Note...I'm one of those who rarely talks about folks "falling off" because I realize that times change n all...but this is really a talk on how the entire tag and prestige of "Superproducer" has changed.

Felt like from 98 or 99 and up to around 2006, 90% of all songs on the radio were produced by the same 10-15 hot producers at the time. Off the top of the head, these are some that seemed to own radio:

Just Blaze
Lil Jon
Scott Storch
Jazze Pha
Dr. Dre
Mr. Collipark
The Neptunes
Swizz Beatz
Trackmasters
Jermaine Dupri
The Runners
Cool and Dre
Mannie Fresh
Kanye West

Since then, things have changed a whole lot. Lex Luger and a few new cats are def running things, and you still hear from a lot of those producers I listed there...but as a whole, it's nothing close to how it was at that time, where it was more about the producer than anything else. They'd drop their tags on it and everything so that you knew they made it...they basically became celebs on their own. At this point, only a few of us even know what Bangladesh and Boi-1da look like, and casual fans may not even realize who they are. A lot of hit songs in the last few years were produced by the artist's camps vs a major known producer.

Is there anything on the business side that changed about it? Did folks just get tired of hearing everybody from every region on the same songs? Did their prices get too high for album budgets, especially since albums aren't selling nearly as much?

Or...am I completely wrong?