Mr November

Production has to do with the recording and manufacturing process. Depending on the genre you could be talking about lots of different things, but today there are tons of production options available:

Distortion, echo, reverb, recording location and acoustics, panning effects, volume and number of pick ups, as well as if you're recording every segment or track together or if you're individually recording elements of the final product. All of this has an impact on what the end product will sound like, and it can require as much attention and musical talent as writing and performing the songs in the first place. Not to mention that production can have to do with the way the actual performance is carried out in the recording environment.

An overproduced album might be an album where the level of production is distracting from the music (so if there was constant epileptic panning back and forth for no reason), or where the production takes precedence over the music (everything has been tweaked and made perfect which sort of dehumanizes it depending on the intention of the artist and the genre etc).

And an example of an album that was well produced vs. one that wasn't... its kind of subjective... I can give u a good example of a band that had some albums with very different levels of production.

Here's Timber Timbre's As Angels Do from there 2005 album Cedar Shakes:


Now this is their 2011 album Creep On Creepin' On. Track is called Do I Have Power...


There's a definite difference in production. For example I would say that the vinyl sound on the first track is kind of annoying and distracting. The 2011 track on the other hand probably has way more production but its very tasteful and it stays true to a live concept. The clarity of individual instruments and vocals is also much better on Do I Have Power. And btw, Creep On Creepin' On sound magnificent on real vinyl.