Record Plant

The Record Plant was a recording studio established in New York City in 1968 and last operating in Los Angeles, California. Known for innovations in the recording artists' workspace, it produced highly influential albums, including the New York Dolls' New York Dolls, Bruce Springsteen's Born to Run, Blondie's Parallel Lines, Metallica's Load and Reload, the Eagles' Hotel California, Fleetwood Mac's Rumours, Cyndi Lauper's She's So Unusual, Hanoi Rocks' Two Steps from the Move, Eminem's The Marshall Mathers LP, Guns N' Roses' Appetite for Destruction, and Kanye West's The College Dropout. More recent albums with songs recorded at Record Plant include Lady Gaga's ARTPOP, D'Angelo's Black Messiah, Justin Bieber's Purpose, Beyoncé's Lemonade, and Ariana Grande's Thank U, Next. The studio was founded in 1968 in New York City by Gary Kellgren and Chris Stone, who opened a Los Angeles branch the following year and a Sausalito, California, location in 1972. During the 1980s, Stone sold the New York and Sausalito studios; the former closed in 1987, the latter in 2008. The Los Angeles studio closed its doors in 2024. As of 2024, the Sausalito recording site operates as "2200 Studios". The Record Plant in New York was the first studio to give recording artists a comfortable, casual environment rather than the clinical setting that was normal practice through the 1960s. Kellgren and Stone brought this same vision to their Los Angeles and Sausalito properties, adding a Jacuzzi and billiard table. Stone later said of Kellgren, "He single-handedly was responsible for changing studios from what they were—fluorescent lights, white walls and hardwood floors—to the living rooms that they are today." The Los Angeles location later added VIP lounges.