Shepherds or Czars

"That’s not new: Spector had a hand in writing many of the biggest songs the Ronettes and Righteous Brothers sang, while disco-era producers like Nile Rogers and Bernard Edwards wrote and produced entire albums for Diana Ross and Sister Sledge. It is, however, vastly different from the song-shepherd model that took hold in rock music in the 1960s and ’70s. Their role was often to simply help bands sound the way they wanted to, whether it was George Martin and the Beatles, Jimmy Miller’s work on a string of acclaimed albums by the Rolling Stones or Columbia Records house producer Bob Johnston assisting Bob Dylan, among plenty of others. The best producers made good bands better."

Eric R. Danton in Salon contrasts dueling approaches of record producers.