From the Inspirational Thought Unit
This week I watched a 13 minute video that 60 minutes did on Rick Rubin and was just mesmerized the whole time. Rubin is a producer in the music world who seems to be some kind of musician whisperer. He's worked with just about every major artist yet doesn't play an instrument, read music, or knows how to work a mixer.
What he HAS mastered is how to pull the best out of the people who work with him. He leans hard on gut feelings and helping artists push the envelope in their work.
At the end he says something that hit me like a lighting bolt:
"The audience comes last. The audience doesn't know what they want. The audience only knows what's come before."
- Rick Rubin
I think this is the most important thing to remember when you're creating something.
We are living in an age of content. There's more TV, movies, comics, and music that can be consumed then there are eyes to see it all. The entertainment industry is built on an economy of cheap imitations of good things.
AI is only compounding this as all it's capable of making is imitations of what's been fed into it. Algorithms are designed to figure out what you're interested in and ONLY show you derivatives of that.
All of this is made to satisfy a mass audience that avoids things that challenge their conceptions of what they like.
So what stands out? What cuts through the noise? What wakes people up?
Creating something that only YOU could create. Make that first, worry about the audience later.
Watch the Rick Ruben 60 minutes episode here: LINK
-Jake