#rick rubin

Wolfsbane: Down Fall the Good Guys (1991)

Rick Rubin's career-crippling production botch-job on Wolfsbane's debut album, 1989's Live Fast, Die Fast, clouded the fact that the Tamworth-based quartet named after a deadly toxic genus of flowering plants could have been the U.K.'s answer to Van Halen. 

Not Van Hagar, mind you, but the original Van Halen, which is why Iron Maiden's subsequent decision to hire Wolfsbane singer Blaze Bayley to replace Bruce Dickinson sounds as viable as asking David Lee Roth to sing "The Number of the Beast." 

But I digress ...

Fortunately, enlisting a young Brendan O'Brien to record 1990's All Hells Breaking Loose at Little Kathy Wilson's Place EP remedied most of the band's sonic issues and assured his return for the next year's Down Fall the Good Guys, with similarly stellar results.

Unfortunately, excellent production can't always guarantee excellent record sales, and this sophomore full-length's title proved all-too-prophetic of the public's tepid response and resulting loss of their Def American contract, which made Bayley ripe for the plucking.

What a shame, because guitar shredder Jase Edwards knew almost every lick in EVH's pyrotechnic bag of tricks (if not his inimitable "Brown Sound") and, when paired with Bayley's lupine howls, this turned songs like "Twice as Mean," "Cathode Ray Clinic," and "The Loveless" into fun-loving, over-the-top VH tributes.

Other standouts like "You Load Me Down," "Black Lagoon," and the near-perfect "Smashed and Blind" deliver a less derivative, yet equally explosive, metallic neutrality, and there's a sub-"Paradise City" anthemic quality to both "Broken Doll" and "After Midnight."

But "Temple of Rock" and "Dead at Last" are a couple of head-bangers too many, "Ezy" is a throwaway single, and "Moonlight" an ill-fitting acoustic love song, which, all together, helped stall Wolfsbane's UK-bred VH master plan before it could take proper shape.

I also find it tantalizing to wonder what those debut album barnstormers might sound like if O'Brien could be bothered (or affordable enough) to remix them along the same aesthetic lines as this LP and its preceding EP.

But we'll probably never know because there are no do-overs in life (well, few of them anyway), and I'll argue that Wolfsbane's career was dead and dusted even before their self-titled third LP arrived in '94, just prior to Bayley's defection to Iron Maiden.

I guess good guys really do finish last ...

Jay-Z will be the subject of a new documentary series directed by his old collaborator Rick Rubin, HBO has announced. Jay-Z will star in an eight-episode documentary series directed by his old friend (and collaborator) Rick Rubin, HBO has announced. In the series, Rubin has also taken on reporter duties, as he will be seen interviewing the rapper “to discuss his music, his lyrics, his life…

The Guru — Rick Rubin for Vanity Fair, November 2001

JAY-Zが、自身を主役にした8部構成のドキュメンタリー『JAŸ-Z IN 8』を発表した。監督はRick Rubin。この秋、HBOで放送され、米国ではHBO Maxでも配信される。 ただ、これを「大物ラッパーのドキュメンタリー」と受け取ると、肝心なところを見落とす。 今回出てきたのは、一本の映像作品ではない。存命のうちに、自分の手で、自分の半生を“正史”として固める。その大きな動きの、ひとつの部品だ。HIPHOPCsはこのニュースを、そう読む。誰が自分のレガシーを語るのか。その主導権をめぐる一手である。 発表に合わせて、約40秒のティザーも公開された。JAY-Z本人も、公式Instagram（@jayz）でこれを伝えている。 View this post on…