Linkin Park: The One-Steps (Rick Rubin & Don Gilmore) Vinyl Album Review

Welcome to the Syndicate X Library, where we love books and we love vinyl.

Three additions today to the library that are vinyl records. And the topic is going to be leadership. I want to talk about the leadership of the different producers from these albums. You have Don Gilmore and Rick Rubin, and the band is Linkin Park. Now, Tom Beery gifted me these. We have the same drug dealer, and our dealer was sharing with him. I think that I had this channel. And also that we have a very similar setup. My setup at home is very similar to his. And so he sent these to me. These are promo copies, as you can see right here. Thank you so much, Tom, for doing that. It was very, very sweet of you. And, man, did I have a lot of fun. And it took me back. Like, it took me back. So let's talk about it. So we have Hybrid Theory, we have Meteora and Minutes to Midn. Now, these first two are produced by Don Gilmore. This one is produced by Rick Rubin, Minutes to Midnight. At the time when Hybrid Theory came out, I think it saved rock and the music business because this sold 30 million copies, was.

So well done and so fresh and unique. The way Mike wrapped and the way Chester sang, the. The songwriting, the production.

Amazing. And then the pressing here is amazing. And so I'll kind of show you guys a little bit what you got going on here. So it's a.

Folds. There's this lyric sheet in here, but cool artwork, very.

Graffiti banks, ks kind of when I put this on, it was just. Just. It's so big and so.

Just the songs, like.

Nuts. So Don Gilmore's style is a lot different than Rick Rubin. And I actually had the pleasure of working with Don Gilmer when I was younger in Seattle. He produced some songs for us.

And the first thing was he came in and he said, I'm gonna help write your songs. And I was kind of like, I don't. You know, I don't know. Well, yeah, he's insane. But if. If you just look at what Don Gilmour has done over the years, he's a kin kind of to Mutt Lang in a sense that he has a very distinctive style. He doesn't do interviews, he doesn't show up in public that much. Like, I tried to get him to come on Business Outlaws when we used to do that show, and he. He wouldn't come on. He's not a public figure. I would love to. To interview him. I have so many questions because I felt like he was very much a leader. He was very talented. He had a clear vision of what he was trying to do and just experiencing what he did with the songs that we played him. Then he picked three of them and then redid them. And the outcome of was something that I'll never forget him. And I spent almost a week in our rehearsal space just practicing the songs on drums, like the foundation of it all. And he was very patient with me. And there was this one song that was in an odd time signature. Remember, the song was called River. And there was like a pause, and I wasn't, you know, the best in an odd time signature. Sometimes he did it until I could do it in my sleep. Like, it was so great. And he was so positive and encouraging, but very, very much a professional and knew exactly what he was doing. And so it's a tribute to the collaboration here. And, you know, Linkin park is an incredible band, too. It isn't just about dawn, but he's great. So then he did. He did this one, the second one, Meteora. And I like this album maybe as much as Hybrid Theory. By the way, I've seen Linkin park live maybe three times, and every time was just incredible. Incredible. You got a little lyric sheet. I just think it's fascinating to listen to these two and then go to Rick Rubin. And I'm. I'm a huge fan of Rick Rubin. You guys saw maybe earlier on the channel, I did an art piece from his book where I deconstructed it and then drew him in charcoal. I've talked to a lot of people that worked with him, and his style is different. It's funny, like, some of the bigger bands that have gone to work with Rick that hated his process and ended up quitting. Rick has, like, a really cool thing that he. He said about it is he's like, yeah, everybody doesn't want to work that hard. Like, this ALB album sounds completely different than those other two in style. The songwriting, the production, it's. It's open and more free.

And I hesitate to say the dynamics are different, but they are. The dynamics are completely different. Where on the other two, the dynamics are more on and off. Where with Rick, the dynamics kind of flow made a sense. And this album's incredible, too. Funny, though, this album didn't sell like, those other two albums just didn't. Like, not even close. But it's great. And, man, Tom, I really can't thank you enough for making this happen and doing these kind of pressings, because this music is, you know, it's. It's part of my youth and also just amazing. Like, it just really is that good? I'm not gonna try to force that in there, but I would. I would. I would encourage you to listen to those two and then listen to this one and think about the production and the style and think about Don Gilmore and Rick Rubin as leaders and that. There's tons of videos online about Rick Rubin and his process and, you know, how people experienced it and what they went through. But there's probably nobody better at it than Rick. But I would say Rick has as many hits as he does misses. Where guys like Mutt Lang and Don Gilmore kind of have more hits, but they have done less work in their life. Right. They spend more time and have more of a formula, where Rick's formula is more about the mind, not the. The work in the production, in a sense. Like, he's dealing with the mental aspect of the artists and creating an environment for them to create. It's interesting, but I. I'm fascinated with that sort of stuff. I hope you are, too. Great additions to the library, and.

There'S a lot of great vinyl coming out. It's really, really fun. So thanks for hanging out with me, and I'll see you.