You know Steve Lillywhite, we all know Steve Lillywhite, I’d even put a fair amount of cash down now and bet that every single person here has a record produced by Steve Lillywhite somewhere in their collection. I first came across his name when I started seriously buying records in the late ’70s, on records by Siouxsie, XTC, Ultravox, The Members, Psychedelic Furs, you name it. Later on he moved into the big leagues with Peter Gabriel, Simple Minds, Talking Heads, Morrissey, even the Stones, and though his workrate has declined over the years, he still managed to contribute to U2’s last album…
… but where do you think he is now, selling over 7 million albums a year? If it was April 1st I wouldn’t believe this story, but click the link and maybe you’ll be as impressed as I am.
Here’s a clue: Chicken.
http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/2018/05/12/steve-lillywhite-at-cmw/
Neela says
That’s wonderful. The Lord, and Steve Lillywhite, work in mysterious ways.
Moose the Mooche says
Without looking… He did that Eurovision song?
Tiggerlion says
Marvellous!
Mavis Diles says
That article is incredibly hard to read, it almost seems machine generated. It’s hard to see how a sentence follows the previous one, more than once.
Vulpes Vulpes says
That’s Bob. I subscribe to his email newsletter – same stuff, always interesting, often provocative.
Twang says
Me too. Interesting bloke though occasionally he’s all worked up about stuff I just don’t care about. He’s just launched a podcast which is good too.
murkey says
He’s into Korean music too. He produced Glen Check and talked about working with Jambinai.
murkey says
He’s into Korean music too. He produced Glen Check and talked about working with Jambinai.
Vincent says
There was me thinking he was dead some years ago. I was, of course, thinking of Martin Hannett.
I’ll get me coat….
DrJ says
I found out at the weekend that Taylor Swift’s song Mean is apparently about Bob Lefsetz, and this fact pleased me greatly.
Moose the Mooche says
As with Lily Allen, she seems to be cutting it rather fine at a relatively young age in terms of potential partners or even friends. Why would anybody want any kind of “thing” with either of them, when you know for a cast-iron fact that you are, as a result, going to be the subject of a multi-platinum single about how awful you are and/or that your knob isn’t big enough?
Asking for a friend, obvs.
dai says
I’ll risk it …
Mousey says
More here from the NYT, slightly better writing…
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/03/arts/music/steve-lillywhite-kfc-sell-cds-indonesia.html
nigelthebald says
“…they thought the non-English speaking messenger was the player and sat him down on a stool with an axe and recorded him until the real player arrived.”
😀