From DJ to producer to songwriter and now singer, Mark Ronson's prolific music career has seen his name on most of the top albums of the past four years. What next for the man with the Midas touch, asks BRIAN BOYD
MARK RONSON didn’t want to put his name to his new album. Nothing to do with its quality, it’s just even he felt he was overexposed. “I know people must look at me and think ‘he’s everywhere’,” he says. “From doing Amy’s album to my own album and then loads of others – and there were always these photographs of me going into trendy Soho nightclubs. It was perhaps too much.”
If he had his way, the new album, Record Collectionwould have been quietly and anonymously released, but his record company wouldn't countenance such a move – he is one of the biggest names in today's music world. If it seems his name has appeared on the production credits of most every number one album of the last four years, it's probably because it has. Stepping out from behind the controlling desk for his own wildly successful Version covers album a few years ago, now he's going even further – writing and singing his own songs.
“That’s all Lady Ga Ga’s fault,” he says. “I was working with her and she heard me mumbling along to a track and she asked me if I ever considered singing lessons. I don’t know if she said that because my singing was so bad. On the last album, I had Amy Winehouse, Lily Allen and Daniel Merriweather doing the singing so I never really considered it. But she referred me to a singing teacher and I sing a few of the songs on the album which is a new one for me.”
The singing was easy compared to the songwriting.
"The last album had songs written by Radiohead, Morrissey and Paul Weller so it was daunting doing originals this time out," he says. "The whole thing was nervewracking on those two fronts and there was also the pressure of following up a really successful record – I have never been in this position before. I'm realistic enough to know that this isn't going to sell millions like Version did, but of all the work I've done, even Back To Black, this is the album I'm most proud of."
He's not entirely on his own on Record Collector. Boy George crops up on the album stand-out Somebody To Love Me, while elsewhere, Simon Le Bon and various personages from Kaiser Chiefs, The Zutons and The View also make their presence felt.
“This is me trying to get away from my own sound,” he says. “I didn’t want to go anywhere near the so-called ‘Mark Ronson Sound’ on this. There are some songs on Version that I really never want to hear again. I didn’t want this to be a ‘brassy’ album – there was too much brass on the last album and I wanted to get away from the 1960s retro soul sound that was beginning to define me. I actually got all my inspiration from Duran Duran for this album – I’m producing their new album and just really got into that 1980s synth sound. So I’ve skipped up two decades musically. God knows what the next album will sound like.”
Ronson's autobiography is never going to be called My Struggle. The now 35-year-old was brought up in between London and Manhattan (which explains his mid-Atlantic twang – which many people still think is an affectation). He is related to Tory politicians Sir Malcom Rifkind and Leon Brittan. His best friend is Sean Lennon.
After school in New York, he first earned his DJ chops in New York hip-hop clubs where his sets were marked by how they fused rap and British indie rock. He became quite a name on the New York circuit, playing for everybody from P Diddy to Martha Stewart. He was even the DJ turn at Tom Cruise’s wedding, where he played the Top Gun theme, much to Cruise’s delight.
Tired of playing Groove Is In The Heart for “the 17th millionth time” he moved into producing. The fact that he had a bilingual music education so to speak (hip-hop and indie) lent a freshness to his sound.
After working with Macy Gray and Ol’Dirty Bastard, he had his breakthrough year in 2006 when he worked on albums by Christina Aguilera, Robbie Williams, Lily Allen and Amy Winehouse.
His work on Back To Black won him five Grammys but oddly, he says, he wasn’t inundated with work offers after. “The question I get asked most is: ‘You must have loads of people banging down your door?’ but it doesn’t actually work like that,” he says. “But I suppose at that stage I had just begun work on Version so wasn’t really available. That album really wasn’t supposed to happen. It was just a bunch of covers of songs that I really loved.”
When you release a cover version, you don’t have to ask permission from the original artist (as long as you don’t tamper with the lyrics) but Ronson made sure all the artists featured heard his versions before the album came out.
“I know I didn’t have to but I loved all the bands who wrote those songs and I didn’t want them hating my version – so I checked with them first,” he says.
Ghostface Killah and the London Gay Men's Choir also make appearances on Record Collection, an album which Ronson says "is the sound of people in a room in Brooklyn having one idea and then ending up with an album that sounds nothing like that original idea".
He’s promoting the album through a series of record shop “hijacks”. “We all know the record shop is under pressure these days but I still love going to them and love browsing around in them,” he says. “I still go into the Rough Trade shop in London and read all the little info cards. The idea behind the ‘hijacks’ is just to make people aware of the existence of the record shop again. I’ll be going to a number of shops around the UK next week and stocking them with my favourite records. And I’ll also be serving behind the counter. I’m looking on this as ‘work experience’ – because you never know in this industry.”
Record Collectionis out now
Back in Amy's black books
Appearing on Later With Jools Hollandlast week, Ronson spoke about "creating the tracks" for Amy Winehouse's (pictured, with Ronson) Back To Black. Which didn't go down too well with the album's songwriter, Winehouse herself.
The singer took to her Twitter account to snarl: “Ronson you’re dead to me; one album I write and you take half the credit – make a career out of it? Don’t think so.”
Ronson was upset by the remark: “I’ve always been really candid about saying that Amy is the reason I am on the map. If it wasn’t for the success of Back To Black no one would have cared too much about Version. Amy is a friend and I think this is something I should discuss with her personally.”
A “discussion” did take place and evidently went well – Winehouse’s latest tweet reads: “Ronson I love you; that make it better? You know I love you – it’s a Jew thing.”
