin. Lynne and Rubin got something out of petty that he didn’t know he had in him. They transformed his sound into something new, whereas Iovine just refined what was already there.

I think I’m going to go with Lynne. He helped tom rejuvenate his career and become bigger than he ever was. Full Moon Fever is banger after banger and they sound timeless at a time where a lot of stuff ended up sounding dated.