The Greatest American Band Debate: Rick Rubin and Brian Burton

SeedSing is filled with music lovers. We can not agree on who is the best band from the States. The Greatest American Band Debate will be a regular feature where we discuss and compare bands who started in the good old USA. If you have any suggestions of bands we should debate Contact us seedsing.rdk@gmail.com

In lieu of talking about another band today for the greatest American band debate, I'm going to talk about two producers. These guys are legends in the music business and without them, we would never have gotten some of the greatest bands of all time. They're both mainly producers, but one also doubles as a pretty good musician. The two people I'm going to talk about today are Rick Rubin and Brian Burton, AKA Danger Mouse.

Let's first start with Brian Burton. Danger Mouse bust onto the music scene with the legendary "Grey Album". This was a "mashup" of the Beatles "White Album" and Jay Z's "Black Album". This record was incredible. He perfectly blended Beatles with Jay Z. We had never heard anything like this before. Now, it's commonplace for DJ's and producers to do "mashups", but Danger Mouse was one of the first. This record was also impossible to come by. He didn't get permission from the powers that be to make it, so the few that got released were hard to get your hands on. You had to know someone who knew someone that had a copy just so you could get one. It's a masterpiece.

With the acclaim that followed "The Grey Album", Danger Mouse was in high demand. He began to work with a lot of artists. He, along with Cee Lo Green started the band Gnarls Barkley. An awesome concept for this band. Green did the vocals and Danger Mouse did everything else. They put out two awesome albums. The way he met Green was working with him on the "Danger Doom" album. This was Danger Mouse and MF Doom. MF Doom is an awesome, but under appreciated rapper. Their "Danger Doom" record is an excellent concept album. They used Adult Swim cartoons as their base and wrote rap songs to go along with it. Some Adult Swim people that appear are Master Shake, Harvey Birdman and Meatwad, to name a few.

Later on, Danger Mouse was called upon by the Black Keys, one of my all time favorite bands, to be the first outsider to produce one of their albums. He came to work with them on "Attack and Release", their first real ambitious album. He's since worked almost exclusively with them, making their sound more complete. He's added bass where needed and piano as a cherry on top of their unique sound. He was one of the driving forces behind their most recent and most ambitious record, "Turn Blue", and I will be forever grateful to him for making the Black Keys take some much needed steps to further their sound and push the limits.

Danger Mouse also has the band Broken Bells. This is him and Shins frontman James Mercer's side project. This is a great platform for Mercer to step away from the indie rock sound and really take some big vocal chances. He has to hit so many high notes with Broken Bells and he does great. That's something he would have never done in the Shins. Broken Bells is great.

Danger Mouse has also done work with a lot of other famous artists, Jack White, Norah Jones and Sparklehorse among many, many others. Danger Mouse is probably the second most in demand producer right now, and everything he's done so far has been pretty great. He's a top of the line producer.

The only guy that may be more in demand than Danger Mouse has got to be Rick Rubin. I mean, the dude co created Def Jam Records first of all. Just google Def Jam and look at all the ultra famous people that have been on that label, it's astonishing. He and Russell Simmons created an empire. They both created probably the best rap label of all time. Bands like Public Enemy, the Beastie Boys and Run DMC owe their fame to Simmons and Rubin. Even a guy like LL Cool J they made famous. Rubin is a total recluse, but when he emerges from his cocoon to work, this guy never disappoints. He was the producer on the "Black Album", Jay Z's best in my opinion.

Rubin has worked outside of rap music as well. His clientele includes  the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Johnny Cash, the Avett Brothers, the Dixie Chicks, Adele, Rage Against the Machine, Slayer, Mars Volta, Mick Jagger, the list could go on for days and days. He's even done stuff with Lady Gaga, Shakira and Ed Sheerhan. He has definitely expanded his grasp on all music.

The one thing you hear when people talk about working with Rubin is what a great professional he truly is. He has a knack for hearing and knowing great music. Before him, the Avett Brothers were just another run of the mill folk group. Rubin made them great. Same thing can be said about the Dixie Chicks. He produced their only listenable record. Rage Against the Machine knew they were working with a legend and let him do his thing, ending with great results. Lady Ga Ga, Shakira and Ed Sheerhan should thank their lucky stars that Rubin agreed to work with them. That's a huge compliment. Slayer and Mars Volta made their best stuff with Rubin on board. He's a genius, there's no other word that better describes him. Rubin's talent was on full display when he  got the absolute best out of an almost dead Johnny Cash. Those last two albums of his are masterpieces and a lot of that has to do with Rick Rubin being the producer.

They may not be a band, but we cannot talk great American music without mentioning these two guys that have helped produce so much of it. I can't wait to see what Danger Mouse and Rick Rubin do next.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man podcast. As a kid he thought Puff Daddy was the only producer in music. He has since become aware of others. Follow Ty on twitter @tykulik.

The Greatest American Band Debate: The Ramones

For the greatest American band debate on Seed Sing, I'm going to nominate another band that I'm not really a fan of, but to be reputable, we have to acknowledge these bands that most of the music listening population recognizes as an all time great. The band I'm going to talk about today, I actually dislike almost as much as I dislike the Beach Boys. That band is The Ramones.

The Ramones are widely considered the founders of punk rock music, a genre of music I'm not that into, but I recognize how important and influential it is and has been. For my punk rock, I go to Iggy and the Stooges, who I will write about at another date, or more prog type punk rock like King Crimson or Mars Volta, I'll also be writing about Mars Volta at a later date. King Crimson is from England, so they don't make the cut in our debate. Those three bands, in my opinion, are way, way better than The Ramones, but they aren't recognized like The Ramones. The Ramones are credited with starting punk rock because every single one of their songs is a tight 2 minutes and they only play three chords and the lyrics are sung muffled. That, for all intents and purposes, is the definition of punk rock. When it comes to my personal definition, punk rock is anarchy and disestablishment and great, complicated guitar work, especially solos.

When it comes to front men, Iggy Pop is a much better punk rock singer than Joey Ramone. You can understand most of what Iggy Pop is saying and as far as on stage theatrics, there is no one that comes close to Iggy Pop, especially not Joey Ramone. But, Joey Ramone is widely looked at as the essential punk rock front man, much to my shock. He just kind of stood on stage and garbled his way through each song. People will call that punk rock, I say, he was hiding the fact that he was not that good of a singer and he had some form of stage fright.

Then, when you look at the musicians in King Crimson or Mars Volta, they are so much better and so much more proficient than Johnny, Dee Dee and Tommy Ramone. Robert Fripp, of King Crimson, is ten thousand times the guitar player that Johnny Ramone ever wished he could be. And oh my god, Omar Rodriguez-Lopez is one of the greatest, most innovative and weirdest guitar players I've ever listened to in my entire life. I think he's an alien that was put on Earth to show us humans what a real guitar god looks and plays like. He is the Millenial's Jimmy Page. He's a guitar wizard that people will call legendary in about 20 years. I guarantee I will be telling my son about him when he's in his twenties and asks me about music from my generation. He's the man. Do people really say the same thing about Johnny Ramone? Is he a legendary, all time great guitar player? I don't think so. He doesn't have any memorable solos and he basically plays three chords on every song. Anyone that takes one guitar lesson can pretty much learn the entire Ramones song book. It is literally that easy. Just learn a G chord, a C chord and an F chord and you are good to go.

Let's get back to why some believe they are so influential. I will bend and say that without The Ramones, we would have never gotten The Sex Pistols, another band I'm not so fond of, but people love, Jello Biafra, who is a genius musician, there'd be no Black Flag, who is a much better band and Bad Brains, who are a great, great punk rock/reggae band. They did influence these bands and musicians and countless others, but the people I just mentioned took that influence, ran with it and made much, much better music than The Ramones. I know that people love the "simplicity" of their songs. Critics love the fact that they got their message out in 2 minutes or less. In my opinion, they could only handle that small amount of music because they were not that skilled. They needed to get everything done in a short amount of time because, if their songs lasted longer, they would be seen as subpar musicians and songwriters. They wouldn't be as highly regarded as they are now. Big time magazines and publications like "Billboard" or "Rolling Stone" even went as far to name them the second greatest rock group of all time, behind only The Beatles. That's down right insane. No way are they better than The Rolling Stones, Bob Marley and the Wailers, The Kinks, Public Enemy, The Beastie Boys, The Paul Butterfield Blues Band, Janis Joplin and the Holding Company, the Flying Burrito Brothers, I could literally go on and on with bands that are far superior to The Ramones.

I also acknowledge that the Ramones had a big stake and were very influential in making the cult classic movie "Rock and Roll High School" that many people adore. Have any of these people that claim to love that movie seen it lately? It does not hold up well. The movie is a lot like The Ramones music. It's kind of a muffled, garbled look at a Detroit high school in the 70's. It's boring and pointless too. I don't get the love for that movie. It's very overrated.

Look, I understand that a lot of people think The Ramones are one of the greatest American bands, I'm not one of those people. But, I also realize that we at SeedSing have to recognize and write about things we don't like or disagree with if we want to be taken seriously. So, I made the best case that a non fan of The Ramones can make. I believe that there are thousands of bands and musicians that are much, much better than The Ramones, but not everyone sees it that way. Much to my chagrin, these are the "reasons" that The Ramones belong in our greatest American band debate. Please tell me why I'm wrong in the comment section, but also check out some of the people I mentioned above and go listen to the people that The Ramones influenced instead of listening to The Ramones.

That's the best advice I can give you.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture Editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man podcast. He once adored the Ramones, then learned their entire catalog in one afternoon and moved on. Follow Ty on twitter @tykulik.