One of the things I’ve really been thinking about a lot over the past six months or so is the depth of the information that I receive.
It seems really easy just to take as much information as you can onboard from as many different angels but all you ever get then is superficial.
I made a conscious effort to go deeper into fewer things and so, I was absolutely astounded that I’d never realised that Malcolm Gladwell has a podcast which is now 7 seasons long with probably something like 100 episodes.
That will be my dog walks sorted out for the rest of this year and probably a lot of next.
Malcolm Gladwell’s writing has changed my life and changed my view of the world so, why would I not choose his podcast over other ones.
And so, I started on season 1 episode 1 (which was extraordinary and more about that in these pages another time) but the second one was a podcast with Rick Rubin.
Rick Rubin is one of the most prolific music producers that you could possibly come across but he’s such a softly spoken, aging, hippy sounding, white bearded man but you might mistake him for somebody with not much life experience or not much influence.
Rick Rubin founded Def Jam Records so, for anyone who’s ever paid any attention to hip hop or anything like that, was utterly fundamental in the development in music.
Staggeringly though he was actually the DJ for the Beastie Boys while they toured with Madonna on their first ever tour.
That’s just crackers.
He signed Public Enemy and was the producer when Run-D.M.C and Aerosmith released ‘walk this way’.
Rick Rubin didn’t really produce music, he changed culture.
He took hip hop music and introduced it to an entirely atypical audience by fusing styles of music together that people just would never think possible.
He brought hip hop music to white people.
He was never constrained though by a style of music and so, when he realised that Johnny Cash was down on his luck and down and out and playing dinner theatres around America (places where people came and sat and had dinner while he played at the front with a guitar) he approached him about a collaboration between the two even though they’d never met.
His work on the Johnny Cash covers album was staggering but perhaps the greatest part of that album was when Johnny covered ‘hurt’ by the Nine Inch Nails.
And so, this was the real joy in the depth of this podcast because I’ve turned back to that song time and time again because it’s dark and deep and crushingly sad and so, sometimes that suits me and the way that I sometimes feel, usually when I’m walking the dogs.
Rubin explains though that the real power in that music is that it was sung by a 20-year-old originally in the depths of young angst so, to be covered by somebody in their 60’s, ‘the man in black’ was just staggering.
You’d never get to this if all you ever listened to was suggested playlists on iTunes.
You’d never get to Rick Rubin’s Wikipedia page if you’d never found Malcolm Gladwell’s podcast (or at least I wouldn’t).
You’d never get it on the superficial.
Some of Public Enemy’s lyrics changed my view of the world “if you don’t stand for something you fall for anything” and the sadness of ‘hurt’ by Johnny Cash makes me feel better, sometimes, when that’s what I need.
Here’s a link to the Malcolm Gladwell podcast with Rick Rubin and here’s a YouTube video of Johnny Cash singing ‘hurt’.
Why not make yourself a drink and listen to both and then you can get back to the firehose of sh*t that we all try to fend off on a day-to-day basis.
Blog Post Number - 3270