Photo: Christaan Felber for Vulture Producer, composer, singer-songwriter, and session player Jon Brion has left an indelible mark on the face of pop, rock, and hip-hop over nearly 40 years of work. His impressive résumé includes collaborations with Fiona Apple, Elliott Smith, Aimee Mann, Kanye West, Frank Ocean, Beyoncé, and many more.
When I met Mac Miller, he was somebody who was interested in meeting me. In truth, he had this sort of sheepish thing with me. I think he presumed, quite honestly, that I’d had some sort of musical prejudice against hip-hop or people who made beats or something? These were his exact words: “Oh, yeah. Hi. I really wanted to meet you, but I don’t know if you’d even consider what I do as music.” That seems absurd, but it was a worry in his head.
He was so proficient at programming, at playing with samples, and he had taken the leap to wanting to hybridize his own work. But he didn’t yet have the specific knowledge about how to make it sound the way he wanted. Maybe within a couple of visits, he played something where I went, “Hey, I really like that. I just think the chord should change halfway through.” I’d sit down at an instrument and play until I saw his physiology change in a positive way, and we’d go with that.
In retrospect, I could see why he was covering “Everybody.” Music like that was becoming one of his interests, and like everything he did, he had a mercurial quality. If he got interested in something, he’d really fucking learn about it. It wasn’t surface knowledge. I’ve worked with people who like hearing about a lot of things, but almost so they can name-drop it to themselves: Look at how many different things I know. They’ve learned things, but they don’t actually absorb them.
Entertainment Entertainment Latest News, Entertainment Entertainment Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Source: billboard - 🏆 112. / 63 Read more »
Source: TMZ - 🏆 379. / 59 Read more »
Source: Variety - 🏆 108. / 63 Read more »