Paul P
 
Great stuff Danny.  If I understand correctly, you're saying that (in the case of working for someone else) what matters most is the customer's taste and the goal is to produce something that satisfies it, regardless of what your own personal preferences might be.   But I can't help feel that you may be doing your customer a disservice if you go along and produce something that has a good chance of being seen by others as being bad.  I'd think that if someone hires you, it's not just to produce something that will be listened to by the customer in private.  Surely it's also to be listened to by others.  You then sort of have a responsibility to those unknown others as well, and a responsibility towards your customer to satisfy and impress them, and the best way to do that is to produce something good.  Surely you don't want your customer playing your work for friends and having those friends think your stuff sounds awful.  That wouldn't be great for future business, if nothing else.
 
I see that 'good' is pretty vague !  But you're the professional, you're the one being hired, so, at least in theory, you're the one who knows what's good and the customer should be encouraged to realize that that's part of what s/he's paying for.
 

Actually Paul, what matters most in my situation is the best quality possible first, then comes the happiness of the client. Nothing I ever do here for people is bad. There are just times where I'm not being asked to produce and other times where I'm hired to track, not mix.

Most all the time though, I'm hired for my ears as well as my experience so I always get to make all the important sound or performance calls. But like I said, there may be a time on occasion where a client may win a little more of the say. It's not really a bad thing, it's sometimes just their opinion vs. mine. A judgment call that goes against my vision for a client doesn't make the material sound horrible....it makes it sound different which is not a bad thing all the time. :)

I used Dire Straight's album too.  But I usually pull out Peter Gabriel's So album first.  It's modern with great dynamic material.
 
Kind regards,
 
Living Room Rocker