Why Does Rick Rubin Say the Audience Comes Last?

David Senra says Rick Rubin puts the audience last when making art. Rubin cares about making things he is proud of and wants to see in the world.

In interviews, success looks the same today, next year, and five years from now, the standard Steve Jobs used: whether the work is something to be proud of. Rubin wants to make great things and has done so for decade after decade, and that starts with the right reason. A section titled greatness pictures a home no one will ever visit. The builder still invests the time and effort to shape the space where the days are spent. The wood, the plates, and the pillows are magnificent, curated to personal taste. Great art has no purpose beyond creating one's own version of the best, seen with one's own taste and no one else's. The performance is for an audience of one.

Fear of criticism, attachment to a commercial result, competing with past work, time and resource constraints, and the aspiration to change the world are undermining forces in the quest for greatness. So is any story beyond wanting to make the best thing one can make, whatever it is.