Rick Rubin Stays in the Music Game
By Tony Sauro, The Record, Stockton, Calif.
Jun. 19–What do Weezer, Jakob Dylan and Neil Diamond all have in common musically?
Not much. Except for Rick Rubin.
Rubin, the recording industry maverick who started Def Jam Records in his college dormitory room 24 years ago and now is the president of Columbia Records, has produced new albums by this unlikely threesome.
Rubin is a restless creative spirit with a mystical personna who grew up loving the Beatles in Lido Beach on New York’s Long Island. He is known for producing albums by an odd cross-section of artists, ranging from the Dixie Chicks to Slayer, LL Cool J, the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Beastie Boys.
Rubin, 45, also is the guy who resurrected Johnny Cash’s career when he inspired the country music legend to record a series of stark, dark acoustic albums that introduced him to a younger audience in the years before his Sept. 12, 2003, death.
On “Home Before Dark,” Rubin has applied the same formula to Diamond, the 67-year-old pop singer and glitzy showman he grew up admiring as a teenager. It’s the second collection of stripped-down diamonds-in-the-rough Rubin has helped him craft.
Rubin’s done the same thing for Dylan, the 38-year-old former leader of the Wallflowers, on “Seeing Things” — 10 unadorned, acoustic-based ballads re-connecting Dylan with the folk roots of his iconic father, Bob.
That’s heavy stuff — unremarkable at first, but rewarded by repeated listenings — compared to the new album by Weezer: “Weezer (the Red Album).”
Though you’re never sure just how serious 38-year-old frontman Rivers Cuomo is, Rubin has helped him create a big, bold-sounding album that reinforces the notion rock music — especially hook-filled power-pop such as this — still can be fun.
In 2005, Diamond and Rubin teamed up on “12 Songs,” applying the Cash formula successfully. However, the album went nowhere after a high-tech, antipiracy coding glitch forced its recall from the market. Bizarre.
Diamond’s detractors probably still won’t be persuaded, but this new group of 12 songs is ongoing evidence of his considerable songwriting skills — honed over a 42-year career.
The 63-minute recording is mostly dark and somber. Diamond contemplates life, love, loss and mortality as the years keep passing, his voice showing the strain but subtly and tastefully supported by keyboard alchemist Benmont Tench and guitar player Mike Campbell from Tom Petty’s Heartbreakers.
Diamond still has plenty to say — five of the songs run six minutes or longer — and “If I Don’t See You Again” and “Pretty Amazing Grace” are among his finest. So is “Another Day (That Time Forgot),” a touching duet with the Dixie Chicks’ Natalie Maines.
On his first solo album, Dylan, who sampled stardom with the Wallflowers, risks comparisons to his dad (which he always has avoided) by recording in a mostly barren acoustic setting, forcing all of the attention onto his lyrics.
He’s always had that genetic gift and a slightly more accessible vocal style. Nothing much has changed, except the chiming rock band arrangements are missing on this succinct 38-minute album.
These alternately folksy and slightly bluesy tunes aren’t pale Bob Dylan mockups, though “Evil Is Alive and Well” (think dad Dylan’s “Gotta Serve Somebody”) gets close. Some of them — “Valley of the Low Sun,”"On Up the Mountain,”"Everybody Pays As They Go” and the counterintuitive “War Is Kind” — demonstrate significantly evolving skill.
Cuomo, a new father who wrote the songs for Weezer’s sixth album in Japan, just seems to be getting a kick out of the whole thing. Rubin, too.
“The Greatest Man That Ever Lived (Variations on a Shaker Hymn),” a mini-rock opera reminiscent of Green Day’s “American Idiot” phase, is a goofy hoot. So is the wacky, crunching “Pork and Beans” (“Excuse my manners if I make a scene”). The rap-inflected “Everybody Get Dangerous” and “Troublemaker” (“I don’t have the patience to keep it on the up”) are big, fat-sounding, frat-boy romps.
On “Heart Songs,” Cuomo seems sincere (maybe) as he pays playful homage to the still-poignant echoes of his youth — Gordon Lightfoot, Debbie Gibson, Cat Stevens, Eddie Rabbitt (seriously), et al.
It’s difficult to discern just exactly what Rubin’s common touch is. Somehow, though, it works.
Contact Tony Sauro at (209) 546-8267 or tsauro@recordnet.com.
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