Dog Eat Dog (1985) — Joni Mitchell
In 1981, a synth-pop musician named Thomas Dolby covered a Joni Mitchell song. The song was “The Jungle Line,” from Mitchell’s 1975 album The Hissing of Summer Lawns. Dolby had been inspired by the album — by the way Mitchell had used jazz and spoken-word elements in a pop context — and he recorded his own version.
Four years later, Joni Mitchell asked him to produce her next album.
The album was Dog Eat Dog, released in 1985. Dolby co-produced it with Mitchell, Larry Klein, and engineer Mike Shipley. He played keyboards, synthesizer, and Fairlight CMI on the sessions.
It did not go well.
Dolby later wrote in his memoir that he was “probably too much of a brat, with my own blinkered way of working.” The Wikipedia article on Dolby states that the two “clashed in the studio, with Dolby’s precise working methods proving incompatible with Mitchell’s more freeform approach.” The sources cited are a 2022 Guardian article by Annie Zaleski about Mitchell’s 1980s work.
Mitchell was a jazz-influenced songwriter who worked by instinct. Dolby was a synth-pop perfectionist who worked with drum machines and Fairlight samplers. The collision produced an album that neither of them would later point to as their best work.
The Same Year, a Completely Different Album
Here’s the part that made me stop.
In the same year — 1985 — Thomas Dolby also produced Steve McQueen, the second album by Prefab Sprout.
Prefab Sprout was an art-pop band from County Durham, England, led by songwriter Paddy McAloon. Steve McQueen was their breakthrough — a record of intricate, melodic pop songs that sounded nothing like synth-pop or jazz-rock. Dolby produced it and mixed it. The album was recorded at various studios in England and mixed by Mike Shipley — the same engineer who worked on Dog Eat Dog.
Two albums. Same year. Same producer. Same mixer. Radically different music.
I have twenty-two Joni Mitchell albums. I have seventeen Prefab Sprout albums. I have fourteen Thomas Dolby albums. All three artists are well-represented in the collection. But until I looked at the credits, I had no idea that Dolby was the thread connecting them.
What Else Dolby Was Doing
In 1985, Dolby was also a member of David Bowie’s band for Bowie’s performance at Live Aid. He played keyboards on stage at Wembley Stadium while Bowie performed “Rebel Rebel” and “Heroes” in front of a global television audience.
In 1983, Dolby had played session keyboards on Def Leppard’s Pyromania — the album that brought Def Leppard to a much larger audience. He appeared on the album under the alias “Booker T. Boffin,” a pseudonym that combined the name of Booker T. Jones with a British slang term for a nerd.
In 1987, Dolby played synthesizer on Belinda Carlisle’s “Heaven Is a Place on Earth,” which reached number one on the US Billboard Hot 100.
All of this was happening while Dolby was also making his own solo records — The Golden Age of Wireless (1982), The Flat Earth (1984), and Aliens Ate My Buick (1988) — and producing Prefab Sprout’s Jordan: The Comeback in 1990, which established Prefab Sprout’s reputation as a sophisticated pop act.
The Prefab Sprout Connection
Dolby produced three Prefab Sprout albums: Steve McQueen (1985), four tracks from From Langley Park to Memphis (1988) — including the hit single “The King of Rock ’n’ Roll” — and Jordan: The Comeback (1990).
Jordan: The Comeback is a double album — eighteen songs, seventy minutes — and it’s the record that cemented Prefab Sprout’s reputation as one of the most sophisticated pop acts of the era. All songs were written by Paddy McAloon. Dolby produced it.
I have all three of these Prefab Sprout albums. I also have 38 Carat Collection, Andromeda Heights, Crimson / Red, I Trawl the Megahertz, and nine other Prefab Sprout records — seventeen in total. McAloon’s songwriting is the constant. Dolby’s production is the thread I didn’t know was there.
What I Didn’t Know
I’ve listened to Joni Mitchell’s Dog Eat Dog and Prefab Sprout’s Steve McQueen and Jordan: The Comeback many times. I never once thought about the fact that the same person produced all three.
I never knew that Dolby had covered a Joni Mitchell song before being hired to produce her. I never knew that they clashed in the studio. I never knew that Dolby had played on Def Leppard’s Pyromania under a fake name.
The credits told me all of this. I just hadn’t looked.
Album: Dog Eat Dog — Joni Mitchell (1985, Geffen Records) Also referenced: Steve McQueen — Prefab Sprout (1985, Kitchenware/CBS); Jordan: The Comeback — Prefab Sprout (1990, Kitchenware/CBS); Pyromania — Def Leppard (1983, Mercury Records)
Sources: Discogs — Dog Eat Dog credits Discogs — Steve McQueen credits Discogs — Jordan: The Comeback credits Wikipedia — Thomas Dolby Zaleski, Annie. “Joni Mitchell’s 80s: how the Canadian songwriter became a fearless, futurist auteur.” The Guardian, 27 September 2022.