Martin Rushent, best known for his work as the producer of the Human League’s ‘Dare’ album, has died at the age of 63.
Martin’s son Tim announced the news on Facebook. “My father Martin Rushent passed away yesterday at his home in Berkshire,” he wrote.
“A lot of people in the industry will have memories of him (good, bad and ugly!) ... if you know of anyone who could contribute to this page that my brother set up then we'd be over the moon. (And so would he as he loved to be talked about!)”
Rushent’s daughter-in-law Wendy Swinburne wrote, ”RIP Martin Rushent, Legendary Record Producer, father of my partner and grandfather of our beautiful twin boys xxx”
Tim added, “Also ... a bit of an obnoxious twat! But trust me ... he'd love to be remembered this way!”.
Martin Rushent was a production innovator and drove the British music scene to the next level in the 80s.
While Rushent’s work with the Human League created the iconic 1981 album ‘Dare’ he had worked earlier with T. Rex, David Essex, Fleetwood Mac, Yes and Shirley Bassey.
He started to formulate his own technique in the late 70s with the emergence of punk when he worked on records by XTC, Buzzcocks and The Stranglers.
Rushent started his own label Genetic is 1980 and signed Ultravox, Visage and Spandau Ballet. It was at that time that he invested £250,000, an incredible amount of money for the time, building a studio in the Berkshire home where he died this weekend.
His work continued and reads like a ‘who’s who’ of 80s music. Rushent produced The Go-Gos, Generation X (Billy Idol) Altered Images and Hazel O’Connor.
Most recently, he produced the second album for The Pipettes. He was also working on a 30th anniversary edition of ‘Dare’.
