Word: rubiner
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Rubin is ruthless with his professional time. He's inundated with requests for his services, so he asks most prospects to drop by and play him whatever songs they've been writing. This eliminates most applicants. Few pop musicians, it turns out, are used to regular writing, and even fewer show enough promise in their songs to interest him. "One of Rick's favorite phrases is 'metaphor deficient,'" says Rock. "If people write things that are metaphor deficient, even he can't help them...
Timberlake passed muster on a piano at Rubin's house ("That kid is no joke," says Rubin), while the Dixie Chicks, who were coming off their career-threatening Bush-bashing incident and didn't have much music to play, piqued his interest over sushi. "It was a weird time for us, obviously," says Robison. "If he had come in like a car salesman and said, 'I can totally hear a sound for you all,' we would have been put off. But he said, 'I don't know what this record will be, but you guys have something...
...Rubin begins by telling artists that they won't be going to a recording studio, picking a release date or thinking about a single. "I try to get them in the mind-set that they're not writing music for an album," he says. "They're writing music because they're writers and that's what they do." Months and occasionally years can pass, which is why Rubin often has as many as four projects going at once. He almost never comments on individual lyrics, although he will protest if he thinks something is emotionally untrue. ("He's great...
...time everyone decides that there's enough material to start recording, Rubin usually feels that the work is 90% done. "If a song is great on an acoustic guitar, you can make a hundred different versions of that song and it'll still be great," he says. While many producers came up as studio engineers, Rubin says, "I came up as a fan. I'm no expert at the technical aspects" of recordmaking. Kiedis, who has worked with Rubin on five albums, says, "He basically goes into the engineer's booth, removes everything in the room and has his people...
...Rubin listens intently from his cushioned perch and uses his lack of expertise to upend the traditional producer-as-God dynamic. "In the old days, when I'd hear something that's not working, I'd say, 'O.K., this is how we're going to fix it.' Now I ask, 'How do we fix it?' And nine times out of 10, what they come up with is as good as or better than how I would've done it," he says. Rubin's "they" includes a circle far wider than that of his peers. During a 1993 recording...