The classic composer Rick Rubin thought was “groovy”
Few music producers can boast such an eclectic scope of credits to their name. Immersing himself within the inner sanctums of an artist’s conceptual and recording process, Rick Rubin‘s famed for his ‘hands-off’ approach and unorthodox exercises in establishing new ideas and environments to encourage fresh creative directions. Working with artists as disparate as Run-DMC, Slipknot, and Neil Diamond, Rubin’s reputation in the industry has seen him hover in the same echelons as Brian Eno or Quincy Jones as a studio mage gifted with an ability to draw magic from his clients.
Hailing from New York and initially involved in the punk scene, Rubin swiftly made a mark for himself in the city’s emerging hip-hop scene, co-founding Def Jam Recordings, producing early hits by LL Cool J and T La Rock, and guiding Beastie Boys away from their hardcore roots toward a road of rap and producing their 1980s monster Licence to Ill.
Rubin’s greatest contribution to hip-hop’s commercial stature was the pairing of Run-DMC and Aerosmith on the mega-hit re-work of the latter’s 1975 cut ‘Walk This Way’, pushing both bands and Def Jam’s profiles firmly into the MTV age.
Despite such commercial attention, Rubin’s well known for his philosophical, zen-like approach to his practice. Meditating since he was 14, Rubin speaks frankly about his professed lack of technical expertise, listening to takes with his eyes closed rather than hunched over a mixing desk and allowing intuition to inform his mystical music counsel.
Speaking on BBC’s seminal Desert Island Discs radio show in 2022, Rubin revealed his instinctive attitude: “Does something happen that makes me want to lean forward? Is there something that makes me want to laugh? Even if it’s not funny, is there something that surprises me? Or makes me want to know more. Or bores me, which happens, and then I’d say, ‘That’s a problem’ – If it’s boring to me, it’ll probably be boring to someone else, or it’s likely to be.”
Among selections across The Beatles, LCD Soundsystem, and Neil Young, one pick revealed Rubin’s highly idiosyncratic and unconventional emotional relationship with music. Selecting JS Bach’s ‘And At The Hour Of Death’, a version of the first Prelude from 1722’s The Well-Tempered Clavier Book 1, Rubin manages to fund surprising qualities in the 300-year-old classical piece: “I don’t think we can have a conversation about music without somehow getting back to a foundational element… there’s this undercurrent, this groovy undercurrent that speaks to me. And technically, it’s a very modern recording, and we can hear things that we don’t hear in the traditional classical recordings.”
Referring to Icelandic composer Víkingur Ólafsson’s modern take on Bach’s haunting church cantata, his enthusiasm for pushing the ‘old’ into new and bold directions has been a hallmark of Rubin’s lengthy career. Instrumental in resurrecting country legend Johnny Cash with his American Recordings series, resulting in one of the most enduring late-career hits with his cover of Nine Inch Nails’ ‘Hurt’.
Wrestling the long-buried gold from an established artist is a principle Rubin illustrates further when elaborating on his love for Ólafsson’s “groovy” Bach piece: “It also tells the story of taking something old, putting it through a new filter, and creating something fresh and new and exciting all over again after hundreds of years. And I love it.”
