I backed up as many of Steve Albini's tweets (@electricalWSOP) as Twitter's API would allow: https://archive.org/details/steve-albini-partial-twitter-bac...
Steve Albini has died
181–190 of 191 posts
Re: Steve Albini has died
#182Earlier quoted context omitted.
His very close-miked sound still containing a tasteful (i.e. light) amount of reverb is such a recognizable signature... A true legend, and big coincidence since I discovered yet another of his production a week ago: Zeni Geva's last three LPs. Almost as important as the ubiquitous Dan Swano in my collection: $ find -L ~/Music -type f -name album.json -exec jqmusic '.credits | has("Steve Albini")' {} \; -print | awk…
Zeni Geva deserves more credit, great to see them mentioned. You probably know Neurosis and Melt Banana but those might also be up your alley. Other noteworthy Albini-engineered bands for me: Oxbow, Low, Whitehouse, Labradford, Burning Witch, Godspeed's U.X.O album. Peter Sotos' Buyer's Market is one of the most insane albums I've ever had the displeasure to listen to, and Albini apparently produced it, although I do…
The Albini-produced Whitehouse albums seem to be underloved because they're a weird transitional period between the group's more famous "wasps fighting" and "broken African robot" sounds, but they're some of the best releases. There's a decadent and sinister competence to them that can't be heard in the earlier buzzier material.
Re: Steve Albini has died
#1831000hz was an amazing work of art . Steve’s work will be missed . I always hated how I would hear “ Steve Albini made Nirvana what it was” . That’s such an insult to all of the other bands he worked on . Nirvana sucks and will always be a crappy band .
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Re: Steve Albini has died
#184Guy was as Chicago as a polish sausage. Contributions to the remembrance thread: Albini on Steely Dan ("the Dan"): https://twitter.com/electricalWSOP/status/162260720209465753... His old cooking blog, where I learned that cutting the casing off a hot italian and smooshing it flat is called a "torpedo" (at least at Paulina Market): https://web.archive.org/web/20180125095923/http://whatimadeh... Later Another: his inte…
“Guy was as Chicago as a polish sausage”
Came here to try to communicate my mess of thoughts on this.
The only two music producers/engineers that I really think about much are Steve, and Iain Burgess-another that left too early. Not appropriate to compare them in any way right now but they are intertwined in Chicago music- at least in my head and memory of the 80s but also in lineage. I spent time in the 80s early 90s loving the music scene in Chicago but feeling it was somehow niche and under appreciated(vs NYC,SF Seattle,etc). Steve’s (and Iains) work/vibe somehow helped me feel that Chicago music didn’t have to answer to anyone.
RIP and thanks Steve
can you hear me now? as we come to the close of our broadcast day this is my farewell transmission signing off mr. and mrs. america all the ships at sea
Re: Steve Albini has died
#185Earlier quoted context omitted.
So much that EMI have been fixing his work for 60 years now, in particular his decision to split the Beatles tracks arbitrarily between the two speakers for all the stereo mixes, despite the Beatles personal involvement in the mixing process for the mono mix downs which sound infinitely better.
That was how everything was mixed in the early days of stereo. Beatles actually got away from it sooner than many. Radio was all AM, which is mono.
Everything wasn’t mixed like that actually. It was a poor decision seen through to its end.
Re: Steve Albini has died
#186https://blockclubchicago.org/2024/05/10/as-world-mourns-stev... ("As World Mourns Steve Albini, His Chicago Neighbors Remember The Kind, Generous Icon Next Door")
Re: Steve Albini has died
#187Hard to overstate Albini's influence, both as a musician and producer. Big Black? No one was doing stuff like that in the mid-80s. His production on PJ Harvey's Rid of Me took her compositions to a new level. He also produced a lot of very fine albums in the 80s and 90s by the Pixies (Surfer Rosa), Nirvana (In Utero) and various albums by The Jesus Lizard, Superchunk, and others. Yes, he was cantankerous. Marched to…
He was a legend as musician, and as producer, despite destroying PJ Harvey's Rid of Me. What a major fuckup! Anyway, the way he talked and explained the music business was always legendary.
Destroyed it? Major fuckup? In what parallel universe?
Re: Steve Albini has died
#188Earlier quoted context omitted.
Search 6+ comments up for somebody with exactly the opposite view of what he did to that track: de gustibus and all that.
Search music producer forums and you will the see the same totally opposing viewpoints as for Napoleon Dynamite. They love it or hate it. Rid of Me is extremely devisive. Excellent record, and extremely influential. Just think of Kathryn Bigelow's Strange Days take on it. But Albini's laissez-faire (non-)production??
>But Albini's laissez-faire (non-)production??
I'd take even more exteme versions of Albini's "non-production" that the overpolished turds served by 99% of bands like RHCP and the like...
Of course indie production isn't for everybody, but there's always The Eagles for the rest... or Coldplay or something
Re: Steve Albini has died
#189Re: Steve Albini has died
#190Earlier quoted context omitted.
Surfer Rosa was probably the most influential album on my musical life. Albini also has an excellent Nardwuar interview: https://youtu.be/1Vjn8u7HP1o
The sound and production quality of that specific record was really my golden mean for what an alternative rock record should sound like. I especially loved the way he would record the drums, with that open, uncompressed sound. If you listen to most records that came out in the 1980's the drums sound really dated and super-compressed.
Ever since your wrote this, the intro to River Euphrates has been looping in my mind.