Inside the jar

Rick Rubin was hanging out for days at a time with The Red Hot Chilli Peppers when they were writing Blood Sugar Sex Magik.

He’d ask Anthony Kiedes, “What are you working on? Show me the songs you’re writing.” Kiedes, as he puts it, showed Rubin all the ‘sexy’ and ‘heavy funk’ songs.

Rick: “That’s good, we can work with that. Anything else in the book?”

Anthony: “Just a poem that isn’t really a song. I mean, it has melody, but I don’t think it’s for us.”

Rick: “Well, let me hear it.”

Anthony: “It’s kind of embarrassing. It’s a little sentimental.”

Rick: “Love to hear it.”

Kiedes then sings Under The Bridge to Rubin.

Rick: “That’s your best song.”

Kiedes: “It’s just a poem.”

Rick: “Bring it in to the boys. Show ‘em the song.”

The band subsequently love the song and it becomes the Chilli’s biggest hit of all time. Anthony Kiedes wrote the song.

Rick Rubin had the taste and perspective to recognise what Anthony could not

A similar thing happened with Run D.M.C.

At the time, the mass market didn’t think hip hop was music. Rick was producing Run D.M.C. and wanted to release a record that ‘bridged the gap.’

Walk This Way by Aerosmith.

Cover songs weren’t a ‘thing’ in hip hop at the time, and Run D.M.C hated the idea. They thought the lyrics were ‘terrible.’

When did they realise Rick was right, that this was a hit in the making?

“I don’t know that they ever came around until it was really successful. Like I can remember, even when we recorded the vocals, they were sort of not into it.” - Rick Rubin

Run D.M.C. subsequently become cross over sensations and, as a result, hip hop shifts into the mainstream. That doesn’t happen if Run D.M.C. are working solo. They’re too close. Can’t see the label from inside the jar.

Rick is the Tastemaker.

He can recognise what’s good and what’s not. He hears what the ‘expert’, the musician, cannot. And that interaction between producer and artist creates the Hit.

What gold could you be missing from your own content?

With a slight change of frame or perspective, maybe you're sitting on a Hit and you don't even know it.