Jaynit@jaynitx
Rick Rubin: "Make what you love, not what you think people will like"
"If you want to live in a creative way, which will benefit everything in your life, be a better person in your family, do a better job starting a new business, it's all the same. I don't really know anything about music. It's more a way of looking at the world and wanting it to be the best it could possibly be. And doing whatever it takes to be the best it could possibly be."
Rubin shares how his career happened:
"From the beginning, I never thought any of the things I'm doing were possible or realistic. I just did things out of the love of them, thinking I would have real jobs. That my passion would be my hobby, and I'd have a job to support my hobby. And it just magically turned out different than that without me knowing it was possible."
On why some things connect and others don't:
"The stars line up at certain times for certain things to happen. Sometimes you can make something great, and it doesn't connect for whatever reason. Sometimes you make two things you think are the two best things you've ever made. One of them connects with the world. One of them doesn't.
And it might not have anything to do with what's in the art. It might be that it came out the same day as something else. Or there was a bigger story at the time. There's so much to it that we don't understand."
He continues:
"All we can do is make something good and put it out and hope for the best. That's all there is. We never know why things work. Even if you make a piece of art and it works, you may not know why."
On talent versus work ethic:
"There are a lot of talented people who never make it because they don't have the work ethic. It's not just talent, talent's a piece. And you could argue for some people, the work ethic trumps the talent."
Rubin explains what real collaboration is:
"Having worked with a lot of bands, I see there's often this friction where people are trying to get their idea in. That's not a collaboration. A real collaboration is when everyone who's there is working together towards whatever is the best thing for the whole.
Whether it's your idea or someone else's idea, it doesn't matter. If you're invested in the collaboration, you want the best idea to win. You don't want your idea to win."
On what makes art great:
"What makes it great is the personal. With all of its imperfections. With all of its quirkiness. That's what makes it great. How you see the world that's different from how everyone else sees the world. That's why you're an artist. That's your purpose in sharing your work with the world."
He warns against being derivative:
"There are these derivative voices where they're finding what they think other people want to hear, and they start saying it because they've heard other people say similar things that are now successful. Even if they have some short-term success doing that, it's not revolutionary. It doesn't change the world. It doesn't last.
The people who you first see and you might not like that you come to like because you don't understand them at first, those are the ones that change the world. Those are the ones you dedicate your fandom to for life."
Rubin shares his philosophy on taste:
"You can't second-guess your own taste for what someone else is going to like. We're not smart enough to know what someone else is going to like. To make something thinking, 'Well, I don't really like it, but I think this group of people will like it,' it's a bad way to play the game of music or art. You have to do what's personal to you. Take it as far as you can go. Really push the boundaries. And people will resonate with it if they're supposed to resonate with it."
He describes creativity as catching waves:
"We're really talking about magic. The universe conspiring on our behalf if we let it. Being in this flow of catching these waves that anyone can catch. If you're trying to catch it, you're open to it, you see it coming, you take off on every chance you get. And sometimes the ride happens. It's remarkable how it happens. It doesn't come from preconception. It's not an idea. It's through the doing."
Rubin explains how ideas exist in the universe:
"Have you ever had that experience where you have an idea for something, you don't do it, and then six months later you see someone else has done it? It's not because they took your idea. It's that it's time for that, and you can act on it or not. The best artists are the ones who have the best antenna for this material that's available. It's coming through. The best comedians see the best jokes. They see them coming. We all live in the same world; the way you see it, you have the best joke because you see it best."
He closes with how to stay open:
"If we listen to what's going on around us, you can overhear a conversation in a coffee shop, and it is the setup for an idea you're working on. You hear a phrase you don't commonly use. My experience is: when you are open and looking for these clues in the world, they're happening all the time. And they're happening often right when you need them."
