His parents were described as “affluent”.
Which again is not an indictment of any of his work but changes the base material conditions of existence.
Its a bit silly to compliment someone for skipping the “tea runner” phase of production asssistant when opportunities for some were always different.
“Work ethic” is a code that the underclass are not granted.
Haven’t read the thread, but just to respond to the OP - I only very recently heard RR speaking on subjects other/wider than music production - and I was disappointed. His philosophical takes sounded cheesy af
That’s an interesting point… whatever work ethic I had or have had more to do with busting my ass to pay bills (not really a choice or code is it, under those circumstances?), often with little energy left over to do anything but drink, which is probably pretty common for commoners. Certainly, Fred Again…, must of had a pretty fortunate upbringing to be Brian Eno’s studio assistant at such a young age. But… at the end of the day I am of the opinion that those who have not had a series of crap jobs are generally losing out in the way of having a level playing field to grow their empathy, but maybe that’s just what I tell myself to feel better about the quantifiable achievements which I lack. Anyways, I’d rather not be a person who simply doesn’t listen or engage with someone due to them coming from affluence as that seems small minded and insular and not becoming of the common man and not noble in spirit, which is a trait that a lack of money can’t rob from us.
They’re still fellow humans, but i’d be missing out in my own self-development if I tried to apply the less specific aspects of their path to mine, I was born into my own!
It’s not being “small minded and insular” to account for differences of origin, networking, them starting out at a fundamentally different level of existence and always being several steps behind the “transcendent wisdom”-seekers they are today.
I am still open to learning from successful producers, but the “self-actualized and transcendent” level of self help garbage is not in any way useful to my career, art, or hobbies, which will benefit more from getting out of my own way than it will adopting aspects of Rubin’s current reality-distortion bubble.
I saw Beyonce’s dad on TV the other day mentoring young kids with the idea that they have to spend all their free time practicing if they want to be like Beyonce. It does gall me this philosophy that everybody is super talented and they just have to coax it out by practice practice practice.
Yeah, the “work hard and stay engaged” aspects are truisms that lack any possibility of externality getting in the way, all the elements that sideline everyone else or (at worst) consider no matter how much practice you’ve engaged in a moral failure of your being.
FWIW I’m working fairly hard on some “assignments” and being actively coached towards goals, and happy with my gains and struggles.
The thing I imagine most strugglers need is time, mental space, and the money and ability to fail out, beyond needing others around them to bounce ideas off of.
Not quite… therapy, but being able to balance what you offer in relation to others with art and craft.
I read this earlier and couldn’t help but to think by the end of the article that she was actually complaining about being less privileged than her famous parent peers but still sounds like a pretty shitty childhood.
Not sure what kind of messaging you’re referring to specifically here, but generally speaking, if someone advises someone to put in effort and stay engaged that in no way implies that the externalities don’t matter, will not affect or impact on the person that is receiving the advice. It speaks of the personal sphere of influence and focuses in on that - which doesn’t imply or mean that there’s no external sphere that is not within our influence that we’re embedded into.
Point being, if “succeeding” in something you want to succeed in is your goal, “work hard and stay engaged” is actually really sound advice. It’s not a formula or automatism, mind you, but if you actually follow it (not just in your head but with your effort) it’ll raise your chances of something positive happening more than doing the opposite of that.
The problems most persons have with achieving success in most aspects of life (job, art, love) are in the margins around raw effort, advice so generic just isn’t useful beyond creating short term emotional swells that are rarely actionable or lead to lasting changes once feelings of “inspiration” fade.
To that end, it can feel patronizing and shallow to hear successful people giving “stay in school and get good grades!” or “follow your bliss!” depthless advice. I don’t know if it matters if the advice is sincere or not, but some people are detached from the realities of your average working class, their time is spent solely around the already gifted and successful (to some degree, I doubt garage bands and corner rappers just find themselves stumbling into Shangri-La.)
I mean yes, working leads to things happening, and not working makes it more difficult for things to happen.
But effort and energy expended is not linearly correlated to success, so people generally need more useful information than “stay focused” to break through whatever blockers!
I’m finding this thread super useful to read, and personally quite supportive. Thx.
Just as a side note, as i don’t want to derail this, but I occasionally post in the Lines forum, and based on how many questions around creative struggles, advice, how to make this music shit work, are common on both forums, i think it might be super valuable to see what similarities or differences can be found when posting a similar question on Lines as well.
Some of you may even be on that forum like myself, but i wanted to be transparent and mention I have created a similar thread over there, linking to this one.
Thank you so much, you speak from my heart @Fin25 . My wife and I also grew up in difficult circumstances.
This has left its mark on us to this day, although we are now doing well financially. But we can’t afford to just follow our dreams, that’s only possible for the wealthy who own a lot of real estate and whose parents pay for everything.
People who say that you only have to follow your dreams and then they will come true belong for me to the same category as people who say that you only have to think positively and in this way you can defeat diseases. The alpine working class punk kid in me still says fuck you to all these well-protected, wealthy snobs.
You’d be surprised how often effort itself is the first gate to any meaningful movement. That’s why I said it’s sound advice, because “you want a result? Do the work and it’ll increase your chance of achieving it” is something many many many of us have to be reminded of, especially if we lack belief in ourselves that doing the work would do something for us.
In that sense it’s not a platitude at all, it’s good advice IF one takes it.
I also don’t quite understand the automatisims on this thread — someone who made something happen for themselves automatically must be entitled from well-off backgrounds with inheritances etc…I find that sort of judgement and projection at least as shallow as the RR comments in question.
I don’t think anyone is saying that ‘work hard’ is bad advice.
It’s the implication that hard work guarantees success - and by extension that anyone, regardless of circumstance who falls short of their dreams simply hasn’t worked hard enough.
It’s at best naive and at worst, when coming from persons of inherent privilege, condensing, insulting and potentially dangerous.
There is nothing surprising about the most generic self-help “advice” to be offered.
Yes, in a circular sense if you do things you do things. But that helpful advice is mot solving any realistic problems persons encounter.
“Have you tried not having a lack of belief in yourself?” is just as useful.
The basic stuff is fleetingly validating but works more to give the illusion of motion than it does unblock someone where they are in life.
Having a personal connection is helpful because you can talk about your problems with another person. Having someone spout things at you with no concern where you are you is just cultivating a parasocial relationship.
That’s not the point we’re making, it’s the “if you do something you don’t like, just quit and do something else” advice that is a bit revealing.
basically the andrew tate/jordan peterson of music production. When he said he has no idea how to work a mixing board I lost all respect. Shouts out to the engineers/mixers/masterers who put this guy’s shit together and watch him take all the credit
Of course working hard, knowing what you want, believing in yourself and not giving up are things that generally help people to achieve what they want, I dont think anyone disagrees with that notion.
These things are not, however, the end all solution to all problems, let alone the key to a succesfull, wealthy life.
It’s a very right wing idea that you as an individual are solely responsible to your own well being. This idea completely disregards all societal structures (like the distribution of wealth, power and knowledge), and their influence on all of us, and by doing that make the well off feel like they did it all on their own, and the poor blame themselves.
In that sense this is the discourse of the ones in power, and not surprisingly, the one they feed us through a lot of media. Making us all believe those things helps to avoid revolution or further redistribution of wealth, because poor people will blame themselves instead of the ones really responsible.
I always like the thought experiment of trying out if ideas still hold up when you’re alone on a deserted island. Sure, working hard and believing in yourself will help you gather food and build a house, but you wont get rich if there’s no other people to sell things to or work for you. Succes is never completely self made, but dependent on the people and societal structures in which you operate.
Even though I never had money and came from a struggling working class background, grew up in the 80s under thatcher in a city at war with bombings and shootings far too regular if I take a step back and reflect the reality is I probably live a life of privilege compared to so many round the world. Even when my house burnt down and I was homeless I had the luxury of friends with spare rooms and a benefits system that could help me.
So I guess I’m rich living the dream in my basic lifestyle, a dream I’m sure millions living in poverty have.
So you may not be living your dream but your probably living someone else’s 
I’m a big believer in personal responsibility. I think it’s important for people, as much as possible, to take responsibility for themselves. It’s pretty clear that no-one else is going to do it.
But there’s a balance.
I’m hardly going to expect a working class kid from the inner city who’s had to endure a shitty education at an underfunded school to speak Latin. But my guy could work hard, take responsibility for his learning and get into medical or law school, where he’ll find he’s at an immediate disadvantage to all the students from private schools who’ve been brought up through an education system tailored to these sorts of professions. They’ve all worked hard to get there, but some will have to work harder than others.
This is not an accident, the system is designed this way.
The creative industry is a particularly nasty example of this privilege at work. Less than 10% of people working in creative roles are from working class backgrounds (down from about a quarter before Thatcher). Successive governments since Thatcher have worked tirelessly to eradicate the working class in Britain; first by removing our work, then our dignity (through increasingly dehumanising systems of welfare control) and now our voices.
A lot of people on the right are worried (and probably not without good reason) about the importing of a Chinese style social credit system into our society. For the unemployed, disabled and working poor in Britain, that system already exists, it’s called universal credit. Seriously, I reckon the average unemployed person in the UK has to work harder that Rick Rubin ever has just to keep their benefits. And at the end of it, he gets a nice big pat on the back and a well done and all they get is people making TV shows about how awful they are, scrounging off the state. But yeah, they could probably just move to the beach or whatever…
Sorry, didn’t mean to rant.
I think it also bares saying that those rare few who do climb from the hardest circumstances to break the glass ceiling are used as a stick to further beat the poor down with.
Those people are the exception- they might be exceptional in terms of talent, fortune, work ethic or most likely a combination of the above. These kind of outliers shouldn’t be used as a benchmark, yet they are all the time by persons trying to work a right wing agenda.
The fact is, a person of average inherent potential coming from a sinkhole estate is likely to remain in that environment.
A person of similarly limited potential raised in a world of privilege just ends up working in the financial sector.
