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A voice note changed his mind
Rick Rubin was first asked to produce a Strokes album about fifteen years ago. He listened to the demos and didn't hear it. He wasn't saying the music couldn't be good. He just didn't see a way in for himself. The band asked again about twelve years later, and the demos left him in the same place, so he passed again.
When he hears a path, he can understand what a piece of music is and wants to see what it can become. The third time, about six years ago, the band sent what were probably the worst demos they had ever sent. One was a twenty-second voice note, where earlier ones had been polished demos presenting great new songs. In that voice note he heard a seed of an idea with the potential to be really good.
He couldn't explain how he knew. It comes as a feeling: leaning forward instead of back, wanting to hear it again instead of skipping to the next one, and wanting to know more. They made that album together, and a second one with the band came out more recently.
How can a producer hear a song's potential in a demo?
A song with a strong melody and structure survives being stripped down, so a producer can judge it even from a single voice and one instrument. What the producer listens for is whether the idea pulls the ear forward, not how finished it sounds. Polished production can also hide a weak song under good sound. Songwriters have long used rough recordings for this reason, and the Beatles' acoustic Esher demos of 1968 were recorded on a home tape machine.
How did The Strokes become so influential?
The band formed in New York City in the late 1990s, and their 2001 debut Is This It helped start a revival of guitar-driven rock in the early 2000s. The sound was spare and deliberately loose, and the vocals were run through a distorted effect. Their 2020 album The New Abnormal was produced by Rick Rubin. It won the Grammy for Best Rock Album.
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