2019 List Week: The Production Awards

Back when I started making this award series a few weeks ago it was because I, and many others in the know, felt that producers were doing an incredibly important job and never quite receiving the recognition they deserved for it. I tried to in a small way highlight some of the best work I heard from producers in a particular year and all three years I did it, the list became one of my most viewed End Of Year features. So even though hip hop has inspired a huge turn around in how we think of the Producer position at least from a commercial sense, I'm hoping to continue to highlight some of the best production work you can hear in 2019 with this list.

Each award is named after the artist who received it last year and begins with a description of what may have changed between then and now for the award, and gives yet another nod to some of the fantastic work we heard in 2018. 

The Joseph Mount Award For Production In Pop Music - Album

Winner: Charli XCX & A.G. Cook - Charli

Last year Joseph Mount helped bring back the classic sounds of Swedish pop and electronic music on Robyn's fantastic record Honey. This time around Charli XCX and A.G. Cook continue to assemble the future of pop music on an album that bounces between futuristic and rustic so quickly your head will spin, taking on a myriad of sounds with prime efficiency and leaving nearly every other pop record in its wake with one of the biggest and brightest sonic palettes you'll hear on a record in 2019. 

The Ilya Award For Production In Pop Music - Song

Winner: Mark Ronson - True Blue

Last year Ilya helped turn Ariana Grande's sleek singing voice into an anthemic rallying cry with the catchy and smooth God Is A Woman, but this year Mark Ronson took his technique to Angel Olsen's powerful and dramatic voice to assemble a song that is simultaneously breathtaking and comfortable. Whether its the touching and persistent percussion patters or the careening vocal effects this meeting of the minds was a potentially touchy collaboration, but Mark Ronson handled it perfectly and assembled one of the best pop songs of the year.

The SOPHIE Award For Production In Electronic Music - Album

Winner: James Blake - Assume Form

Last year SOPHIE introduced herself to the world with a brilliant debut studio record that mashed up everything from industrial house to synth wave to absolutely run away with the awards for best electronic production and best production of the year. This year it was once again a runaway for James Blake, whose 4th studio album Assume Form pops off its mix in the most overwhelmingly gorgeous ways. From near ambient passages of blissful electronic waves to Travis Scott backed trap bangers there is clearly nothing Blake can't do, and Assume Form is a testament to the consistency and variety of his talent. 

The Nicholas Jarr Award For Production In Electronic Music - Song

Winner: Matmos - The Crying Pill

Last year Nicholas Jarr surprised everyone with a brilliant low-fi house album that pushed the boundaries of the genre from somebody typically not associated with it. This year Matmos took a selection of samples pulled from various plastics and somehow assembled it into a series of great tracks, the best of which was the absolute banger The Crying Pill. Punchy, explosive, shrill and dynamic it is hard to find anyone in the world of electronica who consistently work with as much creativity as Matmos, and it paid off here.

The Danger Mouse Award For Production In Rock Music - Album

Winner: Stu Mackenzie - Infest The Rats Nest

Last year legendary super-producer Danger Mouse brought Parquet Courts from the low-fi underground into the limelight with an absolutely masterful series of punchy tunes on Wide Awake, this year however Stu Mackenzie brought back thrash metal straight out of 1986 with King Gizard and The Lizard Wizard's second record of the year Infest The Rats Nest. Blistering guitar riffs, booming speedy drumming and electric lead vocal performances turned back the clock for a genre that desperately needed to remind us why we ever fell in love with its classics in the first place. 

The Ruben Nielson Award For Production In Rock Music - Song

Winner: The Drums - Body Chemistry 

Last year Ruben Nielson took home this award for his beautiful assembly of Unknown Mortal Orchestra's Hunnybee, but this year it was one brilliant moment in particular that made Body Chemistry one of the best produced songs of the year. The breakdown from the loose and poppy verses into the driving dream pop hook is a moment of sheer brilliance as the bridge just hits the ground running and makes for one of the best hooks in all of music in 2019, a feat not commonly pulled off by a rock song, but completely owned by The Drums in 2019. 

The Earl Sweatshirt Award For Production In Rap Music - Album 

Winner: Johnathan Snipes & William Hutson - There Existed An Addiction To Blood

Last year Earl Sweatshirt crafted waking nightmares through low-fi rap music on his masterpiece Some Rap Songs, yet again on the experimental side Clipping producers Johnathan Snipes and William Hutson have pioneered Halloween Rap. There Existed An Addiction To Blood is a brutal, noisy and auditorally dominating from start to finish whether it was crushing you with harsh walls of fuzzed out noise or lapping you with Daveed Diggs rapid fire bars there was never a moment to rest across the records runtime until its thematically sharp closing track. The records cohesion is even more of a testament to how fantastic and creative Clipping has always been as a trilogy, and it wouldn't surprise me to see them here again going forward. 

The JPEGMAFIA Award For Production In Rap Music - Song

Winner: Madlib - Crime Pays

Last year JPEGMAFIA hit us with Baby I'm Bleeding one of the hardest rap songs of the decade, but this year in the other direction we go for Madlib's fantastic collaboration with Freddie Gibbs, Crime Pays. Not only is the classic jazz rap energy that Freddie is so perfect over, but its the soul samples Madlib works into this track that make it so unbelievably catchy and memorable. The combination of the two is a classic hip hop staple that has been done effectively before, but is far from being old with creative artists like Madlib and Freddie Gibbs behind it.

The Julia Holter & Kenny Gilmore Award For Production In Indie/Experimental Music - Album

Winner: Jonathan Rado & Weyes Blood - Titanic Rising

Last year Julia Holter recruited Kenny Gilmore to make one of the darkest and richest chamber pop records of this decade, and the very next year Weyes Blood joined up with Jonathan Rado of Foxygen fame to once again claim the production in an indie album award for the chamber pop genre. Rado and Weyes Blood put together one of the richest, densest and most gorgeous series of tunes you'll hear anywhere in music this decade, much less just in 2019. The sound was so fantastically robust in every moment that it became Weyes Blood's breakout moment, and it wouldn't have been the same without its amazing production.

The David Longstreth Award For Production In Indie/Experimental Music - Song

Winner: Justin Vernon - Faith

Last year modern indie legend and long time folk inspired act Dirty Projectors saw their great song Break-Thru take home this award, and this year its time for the artist who set the standard for transitioning from folk to electronica, Bon Iver. Justin Vernon proved on his spectacular 2016 record 22, A Million that production was a specialty for the music of Bon Iver, and Faith is no exception. The song assembles an immaculate sound palette blending gorgeous vocal effects with swirling waves of live instrumentation for something that sounds as technically beautiful as it does natural and warm.

The SOPHIE Award For Best Produced Album Of The Year:
Nominees:
Charli
Titanic Rising
Assume Form
There Existed An Addiction to Blood
Infest The Rats Nest
Winner: Jonathan Rado and Weyes Blood - Titanic Rising
The best produced album of 2019 is Weyes Blood's Titanic Rising, after three records of trying to establish herself as one of the premiere voices in chamber pop music, she combined her ethereal voice and impassioned performance with a rich and shining orchestra courtesy of Jonathan Rado, who has been lending his services to Foxygen for years. The combination turned out better than any could have ever hoped as the album served as a breakout success for Weyes Blood and one of the most critically acclaimed indie records of the year. Rado assembles a huge wall of strings that swell with every dramatic crescendo across a record that shines in its songwriting, but goes full on angelic in its best moments. Songs like Movies and Andromeda shimmer in a way only chamber pop music truly can, and Titanic Rising snuk one last classic in for the genre right at the end of the decade. 

The JPEGMAFIA Award For Best Produces Song Of The Year:
Nominees:
True Blue
Faith
The Crying Pill
Crime Pays
Body Chemistry
Winner: Matmos - The Crying Pill
In 2018 JPEGMAFIA won this award for creating the hardest hitting most in your face song of the year, and in 2019 it was no different. This time instead of a rapper well known for his explosive tracks it comes from a pair of electronic music producers who are much more known for their thematic album concepts, Everything from sampling a washing machine to a full record of medical samples the experimentation never stop for Matmos and on Plastic Anniversary they took to creating an entire record based around samples of plastic, hidden among tracks made from billiard balls and riot shields is the wall to wall rager that is The Crying Pill. While the creativity alone on the track is astonishing the actual sound of the song would never give off the impression that it is such a bold concept. A track so in your face and relenting paired with the limitation, or maybe creative syncopation of the plastic samples makes The Crying Pill more than worthy of being the best produced song of the year. 

The Kanye West Award For Producer Of The Year

Winner: Kenny Beats
While Kenny may not have the sheer resume of the winners of this award the past few years, there is really nobody else that could possibly be above him. In the world of hip hop where producers are receiving more credit than ever before Kenny Beats has become top of the line, in both recognition and success. It's hard to name another producer who has found so much success not only in the mianstream of hip hop, crafting beats for some of its most notable up and coming stars. But Kenny also found success in the more experimental worlds of rap pairing with some legendary MC's new and old in 2019 on his The Cave series on YouTube. His notoriety both in music and in pop culture is a shining example of a producer taking advantage of their talents and making a name for themselves, Kenny Beats has truly been 2019's producer of the year, in almost every way. 

Thanks for reading!

Check back over the next six days for a new End Of The Year feature list every single day!