Rick Rubin
Rick Rubin | |
---|---|
Background information | |
Birth name | Frederick Jay Rubin |
Also known as | DJ Double R, the Loudness King |
Born | Long Beach, New York, U.S. | March 10, 1963
Origin | Lido Beach, New York, U.S. |
Genres | |
Occupation(s) | Record executive, record producer |
Years active | 1981–present |
Labels |
Frederick Jay Rubin (/ˈruːbɪn/, ROO-bin; born March 10, 1963) is an American record executive and record producer. He is a co-founder (alongside Russell Simmons) of Def Jam Recordings, founder of American Recordings, and former co-president of Columbia Records.
Rubin helped popularize
In 2007, Rubin was called "the most important producer of the last 20 years" by MTV[1] and was named on Time's list of the "100 Most Influential People in the World".[2]
Early life
Frederick Jay Rubin was born into a
Career
Def Jam
Rubin founded Def Jam Recordings while in college at New York University.[7] He moved on to form the band Hose, influenced by San Francisco's Flipper. In 1982, a Hose track became Def Jam's first release, a 45 rpm 7" vinyl single in a brown paper bag, and no label.[8] The band played in and around the NYC punk scene, toured the Midwest and California, and played with seminal hardcore bands like Meat Puppets, Hüsker Dü, Circle Jerks, Butthole Surfers, and Minor Threat, becoming friends with Fugazi frontman and Dischord Records owner Ian MacKaye. The band broke up in 1984 as Rubin's passion moved toward the NYC hip hop scene.[8]
Having befriended
It was the idea of Rubin's friend Sue Cummings, an editor at Spin magazine, to have Run-DMC and Aerosmith collaborate on a cover of Aerosmith's "Walk This Way". This 1986 production is often credited with both introducing rap hard rock to mainstream ears and revitalizing Aerosmith's career.[12] In 1986, he worked with Aerosmith again on demos for their forthcoming album, but their collaboration ended early and resulted in only rough studio jams. In the same year, Rubin began his long musical partnership with Slayer, producing Reign in Blood, considered a classic of the heavy metal genre. This was his first work with a metal band.
In 1987, the Cult released its pivotal third album, Electric. Produced by Rubin, the album remains one of the Cult's trademark and classic works. Rubin worked with the Cult again on the 1992 single "The Witch". He is credited as music supervisor for the film Less than Zero and as the producer of its soundtrack. Rubin portrayed a character based on himself in the 1985 hip-hop motion picture Krush Groove, which was inspired by the early days of Simmons's career as an artist manager and music producer. He then directed and co-wrote (with Ric Menello) a second Run–DMC film, Tougher Than Leather in 1988.[citation needed][13]
In 1988, Rubin and Simmons went their separate ways after Rubin had a falling out with then Def Jam president Lyor Cohen. Rubin left for Los Angeles to start Def American Records, while Simmons remained at Def Jam in New York. In Los Angeles, Rubin signed a number of rock and heavy metal acts, including Danzig, Masters of Reality, the Four Horsemen, and Wolfsbane, as well as alternative rock group the Jesus and Mary Chain and stand-up comedian Andrew Dice Clay. Though Rubin's work at this time focused mainly on rock and metal, he still retained a close association with rap, signing the Geto Boys and continuing to work with Public Enemy, LL Cool J, and Run-DMC.[14][15][16]
American Recordings
Rubin had originally given his new label the name "Def American Recordings". In 1993, he found that the word "def" had been accepted into the standardized dictionary and held an actual funeral for the word, complete with a casket, grave, celebrity mourners, and a eulogy by
The first major project on the renamed label was
Rubin has also produced a number of records with other artists, which were released on labels other than American. Arguably his biggest success as a producer came from working with the
Rubin also produced
Rubin produced Black Sabbath's 2013 album 13[22] and Billy Corgan's comeback solo album Ogilala.
Columbia
In May 2007, Rubin was named co-head of Columbia Records. He co-produced Linkin Park's 2007 album Minutes to Midnight with Mike Shinoda. Rubin and Shinoda have since co-produced the band's 2010 album A Thousand Suns and its 2012 release Living Things.
In 2007, Rubin won the
In
Post-Columbia
Rubin left Columbia in 2012, and revived the American Recordings imprint through a deal with
Rubin attempted to record a
In July 2021, Rubin signed with Endeavor Content to further develop his home studio, Shangri-La Recording Studios.[26]
Other work
Rubin has a chapter giving advice in Tim Ferriss's book Tools of Titans, and often gives advice on creativity via his Instagram page.[27]
Rubin's debut book, published on January 17, 2023, by
Production style
Praise
Rubin's biggest trademark as a producer has been a "stripped-down" sound, which involves eliminating production elements such as string sections, backup vocals, and reverb, and instead having naked vocals and bare instrumentation. But by the 2000s, Rubin's style[30] included such elements, as noted in The Washington Post: "As the track reaches a crescendo and [Neil] Diamond's portentous baritone soars over a swelling string arrangement, Rubin leans back, as though floored by the emotional power of the song."[31]
Of Rubin's production methods, Dan Charnas, a music journalist who worked as vice president of A&R (Artists & Repertoire) and marketing at American Recordings in the 1990s, said, "He's fantastic with sound and arrangements, and he's tremendous with artists. They love him. He shows them how to make it better, and he gets more honest and exciting performances out of people than anyone."[31] Natalie Maines of the Chicks has praised his production methods, saying, "He has the ability and the patience to let music be discovered, not manufactured. Come to think of it, maybe he is a guru."[32] Producer Dr. Dre has said that Rubin is "hands down, the dopest producer ever that anyone would ever want to be, ever".[33]
Despite having never worked with Rubin,
Criticism
In 2014, Slipknot frontman Corey Taylor said that he met Rubin only four times during the entire recording process of Vol. 3: (The Subliminal Verses): "We were being charged horrendous amounts of money. And for me, if you're going to produce something, you're fucking there. I don't care who you are! [...] The Rick Rubin of today is a shadow of the Rick Rubin that he was. He is overrated, he is overpaid, and I will never work with him again."[37][38] Taylor expressed regret for those comments in 2016, and said he wanted to make amends with Rubin, attributing the friction to being "freshly sober [...] unsure of [himself]" and to never having previously worked with anyone whose methods were like Rubin's.[39]
In 2019, when comparing Rubin to Greg Fidelman (who had recently produced Slipknot's album We Are Not Your Kind), Taylor again criticized Rubin for his absences from the studio due to other work commitments. He said that Rubin was "a nice guy, absolutely nice guy" but claimed that "he just wasn't fucking there" and that the band did not see him more than once a week until they finished recording the vocals at his house.[40]
In 2022, Black Sabbath bassist Geezer Butler said of Rubin's production of the band's 2013 album 13: "Some of it I liked, some of it I didn't like particularly. It was a weird experience, especially with being told to forget that you're a heavy metal band. That was the first thing [Rubin] said to us. He played us our very first album, and he said, 'Cast your mind back to then when there was no such thing as heavy metal or anything like that, and pretend it's the follow-up album to that,' which is a ridiculous thing to think."[41][42] Butler also stated that vocalist Ozzy Osbourne and guitarist Tony Iommi had frustrations with Rubin's suggestions, and said: "I still don't know what [Rubin] did. It's, like, 'Yeah, that's good.' 'No, don't do that.' And you go, 'Why?' [And he'd say], 'Just don't do it.'"[41][42]
Loudness war
Since at least 1999, listeners have criticized Rubin for contributing to a phenomenon in music known as the loudness war, in which the dynamic range of recorded music is compressed and sometimes clipped in order to increase the general loudness. Albums Rubin produced that have been criticized for such treatment include:
- Californication by the Red Hot Chili Peppers (1999) – Tim Anderson of The Guardian criticized its "excessive compression and distortion",[43] and Stylus Magazine said it suffered from so much digital clipping that "even non-audiophile consumers complained about it".[44]
- Death Magnetic by Metallica (2008)[45] – a remixed/remastered version of the entire album was released as downloadable content for the video game Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock. Songs that are used in rhythm games such as Guitar Hero and Rock Band are always remixed/remastered by the game studios, despite that this edition of the album was released for gameplay instead of casual listening, fans have said that the mix of Death Magnetic found on the game is preferred because it consequently is not subject to the same level of compression as the official commercially released record.[46][47][48]
- Consequence of Sound wrote, "Rubin ... deserves disparagement for the way he mixed the audio levels, which are crushed by distortion and compression. Otherwise well-recorded songs are blemished, an affliction all too pervasive in the modern music industry".[50]
Personal life
Rubin has practiced meditation since he was 14 years old.[51]
Rubin began dating former actress and model Mourielle Hurtado Herrera in 2010, and they were married at an unknown date.[52] They have a son born in 2017 and reside in Malibu, California.[53]
Rubin was a vegan for over 20 years, but later began eating meat again.[54] He is a fan of professional wrestling and held season tickets to WWE events at Madison Square Garden throughout the 1970s and 1980s. He has cited wrestlers Roddy Piper and Ric Flair as influences on his work, and has said that villainous wrestlers were hugely influential in the development of the Beastie Boys' public image. He financially backed wrestling promoter Jim Cornette's company Smoky Mountain Wrestling from 1991 to 1995.[55]
Filmography
Year | Title | Role | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
1985 | Krush Groove | Himself | |
1987 | "(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (To Party!)" | Beastie Boys music video | |
1987 | "Rhymin & Stealin" | ||
1988 | Tougher Than Leather | Vic Ferrante | Writer, director |
1990 | Men Don't Leave | Craig | |
1991 | Funky Monks | Himself | Documentary |
2004 | Fade to Black | ||
2004 | "99 Problems" | Jay-Z music video | |
2005 | "Twisted Transistor" | Korn music video | |
2006 | Dixie Chicks: Shut Up and Sing | Documentary | |
2006 | iTunes Originals – Red Hot Chili Peppers |
Virtual album | |
2007 | Runnin' Down a Dream | Documentary | |
2007 | The Making of Minutes to Midnight | ||
2010 | The Meeting of a Thousand Suns | ||
2012 | Inside Living Things | ||
2013 | Sound City | ||
2013 | "Berzerk" | Eminem music video | |
2013 | Making 13 | Documentary | |
2014 | Foo Fighters: Sonic Highways | Documentary series | |
2016 | I Am Johnny Cash | Documentary | |
2017 | Oh, Vita! Making an Album | ||
2017 | May It Last: A Portrait of the Avett Brothers | ||
2017 | "Seven Sticks of Dynamite"[56] | Awolnation music video | |
2018 | My Next Guest Needs No Introduction with David Letterman | 1 episode | |
2019 | Shangri-La | Documentary series | |
2021 | McCartney 3,2,1
| ||
2021 | Tom Petty, Somewhere You Feel Free | Documentary[57] | |
2023 | Circus Maximus |
Discography
Published work
- Rick Rubin, The Creative Act: A Way of Being, ISBN 9780593652886, 2023[58]
References
- ^ What's Up With That Bearded Guy From The '99 Problems' Video? Archived October 18, 2015, at the Wayback Machine – MTV.com
- ^ "The 2007 TIME 100". Time. Retrieved October 21, 2022.
- ^ "BBC Radio 4 - Desert Island Discs, Rick Rubin, music producer". BBC. Retrieved October 23, 2022.
- ^ a b Hirschberg, Lynn. "The Music Man" Archived March 18, 2017, at the Wayback Machine, The New York Times Magazine, September 2, 2007.
- ^ "Rick Rubin talks about 'The Creative Act,' growing up on LI". Newsday. March 2, 2023. Retrieved July 12, 2023.
- ^ "Rick Rubin Meets Zane Lowe". BBC. June 16, 2014. Archived from the original on June 17, 2014. Retrieved February 12, 2018.
- ^ "How LL Cool J's career was launched from a college dorm room at NYU". CBS News. January 15, 2023. Retrieved March 22, 2023.
- ^ a b Lamb, Bill. "Rick Rubin". ThoughtCo. Archived from the original on November 26, 2021. Retrieved June 19, 2017.
- ^ Rude Boys Archived March 1, 2017, at the Wayback Machine, Amos Barshad, New York magazine 2011 5, retr 2012 Oct
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- Spin Magazine. Archivedfrom the original on July 2, 2019. Retrieved March 17, 2013.
- ^ Hirschberg, Lynn (September 2, 2007). "Rick Rubin – Recording Industry – Rock Music". The New York Times. Archived from the original on May 18, 2017. Retrieved June 19, 2017.
- ^ Rubin, Rick, director. Tougher Than Leather. New Line Cinema, 1988, archive.org/details/tougher-than-leather-1988. Accessed 12 July 2023. (3:56 - 4:05)
- ^ "Rick Rubin | Music". The Guardian. Archived from the original on March 28, 2014. Retrieved February 18, 2014.
- ^ "Rick Rubin – Top 11 Hip-Hop Producers of All-Time". UGO.com. October 23, 2008. Archived from the original on February 23, 2014. Retrieved February 18, 2014.
- ^ Lincoln, Kevin. "THE AGE OF RICK RUBIN: He Made Half The Records You've Ever Bought And Billions For The Music Industry". Business Insider. Retrieved May 8, 2022.
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- ^ Hirchberg, Lynn. The Music Man. The New York Times Magazine, September 2, 2007.
- ^ "Talib Kweli's New Single: 'Listen'". June 7, 2006. Archived from the original on October 18, 2015. Retrieved July 29, 2010.
- ^ "Clipse/Rick Rubin Collaboration Actually Happening – Pitchfork". pitchfork.com. February 25, 2009. Archived from the original on December 28, 2017. Retrieved June 19, 2017.
- ^ "Lil Jon Merging Crunk And Rock on Next Album". Billboard. Archived from the original on July 9, 2018. Retrieved August 13, 2012.
- ^ "Reunited Black Sabbath to headline". NME. November 11, 2011. Archived from the original on January 17, 2012. Retrieved August 13, 2012.
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- ^ Jem Aswad (August 22, 2012). "Exclusive: Rick Rubin Brings American Recordings to Universal Republic". Billboard.biz. Billboard. Archived from the original on October 8, 2012. Retrieved October 11, 2012.
- ^ "Graham Nash Says CSN Sessions With Rick Rubin Were Contentious". Rolling Stone. July 26, 2012. Archived from the original on August 20, 2014. Retrieved August 19, 2014.
- ^ Schneider, Michael (July 15, 2021). "Rick Rubin Pacts With Endeavor Content to Expand His Recording Studio Into Film and TV". Variety. Retrieved February 22, 2022.
- ^ Jensen, Christian (February 1, 2021). "Why you NEED to Follow Rick Rubin on Instagram". The Creativity Boost. Archived from the original on February 1, 2021. Retrieved February 26, 2021.
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- ^ "The Creative Act by Rick Rubin — a self-help manual to unleash the musical artist within". Financial Times. January 10, 2023. Retrieved January 17, 2023.
- ^ Jones, Lucy (August 1, 2013). "12 Reasons Why Rick Rubin's An Almighty Badass – NME". NME. Archived from the original on June 12, 2018. Retrieved June 19, 2017.
- ^ a b The 'Song Doctor' Is In Archived December 28, 2017, at the Wayback Machine – Washington Post
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- ^ Why A Music Producer Holds The Key To Unlocking Growth At Your Startup Archived December 28, 2017, at the Wayback Machine – Forbes
- ^ a b c "Chris Moyles meets Muse". YouTube. Radio X. March 19, 2018. Retrieved April 24, 2023.
- ^ Paul Stokes (February 11, 2010). "Muse thank Rick Rubin for teaching them 'how not to produce' at Music Producers Guild Awards". NME. Retrieved April 24, 2023.
- ^ Helienne Lindvall (February 12, 2010). "Muse slate producer Rick Rubin at awards ceremony | Music". The Guardian. London. Archived from the original on June 29, 2013. Retrieved February 18, 2014.
- ^ Clarke, Patrick (January 10, 2019). ""He just wasn't fucking there": Corey Taylor criticises working with Rick Rubin ahead of new Slipknot album sessions". NME. Archived from the original on November 28, 2020. Retrieved November 20, 2020.
- ^ "Corey Taylor on Rick Rubin: 'He Is Overrated, Overpaid, And I Will Never Work With Him Again'". Blabbermouth.net. November 22, 2011. Archived from the original on November 26, 2021. Retrieved February 18, 2014.
- ^ "Corey Taylor: I want to say sorry to Rick Rubin". November 18, 2016. Archived from the original on July 11, 2021. Retrieved July 11, 2021.
- ^ ""He just wasn't fucking there": Corey Taylor criticises working with Rick Rubin ahead of new Slipknot album sessions". NME. January 10, 2019. Archived from the original on November 28, 2020. Retrieved November 20, 2020.
- ^ a b "Black Sabbath's Geezer Butler Still Doesn't Know What Producer Rick Rubin Did On '13' Album". Blabbermouth.net. April 28, 2022. Retrieved September 28, 2023.
- ^ a b Hadusek, Jon (April 29, 2022). "Geezer Butler on Working with Rick Rubin on Black Sabbath's 13: "I Still Don't Know What He Did"". Consequence. Retrieved September 28, 2023.
- ^ Anderson, Tim (January 17, 2007). "How CDs are remastering the art of noise". The Guardian. London. Archived from the original on May 20, 2007. Retrieved April 20, 2007.
- ^ "Californication Sound Quality". Stylus Magazine. Archived from the original on June 12, 2006. Retrieved June 25, 2007.
- ^ "Was the Metallica album too loud for you?". The Guardian. September 17, 2008. Archived from the original on November 16, 2019. Retrieved November 16, 2019.
- ^ Daniel Kreps (September 18, 2008). "Fans Complain After Death Magnetic Sounds Better on Guitar Hero Than CD | Music News". Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on February 9, 2014. Retrieved February 18, 2014.
- ^ "The WIRED Guide to Music in the Modern World | Underwire". Wired. March 28, 2013. Archived from the original on February 12, 2014. Retrieved February 18, 2014.
- ^ Sean Michaels (September 17, 2008). "Metallica album sounds better on Guitar Hero videogame | Music". The Guardian. London. Archived from the original on October 30, 2013. Retrieved February 18, 2014.
- ^ Ratliff, Ben (June 7, 2013). "Black Sabbath's New Album, '13'". The New York Times. Archived from the original on June 13, 2013. Retrieved June 13, 2013.
- Consequence of Sound. Archivedfrom the original on June 11, 2013. Retrieved June 13, 2013.
- ^ "Rick Rubin on a Lifetime of Meditation and Music". Rolling Stone. February 28, 2014.
- ^ "Joe Rogan Experience #1881". Spotify. October 12, 2022.
- ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved February 22, 2022.
- ^ "Rick Rubin: Legendary Music Producer | Lex Fridman Podcast #275". YouTube. April 10, 2022.
- ^ "Rick Rubin: How Roddy Piper Turned the Beastie Boys Bad". rollingstone.com. April 20, 2015. Archived from the original on July 4, 2017. Retrieved June 19, 2017.
- ^ "Rick Rubin Stars in AWOLNATION's 'Seven Sticks of Dynamite' Video". Paper. December 6, 2017. Retrieved January 21, 2023.
- ^ "Tom Petty Somewhere You Feel Free". IMDb.
- ^ The Creative Act A WAY OF BEING By Rick Rubin Penguin Random House
External links
- Rick Rubin at IMDb
- Rick Rubin discography at MusicBrainz
- Originally from Mix Magazine