Musical partnerships that involve an "ideas" person and an "implementation" person

Are there many examples, whereby one guy has a lot of great creative ideas but less technical ability while the other person is the "do-er" - instrumentally or vocally adept, but not the main creative force? I'm sure there are loads. How do these partnerships fare after they end - can one person carry on without the other? This was inspired by Aeroplane's recent parting of ways.

My impression of Aeroplane's division of labour was that Vito was the main ideas man AND the do-er and Stephen offered input on structure and arrangements - reining him in a little bit and providing a more commercial ear. I think this is the role Ed fulfils in the Chemical Brothers as well.

Yeah, I didn't think Aeroplane was the best example, but it's what inspired the thread.

I'm not sure about the inspiration/perspiration ratio when it came to Simon & Garfunkel?

Paul Simon was a pretty good singer too

Lots of examples where the main writer is not the main singer

You could redefine the common dance music model as DJ + musician, the DJ being the guy who checks the musician's self-indulgence and instinctively knows what works on the dancefloor. A lot of the time the musician DJs as well but he doesn't have the same kind of DJ brain.

I might be wrong on the dynamics of this, but with Future Sound Of London it certainly seems like ideas/implementation dude and wittering hippie who get the attention dude. But I don't know, it just seemed that way.

Many, many times, it seems like standard dance duo = dude with the ideas and the studio who does all the music making, and their friend and/or brother with the social skills who tells them what's going to fly and what isn't.

pet shop boys
sparks
blimey,so many...

Pet Shop Boys? Not sure about that, Tennant is pretty musical.

pet shop boys

doubt this. never got the impression that tennant was any slouch in the creative dept

haha xpost

Pink Floyd, with Waters as the ideas man and lyricist but a singer and bass player of dubious ability, and Gilmour as the main musical force.

how does autechre work btw

Paul Simon was a pretty good singer too

otm, it always surprises me when listening to S&G how many songs he actually sings lead on. makes me wonder what Art actually did half the time.

Royal Trux

Could be wrong but it always seemed to me like Richard Wright had a strong creative presence in Pink Floyd.

Tennant writes music, plays keyboards and guitars, can arrange, mixes, sings and writes 99.99999999% of the lyrics. Probably has most of the ideas too TBH.

how does autechre work btw

miracles

Simon & Garfunkel = Hall & Oates in division of ability.

how does autechre work btw

That one's easy. Neither of them has ideas or implementation.

One of them throws a load of rubbish down the stairs while the other one hits "record".

Could be wrong but it always seemed to me like Richard Wright had a strong creative presence in Pink Floyd

Probably true up to and including Wish You Were here but after that his contributions pretty much dried up.

Being in the same band as Roger Waters does that to a person

By his own admission Wright brought nothing to the table for years

infantjoy : paul morley and james banbury

the original concept was that it would only be classed an infantjoy release if paul was actually there in the studio at the same time as james cracked on with the music.

needless to say the project was short lived.

Autechre are pretty much 50/50 afaik.

musical partnership that involves "some guy" and "the guy who does everything".

http://www.aceshowbiz.com/images/news/w0000227.jpg

& how did the klf work? I always assumed Drummond was more the ideas man than Cauty.

whoever came up with the idea of MOO MOO LAND is clearly the genius in KLF.

MDMA was REALLY strong in england for a while, huh?

or maybe people just took lots of it.

ripping off faith intro kinda sad:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4zAfr_pqZo&feature=related

wasnt garfunkel there mostly to sing harmony

Division of work in PSB, according to an interview = Tennant: lyrics, melodies - Lowe: bass, rhythm.

David Bowie + Carlos Alomar.
James Brown + Fred Wesley (for one)

Yello?

Yes, never forget Tennant was a folky singer-songwriter in his youth! (xxp)

There was a guy at my school who was popular due to his resemblance to Andrew Ridgeley.

Peter Sinfield and Richard Palmer-James, successive non-playing lyricists for King Crimson.

& how did the klf work? I always assumed Drummond was more the ideas man than Cauty.

They were kinda both the ideas man, with Coler and Richardson doing the implementation.

Brian Eno and everyone he's ever worked with? Including his computers and such! Okay that's really cheating.

I feel that we've had discussion along these lines before, but I dunno where.

Hmm, Kraftwerk?

I always thought K were pretty much 50/50 Ralf and Florian. That was the impression given by Pascal Bussy's book. Of course Bartos and Flur would have you believe differently.

Ralf was the main musical talent, Florian was more technical, later on Bartos contributed a lot musically. Wolfgang was there for the chicks. And I've not even mentioned Emil Schult (or Conny Plank for that matter!)

The impression I get is that as the band got more "musical" and less experimental, Ralf came more to the fore, he is a melodies guy after all

Yeah but since Electric Cafe they've been getting less melodic, don't you think?

Hmmmmm, not sure

M.I.A. and everyone she works with? She's certainly more about ideas than implementation. David Holmes likewise. They're not longrunning musical partnerships though.

james lavelle and everyone ever involved with unkle

her ideas are that other people should make music for her iirc xp

I miss the era of the big-ideas dance guy like Holmes or Lavelle who had nil musical ability but (at their best) fantastic taste in what to sample and who to work with. Can't think of an equivalent now.

would this be along the lines of Vince Clarke with Yaz then Erasure

remember liking 'don't die just yet' w/o having heard serge gainsbourg. kind of feel it's the most egregious rip-off of all time. and even then it probably wasn't holmes who did it. but hey i guess it was his idea to steal it.

Ha! I definitely spent a few days thinking Holmes was some sort of genius before a workmate played me the Serge song. I don't think I've ever downgraded my opinion of someone's abilities so quickly.

Vince Clarke can play guitar and keyboard pretty well. In early Depeche Mode he was the only one to play a polyphonic synth, and live footage shows him playing more than one note at a time.

Vince was definitely the ideas guy AND the tech guy in Depeche Mode, and at least an equal partner in Yazoo and Erasure. Synth duos don't really fit this model because the keyboardist usually writes a lot of the music rather than just taking instruction from the singer.

Robert Pollard + whoever he's working with at the time

David and David
i don't know their stuff but just read Mikal Gilmore's book that had a chapter about them. one D wrote the music, the other did lyrics

(xp) but pollard, in addition to being the frontman on stage (which makes him more than an "ideas" person right there), plays guitar and god knows what else on many many gbv records.

don't know that he ever had one particular implementation partner, but kip hanrahan was very strictly an ideas man on many (most?) of his own albums.

True but (usually) these days he doesn't even bother playing on his albums (xp)

Sparks don't fit this, imo. Ron is instrumentally adept AND main creative force. Just another example of, as Tom D. noted, main writer is not the main singer.

in a lot of ways, "ideas" was george clinton's primary role in parliament/funkadelic, no?

^ good one

David Holmes likewise. They're not longrunning musical partnerships though.

good spot.

for the free association releases, it was predominantly stephen hilton doing the music, hence the 'david holmes presents .. tagline.

i think neptunes is sorta -- pharrell: idea of a song, chords, basic melody. chad: making it happen with right patches, programming, transitions. great way to work imho as someone who is trying to do a record totally solo now. we all need a chad

one could make a case for byrne = ideas, franz/weymouth/harrison = implementation, but then you'd have to invoke corporate law to make them a single person

Also David Byrne is a far better guitarist than Chris Frantz is a drummer

Steely Dan doesn't really work as an ideas/implementation dichotomy, but iirc Walter Becker co-writes/arranges everything but there are a lot of songs he played absolutely nothing on, all the guitars were session guys.

how do you get to be a big-name 'ideas' guy like david holmes if u don't have any musical talent? do u just swagger into a studio one day and start bossing people around?

Quite a few examples in the world of electronic music (like practically anyone involved in jungle or who has DJ in front of their name).

xp you become a DJ.

phil spector and anyone he ever worked with? (i think it's probably wrong to suggest phil spector didn't have much technical ability, but i do think his relationship with a lot of his artists is akin to what dog latin is asking about in his original question.)

and there are probably plenty of other pure producers who fit that description.

Spector had a huge amount of technical ability though. Just cuz he didn't play every instrument didn't mean he wasn't responsible for writing and arranging the songs.

how do you get to be a big-name 'ideas' guy like david holmes if u don't have any musical talent? do u just swagger into a studio one day and start bossing people around?

― snooki stackhouse (s1ocki), Tuesday, August 10, 2010 5:52 PM (13 minutes ago) Bookmark

according to james murphy, yeah pretty much. you need gumption/moxie/___________

wonder if holmer 'did' his first record, which was kinda detroit techno and nothing like anything he did later

I don't know if Don Was was only an "implementation" guy, but David Was sure seems like the definition of the "ideas" guy.

David Lynch/Angelo Badalamenti?

i think this kinda situation is less likely now since so many people have access to relatively easy to use music software

Just cuz he didn't play every instrument didn't mean he wasn't responsible for writing and arranging the songs.

did he actually write any of 'em? or just put his name on 'em? (honest question. i don't know the answer, but credits like "spector/greenwich/barry" and "spector/mann/weil" seem suspicious to me.)

Yeah actually I suppose that claim is debatable. He did work with them, but it's debatable exactly how much of input was his and how much involved wanting to weasel songwriting credit. Still it's kind of hard to see Spector as just an "ideas" person since he was obviously very much a doer, at one point involved successfully in ever part of music production.

first thing i thought of:
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_VCCcJ70XUdg/ShU5fBcXi9I/AAAAAAAABvU/hmugLXkPFW0/s400/omar_souleyman_-_cd.png

ABBA is probably the best answer though.

I've always heard Rick Rubin described this way on the engineering end, as far as having the ideas and the big ears but is not necessarily technically adept at making a record.

Loads of producers work like that though.

I believe the Leiber/Spector credit on "Spanish Harlem," but wouldn't be surprised about him sticking his name on some others. I think I read about the Righteous Brothers complaining about this. Oh yeah, google tells me it was the the B-side of the "spector/mann/weil" composition "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin', something called "There's A Woman"" And now I found this on the Wikipedia page for the single:

Cynthia Weil recalled that, "After Phil, Barry and I finished [writing it], we took it over to the Righteous Brothers.

so I'm inclined to believe that credit as well.

You people up there...

I did mean Tennant was the ideas bloke.

Goldie = ideas
Rob Playford = implementation
(maybe?)

We've gone to such lengths to defend Neil Tennant that we're slighting Chris Lowe! I mean, he writes a fair chunk of the music: he can write music, had "proper" musical training, etc. With the Boys it's fair to say that both Tennant and Lowe do more than we expect.

Yeah, PSBs are a terrible example - they're the quintessential duo.

wonder if holmer 'did' his first record, which was kinda detroit techno and nothing like anything he did later

He did loads of thump-thump-thump records before becoming a album auteur too, but always with collaborators like Kris Needs or Ashley Beedle who had more hands-on experience

David and David
i don't know their stuff but just read Mikal Gilmore's book that had a chapter about them. one D wrote the music, the other did lyrics

Call the fucking cops!

Gilbert & Sullivan
Rodgers & Hammerstein
Morrissey & Marr
Your mum & everyone

Speaking of dubious songwriting credits, fcc, have you read the Tommy James book?

Malcolm McLaren = ideas
Bow Wow Wow = implementation?

The Sex Pistols don't really count as they had their own ideas, much to McLaren's dismay.

McLaren’s a beast at ideasing, but always found new teams to implement them, rather than forming a partnership with one person. It’s probably worth noting that he kept them fairly anonymised after the Pistols and BWW, too – even The World Famous Supreme Team weren’t actually making the records they were credited on (at least the early ones were Art Of Noise), and the Bootzilla Orchestra wasn’t a consistent lineup across the album: even Bootsy is only on two or three tracks!

Speaking of dubious songwriting credits, fcc, have you read the Tommy James book?

i have not. are you recommending it?

Yes indeed.

Wayne Coyne and Steven Drozd.

Although I just found a few little errors that might offend your fact checking sensibilities: Tito Puente's instrument is referred to as "steel drums," Century Sound in NYC is supposedly where Phil Spector cut most of his records, cutouts are confused with K-Tel and Adam VIII compilations. But if you ever wanted to know what Morris Levy was really like, this is the book for you.

Wayne Coyne and Steven Drozd

Excellent suggestion. I think Wayne would describe it in exactly those terms.

Lee Perry

Wayne Coyne and Steven Drozd

Excellent suggestion. I think Wayne would describe it in exactly those terms.

Not seeing how that fits the requirement, really. I guess you're saying Coyne is the ideas man/creative force and Drozd the implementer, but it's not as though Coyne is short of technical ability himself. Vocals count as ability as well it seems to me.

...

j.r. and the blecchs: thank you. i suspect i already kinda know what morris levy was really like, but i'm definitely up for a good insider's account especially if it also answers all the questions i've ever had about "ball of fire." i'll be sure to have my fact checking goggles on when i read it.

the pipes on wayne coyne

Steely Dan doesn't really work as an ideas/implementation dichotomy, but iirc Walter Becker co-writes/arranges everything but there are a lot of songs he played absolutely nothing on, all the guitars were session guys.

I also get the impression he's responsible for their more scabrous lyrics -- on the evidence of their solo work, that is.

Yes, he's hardly Caruso (xp)

Hall & Oates is wrong too: Oates has written or cowritten many of their most essential material, and is a pretty good guitarist in his own right.

if Wayne Coyne is to be relegated to the status of "ideas man" only then we may as well call in every band with a non-playing vocalist from REM to PG-era Genesis to this thread

Haha. I remember reading Michael Stipe complaining about how people don't really appreciate that the voice is also a musical instrument.

"Lee Perry"

No way. The mixes MAKE those records and that's all him not whoever was in the Upsetters at that moment.

On the other hand the Mighty Two is a great example. Joe Gibbs definitely relied on other folks to realize his vision.

should have put "vision" in quotes lol

I think there's something to be said for the Coyne / Drozd relationship as fitting, since, it seems to me, Coyne comes up with big conceptual ideas and such and Drozd pretty much does the music. But then there are layers on top of that, inc. Coyne as vocalist.

how about Boredoms, some of the time?

boredoms seems like a good one. what about koenig/batmangli?

wrt the dan, they are more true collaborators. i think roughly, fagen is more tin pan alley and becker is more r&b. solo albums are interesting to think about for this but so is "barrytown," supposedly fagen only. its lyrics are pretty harsh but musically it is pretty sweet

Wayne Coyne does play as well. And managed to lead the band for years without Drozd – this is just regular collaborating.

Hall & Oates is wrong too: Oates has written or cowritten many of their most essential material, and is a pretty good guitarist in his own right.

Yeah, I was saying Simon & Garfunkel are wrong by drawing the H&O comparison: there’s a member of the duo who does almost everything and doesn’t need the other bloke for anything, especially – but the little bit that the other guy brings, when they work together, absolutely makes them add up to more than the sum of their parts.

the little bit that the other guy brings, when they work together,

e.g. ideas

Well, to go back to the original question:

a lot of great creative ideas but less technical ability while the other person is the "do-er" - instrumentally or vocally adept, but not the main creative force?

No partnership is going to fit perfectly, but how does that not describe Coyne and Drozd?

Surely the Eurythmics fit this definition.

Drozd writes music, just is not a frontman

e.g. ideas

you think what Garfunkel brought to the partnership was "all the ideas," not "sweet pipes and the occasional veto"?

Of course Eurythmics don't, they're a classic duo as with PSB. Which one do you think has the ideas?

wait wait i'm getting confused

so s&g is one dude who does everything and the other just a toilet brush with sweet pipes, ergo they don't fit the thread title. yes?

Based on Anne Lennox's solo work, I'd say Dave Stewart had all the ideas and Lennox was the voice.

jim: yes

Nate: Lennox wrote songs and played on the records. Her solo stuff sucks because she got old and boring, not because DAS had all the ideas - his solo stuff sucks because he got old and boring too. (The shitness of We Too Are One proves that it wasn't an ineluctable chemistry between them either, they were just tapped out after the genius of Savage.)

Sonny & Cher

S & B

Richey Edwards/Manic Street Preachers?

kinda. him and nicky wire wrote 100% of their lyrics up til his disappearance

"Lee Perry"

No way. The mixes MAKE those records and that's all him not whoever was in the Upsetters at that moment.

Orignal post: a lot of great creative ideas but less technical ability while the other person(s) is/are the "do-er" - instrumentally or vocally adept, but not the main creative force?

Depends how you define "technical ability" I suppose

Basement Jaxx have this sort of arrangement I believe.

Ooh! Ooh!

Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazelwood!

Lee Hazlewood claims, sorry, claimed to have no technical ability as well

Um, he was the ideas bloke.

Nancy (among the musicians/others) implement.

Seems like hair-splitting to say that someone doesn't count as "ideas" man just because they also sing or write lyrics. Do any bands have someone who is purely ideas? In the Manics, Richey couldn't play an instrument or write music but he was the driving force behind the band's image (including record sleeves) and rhetoric. If he doesn't fit, who does?

Daft Punk

Do any bands have someone who is purely ideas?

Earl Brutus : Stuart Boreman
The Pre New : Stuart Boreman

Stuart doesn't play an instrument, nor does he get on stage when the band plays live, but from my discussions, he is a vital part of both bands.

Well he would say that, wouldn't he?

haha.
nah that advise came from jim fry directly.

x-post Didn't Hall & Oates have a third regular co-writer who wasn't in the band? A woman? Sara Allen?

Bryan Adams has a dude, Jim Vallance, that co-wrote lots of his stuff. And Mutt Lange gets a lot of credits, too, rewriting and contributing to tracks for Def Leppard?

Leonard Cohen and Sharon Robinson?

Though Robinson does tour and perform with him, so she's contributing directly as well.

"Depends how you define "technical ability" I suppose"

Also depends on how you define "other person". A rotating band of talented session musicians doesn't meet mine.

I've always wondered how the classic Underworld line-up worked. In terms of this thread I guess I've always thought there was an Emerson / Freur dynamic.

And Mutt Lange gets a lot of credits, too, rewriting and contributing to tracks for Def Leppard?

So since Def Leppard specifically approach, hire, and schedule their time around Lange’s availability to write, arrange, produce, sing and play on their records, you’re saying there’s a two-person partnership where All Of Def Leppard are The Ideas Man, and Mutt Lange is The Implementation Guy? Does he use an elaborate system of holograms to appear as though there are five of them on tour when it’s just him blowing a kazoo and hitting a bread tin with his knees?

Based on Anne Lennox's solo work, I'd say Dave Stewart had all the ideas and Lennox was the voice.

Thought about this again too – to go with this, you have to assume Stewart’s credits for producing, playing guitar, playing keyboards, playing synthesisers, playing bass, playing dulcimer, playing xylophone, programming sequencers, programming drum machines, and singing are all kind lies from Lennox to make him feel better about his musical and technical inabilities.

gotta be a dialogue in most cases... How can you express musical ideas if you have no way of implementing them yourself?

Lennox-Stewart are another bad example: both seem equally responsible for their successes and failures as Eurythmics.

Morrissey - Marr?

are any of you people actually reading the thread title

OK, OK....Fred and Barney?

The only one I think qualifies so far is Bernie Taupin.

then I think you are confusing ideas with lyrics and implementation with music?

Soft Cell
Massive Attack

Madonna....and her collaborators.

Soft Cell

which one has the ideas?

Massive Attack

if you mean 3D and Davidge, mmmmmmaybe you're in the right area. but that's not the lineup, and as 3D is still the main lyricist and a lead vocalist even if he didn't do anything else hands-on, nope.

150 posts and no one's mentioned THE FUCKING WHO?!?

George Clinton + everyone he's ever worked with

James Brown + everyone he's ever worked with

Robert Hunter / Jerry Garcia

Would someone mind explaining David Holmes to me? I love a big chunk of his work and his latest album was really underrated and enjoyable. Who was responsible for Let's Get Killed? Kooner & Tenniswood? I see Goldsworthy is credited a bunch too. Crazy. I knew about Lavelle being the ideas man but didn't realize Holmes was too.

Peter Sinfield as a Crim

Mark E. Smith?

James Brown + everyone he's ever worked with

― glitter hands! glitter hands! razzle! dazzle! (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, August 13, 2010 12:32 PM (17 minutes ago)

James Brown + Fred Wesley (for one)

― Bali Eiffel Tower Hai (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, August 10, 2010 9:48 AM (3 days ago)

xpost. All I know about Holmes's MO is what James Murphy has said about him and Tim G working on Bow Down to the Exit Sign. Holmes would have records he wanted to sound like and ideas for who should work on them, then he just made some calls. I don't know exactly what he did in the studio - he obviously had some degree of ability from his techno days but not enough musical chops to make more ambitious, live-sounding tracks.

Actually, have you read Fred Wesley's book Hit Me, Fred: Recollections of a Side Man?

yeah great book. actually I've cited it a bunch on various threads (usually when people are getting a little overenthusiastic about Brown's musical "abilities")

pretty much every incarnation of psychic tv

I've always heard Rick Rubin described this way on the engineering end, as far as having the ideas and the big ears but is not necessarily technically adept at making a record.

If the Dixie Chicks movie is any indication, this is indeed the case. In fact, he apparently "produced" their record without actually entering the studio, but met with them a few times in person to offer such indispensable nuggets of wisdom as "Hm. Good chorus."