Welcome to Robin Millar's web site
The original ‘Smooth Operator’ Robin Millar is one of Britain’s most successful ever record producers with 150 gold silver and platinum discs and 44 No 1's to his credit, including Sade’s iconic ‘Diamond Life’ album.
His productions have sold 55 million copies, earned the UK over £400 million in foreign income and have won most of the major global music awards including Brit and Grammy Awards.
He is known as ‘the man behind Sade’, the producer of the first acid jazz record and was dubbed ‘Golden ears’ by Boy George.
More recently, Robin has become equally recognised as an academic, a coach and mentor to FTSE business leaders, one of the most charismatic and in-demand keynote speakers and panellists, a major fundraiser and champion for vulnerable people and as a spokesman to The Government for the whole music sector.
In November 2007 he was awarded Honorary Professor status at Thames Valley University, Britain’s largest Uni with over 62,000 students.
Robin is the only British person to produce the Olympic Games opening ceremony [Atlanta 1996].
He is Hon. Patron of the Music Producers Guild, a member of the Human Genetics Commission and of The UK Sector Skills Council.
Robin has owned and run businesses in and out of the music industry for 25 years, including Power Plant, Maison Rouge and Whitfield Street Studios, Rent-A-Ferrari, Scarlett Group PLC and Arts Media.
He has been a visiting professor and lecturer in commercial music for 15 years at establishments including The Royal Academy, Surrey University and The University of Modena in Italy.
His outstanding work for the world’s most oppressed people has involved work as patron of UNICEF UK, patron of UNHCR Geneva, trustee of The Playing Alive Foundation and a long-time trustee of the Vietnamese Boat Peoples’ Appeal. Robin was awarded the 2002 Windrush Award for his work with minorities.
His amazing life as a punk guitarist, Ferrari renter, nude model, academic and producer of ‘Smooth Operator’ is still full of adventure, fun and a source of inspiration.
Robin has been registered blind since the age of 16 and has had no sight since 1985.
“I’ve made and lost many millions, broken all the rules and I’ve developed a strong and deep understanding of how lucky some of us are. I’m more of a rough diamond than a smooth operator . . . adventure should be real and not imagined.”
Robin Millar
Thought for April 2008
Front page of Music Week Magazine this week:The industry's backroom boys and girls could be sharing the Brits winners' podium next year under radical new proposals to "Oscarify" Britain's leading music award bash, The Brits.
The move to recognise the achievements of the creative team - producers, engineers, art directors, possibly even makeup artists - behind a hit will occupy the next Brit's organising committee's meeting. And support for the so-called Backroom Brits is already gaining momentum from some big hitters in the business. IFPI chairman and ceo John Kennedy calls the move "a great piece of lateral thinking." A source close to Brits organising committee chairman and Sony BMG Music chairman Ged Doherty confirms the idea "is on the agenda".
Backroom Brits is the brainchild of producer Robin Millar, who has been frustrated by The Brits reluctance to acknowledge the contribution made to a hit single or chart topping album by the people behind the scenes. "It is a team effort so why can't it be Take That and the whole team behind them get a Brit? asks Millar. "In addition to producers, mixers, engineers, arranging, there were people who designed the show, did the poster and in sales and marketing. I'd love it if it (The Brits) was as broad as the Baftas - that's the holy grail."
Other industry awards do exist to recognise these skills and Millar says his own Music Producers Guild has talked about an event. But, other shows tend to only represent a minority faction of the business and certainly don't have the cachet of The Brits. "The Brits is the brand name," argues Millar. "It means something to get a Brit."
He compares the paucity of categories covered by the UK's premier music calendar event with the Baftas, which recognises production teams, and US shows like the Grammy Awards and film industry's Oscars, whose shows have honours for the people who created the best sleeve notes, remixes, packaging, sound editing and visual effects.
Millar also argues that not championing producers or stage designers sends the wrong messages to young A&Rs. Millar adds, "When did Abbey Road get a Brit for all the hits it produced?"
After years of stonewalling and seeing the best British producer award disappear from The Brits after 1998, Millar gives credit to BPI chief executive Geoff Taylor for now giving the proposals a fair hearing. A BPI spokesman says, "Geoff was asked to put it on the agenda and he has. But, we get approached by a lot of ideas. It hasn't been ruled in and hasn't been ruled out."
Millar accepts that seeing an anaemic, greasy haired lout collecting an award for best studio engineer does not make riveting television viewing. However, the non-artist creatives don't have to be part of TV coverage - just as long as they are part of the awards. He adds, "We're not pushing for TV. The makeup on the Grammys is done at three in the afternoon."