“I can remember having a conversation with Johnny Cash,” shared producer Rick Rubin, “and telling him we were going to make the best album he’d ever made. He looked at me like I was insane. He felt like he hadn’t made a good album in 25 years. At the time he was playing dinner theaters and had been dropped by two labels.”
The album Cash recorded with Rubin was American Recordings. It was voted the #5 album of the year by the Los Angeles Times and later one of the top 500 albums of all time by Rolling Stone.
“The job of a producer” said Rubin, “is to reframe expectations and to communicate we’re not just going to make an album, but we’re going to do whatever it takes to make the best album ever made. And ask, what would that sound like? How would that work? Are you willing to commit to that, I ask, because it’s not easy, and not every artist wants to do that.”
Is there a project you are working on right now you might want to reframe? To ask yourself, how do I make this the best work I’ve ever done? Are you willing to commit emotionally, spiritually, and energetically to a Rubin expectation?
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