The most original album Rick Rubin has ever heard: “It doesn’t sound like anything else”
Sometimes, producing isn’t about talent or technical prowess but about taste. Perhaps the most famous example of this is Rick Rubin. The recording giant self-admittedly can’t use a mixing desk and has no talent for instrumentation, and yet, he’s been one of the most revered and sought-after producers in music history for decades now.
Relying on his opinions rather than on real musical knowledge, Rubin has worked with some of the biggest names in the business. In the 1980s, he found a home in hip-hop, as the co-founder of Def Jam, working on records alongside the likes of Beastie Boys, Public Enemy and Run-DMC.
The 1990s saw him add the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Tom Petty to his catalogue, while the 2000s brought collaborations with everyone from Jay-Z to Justin Timberlake. Now, he’s even rubbed shoulders with Neil Young and Paul McCartney, drawing reverence from rock ‘n’ roll royalty, but above all, he remains a fan.
Decades into his career, this level of fandom has ensured that Rubin is royally eclectic, and he still has a keen eye and ear for music that will connect with the masses. After all, who else could produce Adele’s sophomore record, Metallica and Linkin Park, all in one year? Though he may profess to have no real technical understanding of music, Rubin has certainly honed an understanding of artistry and audience.
Expectedly, his own listening habits are just as full of quality as his output. While picking out eight of his favourite albums of all time during a conversation with Gibson in 2008, Rubin’s list featured some of the usual suspects like The Beatles and Neil Young, alongside his own collaborators Run-DMC, and post-punk favourites Gang of Four and Devo. But there was one record that Rubin said sounded unlike any other.
The producer included the blistering self-titled debut record from New York City punk rockers Ramones on his list, rightly describing it as “raw” and “powerful,” before concluding that it “doesn’t sound like anything else.” From the muted cymbals and chanting lyrics of lead single ‘Blitzkrieg Bop’ to the tale of Judy and Jackie in ‘Judy Is A Punk’, the record certainly doesn’t sound like any other.
But just as Ramones doesn’t sound like any other album, it also doesn’t sound like any other era. Rubin described the album as a “sort of document of a moment.” A collection of short and quick punk staples, it’s a record that captured the time in which it was made in a crumbling New York City, and pushed punk into the minds of the artists that followed.
Though it wouldn’t receive huge commercial success at the time of its release, the record was merely ahead of its initial audiences. It’s the sound of the youth of the era and the budding punk rock scene of leather jackets and shoulder-length hair and rebellion. With a runtime coming in at just 29 minutes, it distilled the sound and style of the era right down.
The attitude of the album wobbled the heads of the few folks who did listen upon release. As the punk poet John Cooper Clarke would write, “In late 1975, I read an article on the Ramones, a four-man gang from Queens.”
Proudly adding, “Much was made of their snotty asocial stage manner and the speed and brevity of their songs. […] I bought the LP. The Ramones were and are an enthusiasm of mine. They understood that it was better to have clever lyrics about moronic subjects than the other way round.”
With just one listen to the record, it’s easy to concur with Rubin’s opinions, the opinions that have kept artists desperately clamouring for a studio session with him for decades. Ramones is impossibly raw and powerful punk, a sonic time capsule of an era and a scene. Almost half a century on, the influence of the record can still be found amidst pop-punk scenes and continuing tributes to the Ramones. And Rubin’s sonic opinions continue to prevail.
