

“I want a thread running through the records that’s about the artists, not about me. “I never wanted the records I do to sound like my records,” he’s said.

To whatever extent he was involved in their creation, they belong, as they always have, to the artists who actually did the work to create them. One last note: These are not Rick Rubin’s albums. The thing that binds this collection together is that for good and bad, none of these 100 albums would exist in their present form if not for his influence. In one case-an exceptional case, to be sure-his contribution came exclusively through the mixing process. For some, he worked on only a single song. Not every album here was fully produced by Rubin. That’s largely what the list below seeks to do.
Pretty ricky songs on now cds Patch#
Nevertheless, there is a wealth of classic records and head-scratching bricks contained within his discography, and you could patch together a pretty compelling survey of the music industry over the past four decades by examining them. “It’s always the same answer: ‘I’ve always liked doing the stuff that I like.’”īut how good is Rubin’s taste? And how effective has he been at getting the most of the hundreds of different personalities he’s encountered through the years? It’s clear that while many have been inspired by his hands-off, big-picture approach, others have left the Rick Rubin experience pining for a more involved, technically proficient presence. “After my initial success in rap, I started making rock records, and people said, ‘Why would you do this?’” he told The New York Times.
He was the record company suit who staunchly refused to ever actually wear a suit. He then revived the careers of numerous aging rock legends long after the spotlight had shifted to others. He was the white punk rock kid who helped introduce suburban America to the predominantly Black hip-hop genre. Rick Rubin is a bundle of contradictions. If Rubin liked what he heard, it didn’t matter one bit whether it bore any relation to anything he’d done previously. His passion for creation never left, and after leaving Columbia in 2012, he went back to making records at American.Īs varied as the artists he’s worked with through the years have been, there’s one principle that has motivated his every choice: taste. For the next five years, he guided one of the biggest record companies in the world through the new, post-physical reality. And then in 2007 he embraced a new challenge when he took a job running Columbia Records. Awards and platinum plaques seemed to follow his every move. A new wave of projects with artists like Red Hot Chili Peppers, Tom Petty, System of a Down, and Johnny Cash followed. A few years later, he’d drop the “Def” after hosting a funeral proceeded over by Al Sharpton. In 1988, Rubin left Def Jam, moved to California, and started a new imprint: Def American. After that he worked with the metalheads in Slayer, Public Enemy, and Danzig, and shock-comedian Andrew Dice Clay. It didn’t take long before acts lined up to work with this mysterious, soft-spoken college kid. It was all accomplished from the confines of Rubin’s college dorm. In 1984, he worked with Jay and an MC named T La Rock on a single titled “It’s Yours.” From this mix of clattering 808s, scratched records, and concise rhyming, an empire-Def Jam Records-was born. He became friends with an emerging DJ named Jazzy Jay who used to spin at Negril. By the early ’80s, he’d moved to New York and-after enrolling at NYU, where he majored in philosophy- he became a fixture in underground clubs like Negril. They were tossed off after two songs, but the infamy never came. He formed a band called the Pricks they made it to the stage at CBGB, where they conspired with some friends in the crowd to kick up a pre-planned fight to try stir up some local buzz. First it was the Beatles and the Monkees, then Aerosmith and AC/DC, and then the Ramones and Minor Threat. At an early age he fell in love with the sounds pouring out of his parents’ radio. Born on Long Island in 1963, he was an early adopter of Transcendental Meditation at 14, which his doctor prescribed to help alleviate neck pain. You probably know most of the legends by now. Rick Rubin Does Nothing and Everything at Onceįew individuals have affected as many corners of the musical universe for as long as Rubin.
