There is no greater an enigma than Rick Rubin working in record production today, but one thing is crystal clear: the records he produces are sonically and stylistically beyond reproach. Rubin has rejected the comfort and complacency of working in a niche, instead taking on artistic collaborations that are truly original and which often lead the artists to their first commercial or critical breakthrough. His career began in hip hop; Rubin co-founded Def Jam Records with Russell Simmons in 1984, producing LL Cool J’s Radio and the seminal 1986 Beastie Boys album Licensed to Ill, not only rap’s first number one album, but also widely credited for launching hip hop as a viable commercial medium. Not only a producer who could launch new groups, Rubin proved early on in his career that he had an ability to breathe new life into old acts, giving Aerosmith a new chapter in their history with “Walk This Way,” their Run-DMC collaboration.

Refusing to play it safe, Rubin jumped ship from rap to metal, leaving Def Jam to found his own label, Def American, where he signed and produced groundbreaking acts like Danzig and Slayer. His eclectic taste was nowhere better reflected than in 1987’s Less Than Zero soundtrack. Rubin also proved his mettle as a top A&R man, executive-producing controversial but commercially successful acts like Public Enemy, the Geto Boys, and comedian Andrew Dice Clay. After his work on the hugely successful and critically acclaimed Blood Sugar Sex Magik, Rubin was only seven years into his career and already a living legend for his ability to break a band like the Red Hot Chili Peppers into the mainstream while respecting their musical roots and simultaneously pushing them to new heights. Though he worked with legends like Mick Jagger, AC/DC, and Tom Petty in the early 1990s, it was his recordings with Johnny Cash that still stand out as his most astonishing and studied collaboration. A partnership that began in 1993, it gave Cash renewed credibility and its commercial success allowed Rubin to be selective about who he worked with, choosing diverse artists like Donovan, Rancid, Sheryl Crow, and System of a Down and returning to those he’d produced before, most notably on the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Californication.

By the turn of the century, Rubin had invented, reinvented, or re - defined so many musical genres that there was no way to categorize his style — every producer’s dream. Despite Rubin’s stoic persona, the critics had caught on to the producer’s legacy in the making, with USA Today commenting, “Rick Rubin may be as impossible to pigeonhole as the starry and swollen catalog of music he has produced,” Rolling Stone singling him out as “the most successful producer of any genre,” and Esquire concluding that there were “four words we trust: Produced by Rick Rubin.” But the praise and album sales didn’t shake Rubin’s focus as he dedicated himself to artist after artist. In 2002, the Rubin produced Audioslave debut was released and once again he had helped to launch a new statement in rock ’n’ roll: the supergroup. By 2005, MTV would hail him as “the most important producer of the last 20 years,” and Rick Rubin continued to live up to that title, by resurrecting the career of pop-crooning legend Neil Diamond, helping to shape the solo career of Justin Timberlake, and working with the Dixie Chicks on their comeback album, Taking the Long Way. Grammy nominations and awards poured in as 2007 began, including a Producer of the Year win, but Rick Rubin, workaholic and recluse, found himself too busy to attend, hard at work on Linkin Park’s Minutes to Midnight. Not surprisingly, that album was a massive critical and commercial success upon its release. Rubin had already turned his sights to what some argued would be his greatest challenges yet: producing heavy metal monsters Metallica and taking a new position as head of Columbia Records.

As this generation’s most legendary record man remains focused on the future of a business he has been instrumental in revolutionizing, Rick Rubin: In the Studio looks back at more than two decades of sonic supremacy, offering the stories behind volume one of Rubin’s greatest hits.