Counterintuitively, Rubin's minimalist "less is more" philosophy requires creating a huge volume of work first. To get 10 great songs, an artist might need to write 100. The simplicity comes from the ruthless editing of a large pool of options, not from creating sparingly.
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The VFriends team embraces killing ideas, even after hours of development. This leverages sunk costs to make better decisions. The time invested isn't wasted; it provides the necessary context to recognize a dead end and pivot effectively.
Rubin sees his producer role as being a temporary member of the band. Unlike musicians focused on their own parts, he is singularly focused on the quality of the whole, free from personal agendas about a specific instrument or part, making him the ultimate objective arbiter.
The fastest path to creating high-quality work is through prolific creation, not perfectionism. Like a ceramics class graded on volume, producing more content provides the necessary practice and feedback to rapidly improve your skills.
Perfectionism creates a paralyzing binary of success or failure. Musician Jeff Tweedy combats this by deliberately trying to produce bad material first. This removes the pressure for quality, increases quantity, and clears the mental space for more creative ideas to emerge.
Both Rubin and Jobs shared the ability to see a finished product in their minds before it was built. They believed these products always existed, and their job was simply to discover them and then work backward to bring them into reality.
Rubin avoids chasing the "newest sounds" because they quickly become dated when the next trend emerges. Instead, he focuses on foundational elements, like a grand piano, that sounded great 50 years ago and will sound great 50 years from now, ensuring his work has a timeless quality.
To produce exceptional work, consume the best art, literature, and cinema. Rick Rubin suggests the goal is not to mimic these masterpieces, but to develop a finely tuned internal sensitivity for greatness. This refined taste guides the thousands of small decisions required to create your own great work.
When curating from a large body of work, Rubin avoids simply picking the "top 10." Instead, he asks, "What are the 5 I absolutely cannot live without?" This reframes the selection process around indispensable essentials, ensuring a stronger core before adding anything else.
Rick Rubin avoids regret by viewing each project as a "diary entry"—a reflection of the best he could do at a specific moment in time. Since it was the peak of his ability *then*, there's nothing to be critical of later. If it could have been better, he would have kept working on it.
Instead of striving for perfection, the key to overcoming creative blocks is to allow yourself to create subpar work. Acknowledging that 80-90% of an initial draft will be discarded lowers the stakes and makes it easier to begin the creative process.
