Wonder if Bryan read the obituary in today's Times of Martin Rushent, the producer of lots of hits for the Stranglers, Human League, etc. A firm believer in fast, spontaneous recording, he opined "In my experience, the longer you spend making a piece of music, the more likely it is to be a pile of sh*t".

Thoughts?

I don't agree. A lot of the fast and furious releases like The Stranglers, Duran, Spandau, Adam, Human, Punks, disappeared as quickly as it came. And most of it sounds tired and dated now. Most of Bryan's stuff still sounds good now, more than 30 years on mainly because it's quality stuff. Err, in my opinion.

Like most comments, you can't generalise and Martin was probably just wanting to stress the creative buzz of spontaneity and energy. Anyone who saw the recent BBC tv programme on "Prog Rock" will agree that, on the whole, he definitely has a point.

However, to counterbalance that (and I will ignore going for BF's work, all of which I love to differing degrees), you could point out time was well spent on:

Sgt. Pepper
Good Vibrations/Smile
Any Blue Nile album!!!!!!

Music has such a wide spectrum. The way music is written, recorded and performed varies so much and this makes it so fastinating. The trick is to get the right blend. Some music lends itself to be written in 20 minutes and thrashed out, some music benifits from the gentle nuances that can be afforded to it. There is no 'rule' as far as I am concerned, just do the right thing at the right time with the musicians and circumstances available.

Some music thrown together during a lunch break would have benifited from some more time being given to it and some music over perfected could have been better with less polish. Like I say, there is no rule.

Music listening has so many different ways of being enjoyed/absorbed by the audience/listener therefore it's good there are so many approaches to creating it too.

J.O'B.