Yeah, there's a lot of Nirvana love (and that can get you pretty far) and not even music journos know what a producer actually does.
... also the NME has been pretty irrelevant since the mid 80s, despite the push to pull up their socks in the early 00s.
Notice who isn't on that list: Steve Albini, Chris Thomas, Bob Clearmountain, Flood etc... and who is (Rick Rubin; sure not bad, but doesn't deserve to be on this list if those others aren't, I even put Bob Rock above him; there are people, as in in the music and audio engineering community, who really hate the work of both of them, though I ain't one of them).
edit: OK so some of those other guys are there just much further down; thought it was a top 10 only. Still pretty whack.