This has been on my mind since I heard Jon Brion interviewed on Sound Opinions last year, but a lot of musicians really do use production - or at least a more complex texture - as a replacement to more traditional songwriting techniques i.e. melody, harmony, etc. He used Zeppelin's "Kashmir" as one example, saying that if you take it out of its original recorded context, it loses so much of its meaning that its practically a different song. In contrast, he played on the piano the first few bars of Gershwin's "Someone to Watch Over Me" to show how it doesn't rely nearly as much on its timbre to define its character.
I first noticed this in 2002 when I saw Alejandro Escovedo play at my school. This first half of his set was clever, well-arranged songs that were downtempo and mostly acoustic. Then for the second half, he decided to pull out his electric guitar and distortion pedal. All the intelligent songwriting went out the window as the number of chords in each song dwindled to about 2 or 3 per. All subtlety disappeared, presumably because he could hide behind the thicker texture and higher energy level.
To me, it all became a lot more solidified when I was doing some research on timbre in pop music during my senior year of college. Reading through some of Alban Zak III's writings on changes in songwriting as a result of the broader use of the recording studio as a tool to more fully develop the timbre of a finished product. The final product then becomes reliant on careful production and is a series of ideal moments ready for listeners to hear in that exact context over and over. Until someone decides to cover the song (remixes of all kinds are immune), everyone expects to hear every melodic or rhythmic gesture in a specific timbre. Then in a song like Kashmir, the exact sound is possibly even more important than the melody or rhythm itself.
Enough theories for now. More actual examples next time.
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