Finneas is known for producing some of the biggest records of the past decade — and his career also reflects how dramatically the record producer’s role has evolved. He sits down on this week’s episode of Billboard On The Record to give listeners a peek inside his production process—from working with artists he knows closely, like his sister Billie Eilish, to collaborators he’s meeting for the first time—breaking down why he values the natural push-and-pull that shapes great songs. Finneas also explains how the job of a producer has evolved alongside technology, how he scores a hit TV series like BEEF, and why he still believes in the power of shorter albums.
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Billboard On The Record is a podcast in partnership with SickBird Productions.
Kristin Robinson:
This is one of those episodes I’ve been dying to do forever, and that is talking about the evolution of what it means to be a record producer. Quincy Jones once said that, like, the producer of a record is like the director of a film. Do you feel like that is accurate?
Finneas:
Yeah. Also, the artist should be the other director. At the end of the day, they’re gonna go off and play the song every day for 20 years. If Billie goes, “I want it to sound like the vocal is falling apart, ” that’s such a kind of a metaphoric way to put that. Like, I love the interpretive quality of being a producer.
Music is shaped by the technology and time that we’re in.
Yes, 100%. I sure love records that were recorded to tape. There’s romance in it. I just am not sure that I love them because they were recorded to tape. I’d rather sound bad than generic.
The record producer, it’s easily one of the most important creative roles in music, but it’s also the one that has changed drastically with the technology of its day. From recording to tape with a limited number of tracks at a pricey studio to today’s production setup allowing any creative hopeful to make limitless tracks on their computers from home for cheap. The modernization of the recording process means that the work George Martin went through to record the Beatles or Quincy Jones did to record Michael Jackson are now very different from what a current producer, like today’s guest, Finneas, might do when he’s recording his sister, Billie Eilish. So on this special episode of On the Record, we’re going to dive deep with the one and only Finneas O’Connell to talk through his personal process, how production has changed over time, and what that means for songs that become hits.
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