Rick Rubin Taken Off New U2 Album

Everything Rick Rubin touches seems to turn gold. He produced Metallica’s new record, which is easily the best thing they’ve done in a decade. He was the mastermind behind Johnny Cash’s late-career resurgence. And even though it happened twenty some years ago, he still deserves credit for resurrecting Aerosmith’s career by partnering them with Run DMC. Unfortunately, U2 wasn’t quite as on board with him as the rest of the world.

According to NME, the band has scrapped several tracks they worked on with Rubin earlier this year. Speaking about the song removals, The Edge said, “We actually laid all that stuff to one said. Really out of deference for Rick and that set of songs we just said ‘Okay, that’s that.’” I wasn’t in the recording sessions, and I haven’t heard the songs in question--but I’m definitely on board with not redoing the songs with a different producer. When there’s too many cooks, one of them always pees in the soup.

After the departure of Rubin, the band called in famed Talking Heads producer Brian Eno. Thankfully, he knows what he’s doing.