I struggled to think of anything I could write about Steve Albini that didn’t sound like an awful LinkedIn post (“and here’s what it means for b2b marketers…”) so I kind of gave up. For us millennials, his name has been synonymous with not only the best recorded sounds of the last 20 years but also a relentless work ethic and moral code.
So I thought I’d just share this list of stuff I’ve seen bouncing around the internet in tribute to Steve that’s been fun to share in group chats – like all great recording engineers, he always made sure to take notes:
My wife edited his interview with Mel where he recounted his past less savory views and stances, a rare former edgelord who openly admitted they were very wrong.
His pitch to Nirvana to record In Utero remains legendary – If a record takes more than a week to make, somebody's fucking up
Albini was also a masterful engineer of soft, beautiful music in addition to industrial noise – he recorded Joanna Newsom’s harp and voice for Ys! – Here’s his drawn studio diagram for Songs:Ohia when he recorded The Magnolia Electric Co.
He wrote this for Reckless Records in Chicago about Record Store Day in 2009 with a slightly too-long but perfect riff on tomatillos.
Even when he didn’t give a fuck about your music, especially if it was dance music, he sent gracious emails approving his songs for sampling, like he did with Powell in 2015.
I am absolutely the wrong audience for this kind of music. I've always detested mechanized dance music, its stupid simplicity, the clubs where it was played, the people who went to those clubs, the drugs they took, the shit they liked to talk about, the clothes they wore, the battles they fought amongst each other ... In other words, you're welcome to do whatever you like with whatever of mine you've gotten your hands on. Don't care. Enjoy yourself.
If you’re unaware of his recording history, Jeremy Larson of Pitchfork put together this playlist, which is also great for the old heads as well.
The other great Jeremy of Brooklyn discourse, Jeremy Gordon, had to turn his profile of Albini for the upcoming Shellac record into an obit for the Atlantic. He found returning to the interview even more affecting, a portrait of the artist as a curmudgeon who did this til he died, like he planned:
I don’t give a shit. I’m doing it, and that’s what matters to me—the fact that I get to keep doing it, that’s the whole basis of it. I was doing it yesterday, I’m gonna do it tomorrow, and I’m gonna carry on doing it. Other people can figure out if they were happy about that, or not. I don’t care what they say; I’m doing it because I find value in it. I find value in being part of this culture, and preserving my peers’ artistic output. I find value in that, as my role: being the person responsible for making the record that someone will hear in 50 years to find out what some band sounded like. How will people know what our culture was like now, in 50 or 100 years? Well, they can read what survives the great digital void, and they can listen to what music survives. And I just want to make sure that I do a good job on the music that survives, you know?
And of course, his written opus, the perfect 1993 article “The Problem With Music” on the scourge of major labels fucking up bands.
Finally, this video of St. Vincent covering “Kerosene” remains the single best live performance I’ve ever seen in person, a fitting tribute to the power of Albini’s music and the room he carved out for screeching, unrelenting noise.
RIP. See y’all next week.