You are not Rick Rubin

Unless you think heating frozen dinners makes you Gordon Ramsay, prompting music doesn't make you Rubin (but it's great to celebrate him for other reasons)

I actually love Rubin, but feel people miss something in the memes

In the gen AI art discourse, where people believe creativity is being ‘democratized’ by software that reassembles and regurgitates, Rick Rubin has become something of a patron saint. A man who, according to legend, sits barefoot in a room and wills great music into existence through sheer presence. In tech circles his name is spoken like summoning a creature from Magic The Gathering, usually to justify the idea creativity is less about skill and more about taste. That being the right kind of observer with the right kind of aesthetic (which almost no one even has) is all that’s required. But here’s the truth: you are not Rick Rubin. And more importantly, Rick Rubin isn’t even Rick Rubin in the way you think he is.

Rubin was a product of a mass culture era, a time when the right gatekeeper in the right room could shape the trajectory of an entire creative industry. He had taste, for sure. But more crucially he had access. He had the ability to say yes when yes meant something: distribution was scarce, media was centralized, a record label’s executive decision could set off a chain reaction leading all the way to platinum sales. Rubin was part of an ecosystem where discovery was still dictated by a handful of tastemakers at the top. In 1984 when he co-founded Def Jam the music industry was a walled city, and he was inside holding the light. The world has changed dramatically since: the internet blew up the pop star factory, pop music is now demoralizing slop, most people don’t have a serious interest in the art form, and dismal MBAs run the show. The era Rubin led for (mass) culture was in my opinion better. I wonder if some of the AI nerds or modern music execs ever sit and think deeply enough about why that might be.

Good Tweet from LindyMan about Rubin

What’s also forgotten in all this AI-era hero worship is that Rubin was not a lone mystic, he was a highly connected individual with institutional backing. He met Russell Simmons at NYU. He built his legend in an industry that, at the time, was defined by a series of hierarchical decisions. And even then, he wasn’t exactly working against the grain, he was channeling and amplifying existing cultural currents, not creating them from scratch. Hip-hop was already bubbling up in New York, heavy metal was already finding its stride. Rubin wasn’t the source, he was the conduit. Of note I respect the game and don’t dislike him at all.

Fast forward to today, and the creative landscape has fragmented beyond recognition. The mass culture model has shattered into many niches, and the idea that anyone can be a tastemaker in the same way Rubin was is pure misplaced nostalgia. AI evangelists want to believe in the myth of the Rubin archetype because it suggests all you need is a good enough filter, good enough prompting, and you too can be the sage. But that’s not really how it works here. The levers of culture have shifted. Curation is commoditized in an era where everything is already being endlessly curated by algorithms tuned for engagement. And also, literally everyone is a curator of their own music preferences and playlists now with or without algos. Maybe you can get really good at making mixes or playlists (I make many here, it’s fun) but the point is no one is doing this at scale for the entire culture any longer.

Aside from curation, you also can’t really prompt your way to make anything actually interesting or unique. So no one will be Rubin through prompt-based music. If you can’t compose, the best you can do here without knowing anything else is curate. That’s great, I love that people do this. Still, eventually anyone serious about music wants to create original works. Anyone could get a copy of Ableton which provides a full studio at your fingertips and actually do something unique. This software has existed for a long time (decades) and I honestly think if you wanted to make anything yourself by now you’d be doing it already. Literally nothing stopping anyone but will, the barriers are gone. There aren’t hordes of people sitting around thinking “oh if this was slightly easier I would do this.” It’s already very easy. The non-prompt tools are infinitely better than the prompt tools, making any music of consequence requires fine-tuned controls.

The Rubin model worked in a pre-streaming era, a world of scarcity, mass culture and hits that actually had substance. What matters now (if you just wanted to make money, which is all anyone in that industry wants) is someone that can be marketed and sticks against a culture that’s mostly nihilistic, dumbed down and demoralized about the art form (without really knowing why). It’s honestly more about the person than the music here, because we live in a Debord-esque society of spectacle, and craft is mostly an anachronism. Rubin could do what he did with great artists because the cultural moment allowed it. That moment is gone. It doesn’t mean people aren’t still making great works, many are, it’s just part of niche cultural movements and communities you have to seek out.

Anyway, you are not Rick Rubin. And even if you wanted to be just like him, it wouldn’t help now.