Rick Rubin co-founded Def Jam Recordings in his dorm room at NYU. Together with Def Jam partner and future hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons, he is responsible for mainstreaming rap music with artists like LL Cool J, Run-D.M.C., and Beastie Boys.
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Rubin’s production credits include the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Jay-Z, Johnny Cash, Kanye West, Adele, Brandi Carlile, and many more. He’s been at the center of America’s biggest musical happenings over the past 40 years. He doesn’t play an instrument or write songs. He admits he has “no technical ability.” With deep focus, he’s an aesthete with a near shaman-like ability to simply know what the song needs. And only what it needs. Nothing more.
His philosophy is openness. Being attuned to what’s going on around you. He’s always listening. Seek enlightenment with these five history-changing albums produced by the ultimate musical guru, Rick Rubin.
5. Wildflowers by Tom Petty (1994)
Considered Tom Petty’s masterpiece, Wildflowers had to be edited by the record label before it was released. Pared back to 15 songs, Wildflowers was an immediate classic. Over time, Petty thought he’d never top it. If Rick Rubin has a production fingerprint, it’s the ethos of only adding what is necessary. The album is credited as a solo album for Petty, even though the Heartbreakers are all over it. But Rubin and Petty didn’t want to be knotted to a specific band for every track. The moments of scant production suit Petty’s autobiographical songs.
“You Wreck Me” is classic Heartbreakers. “You Don’t Know How It Feels” kept the censors busy at MTV and FM radio. The string swells on “It’s Good to Be King” lift a glorious Petty hook lamenting the loneliness of success.
4. Raising Hell by Run-D.M.C.
The Golden Age of Hip-Hop was happening in New York City in the 1980s and Rick Rubin was right in the middle of it. He produced a trilogy of earth-shaking rap albums: LL Cool J’s Radio, Beastie Boys’ Licensed to Ill, and Raising Hell by Run-D.M.C. The instruments were turntables and microphones, scratching and sampling, and constructing beats with a Roland TR-808 drum machine. The samples recycled pieces from music’s past while it propelled rap into the future.
The genre-blending reached MTV dominance with Run-D.M.C.’s collaboration with reeling classic rockers Aerosmith on “Walk This Way.” It was a hit, and Raising Hell became the first multi-Platinum rap album. “Walk This Way” wasn’t Run-D.M.C.’s first time mixing rap and rock. But sampling Aerosmith and then actually bringing in Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler and Joe Perry on the track was a brilliant move that launched their career and rekindled Aerosmith’s.
3. Blood Sugar Sex Magik by Red Hot Chili Peppers (1991)
The Red Hot Chili Peppers flirted with melodic songwriting on Mother’s Milk with the song “Knock Me Down.” John Frusciante had replaced the band’s late guitarist, Hillel Slovak, who died of a drug overdose at age 26. Frusciante was only 18 years old and hadn’t found his voice yet. But there was a virtuoso hiding inside, and Rick Rubin extracted Frusciante’s genius on Blood Sugar Sex Magik. He used his gift to see a band’s greatest strength and highlight it.
Frusciante left Slovak’s shadow on Blood Sugar, not only as a guitarist but also as a songwriter. His melodic sensibilities led to colossal hits like “Under the Bridge” and “Breaking the Girl.” Blood Sugar was driven by Flea’s bass. Drummer Chad Smith powered the band along. And Anthony Kiedis dug deep into his diaries for meditations on love, heartbreak, sex, drugs, and the Los Angeles underground.
The Red Hot Chili Peppers are a quintessential California band. They sit like funky monks on the evolutionary branch connecting The Beach Boys, The Byrds, and The Mamas & the Papas.
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2. Licensed to Ill by Beastie Boys (1986)
The Beastie Boys’ groundbreaking debut opens with a Led Zeppelin sample. It changed culture. Michael “Mike D” Diamond, Adam “MCA” Yauch, and Adam “Ad-Rock” Horovitz drifted from hardcore to hip-hop in the early 1980s. Back then, rap wasn’t the cultural force it became. Licensed to Ill was the first rap album to reach No. 1 on the Billboard albums chart.
The Beasties were New York cool and highly irreverent. They used samples to smash genres like mixing Led Zeppelin and hip-hop (cue Rage Against the Machine six years later). Licensed to Ill was profane and the boys did much apologizing years later. But the Beastie Boys—with Russell Simmons and Rick Rubin—were crucial to bringing rap music to the mainstream.
Rubin wondered why rap albums didn’t sound like the music he was hearing in the clubs. The rap albums of the time were recorded using live musicians. They sounded old, outdated. Rubin wanted the records to hit like they did in the clubs. So he brought the DJ into the studio and made the record sound like the club. The Beastie Boys were there in the earliest days of hard-hitting rap records with Run-D.M.C. and LL Cool J.
1. American IV: The Man Comes Around by Johnny Cash (2002)
American IV is Johnny Cash’s final album. On it, Cash most famously reimagines Nine Inch Nails’ “Hurt.” His rendition is heartrending on its own, and the music video is almost unbearable to watch. Cash was at the end of his life, and his interpretation thus took on a new meaning.
Trent Reznor was barely 30 years old when “Hurt” was released as a single in 1995. When Cash sings, Everyone I know goes away in the end, he’s speaking as a 70-year-old man who’s outlived most of his family and friends.
What makes Rick Rubin special is his ability to find and illuminate the spirit of an album. This album was gothic folk and country from the legendary and revered Man in Black. Cash’s voice sounds weary. He can sense the end. When John Frusciante begins the acoustic riff to a cover of the Depeche Mode classic “Personal Jesus,” Cash is resigned. The bluesy groove sounds like the old outlaw is taking one final walk to the crossroads.
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