Very sad news. I've been blasting "Rid of Me" the past few weeks, one of these records that just makes me want to crank up the volume.
Steve Albini has died
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Re: Steve Albini has died
#42One of the most fascinating men that worked in music production/recording. If you aren't familiar with him and his various idiosyncrasies, I highly recommend giving this a watch/listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKEzHie9tAI&ab_channel=SAEAu... In my personal list of top 10 albums of all time, Albini recorded six of them. I say "recorded" instead of "produced" because this is more akin to his style: set up micro…
He famously would hit record and then just play games on his phone until the track was done and ask if they wanted to go again. Of course he did this because he felt after getting things setup and sounding as desired (which he put a lot of work and thought into) it was the artists that were responsible for their art. He would offer his thoughts if asked though.
Re: Steve Albini has died
#43We all agree that Jawbreaker's "24 Hour Revenge Therapy" was his best production work, right?
Re: Steve Albini has died
#44I became aware of Steve Albini via the PJ Harvey album Rid Of Me - for me this is the most impressive result of his visceral sound, that elevated the emotional rawness of the music perfectly. Currently revisiting another fave he engineered: Seamonsters by The Wedding Present.
Try Nina Nastasia's 2001 album Dogs.
You can feel yourself inside that big ol' room at Electric Audio in Chicago.
Re: Steve Albini has died
#45"I would like to be paid like a plumber: I do the job and you pay me what it's worth. The record company will expect me to ask for a point or a point and a half. If we assume three million sales, that works out to 400,000 dollars or so. There's no fucking way I would ever take that much money. I wouldn't be able to sleep." [0] https://news.lettersofnote.com/p/nirvana
It's fascinating how in certain genres producers have elevated themselves, rightly in my opinion, to positions that are almost equal to the artists they're recording. In pop and hip-hop, people really care about who produced what, often because the producer has an enormous role in the overall sound of the music. Those producers would probably disagree with Albini right away. It's less a thing when you're dealing with a band or people who play an instrument, but I can also think of some metal producers who have very distinct sounds and who usually leave an "imprint" on the recording (Colin Marston and Kurt Ballou for examples). Albini, though, seemed to really believe that his role was to just be a kind of neutral technician, manning the switches and ensuring the band and their music gets on the record through a series of indifferent tubes with no other input.
Outside of his position on royalties, he was one of the best and harshest critics of the music industry:
Re: Steve Albini has died
#46Sucks to hear.
It's worth noting that he didn't consider himself a producer. He always said he was a recording engineer.
Re: Steve Albini has died
#47That's way too fucking young.
Re: Steve Albini has died
#48Oh man, something I didn't expect at all. They seemed to be doing well with the new Shellac album and all. He is hugely influential and his engineering is uniquely Albini, which is uniquely the bands themselves in their rawest form. I am really happy to have seen Shellac live in 2009.
If somebody is looking for deep cuts - there is a recording of Fugazi's In on the Kill Taker by Albini (though it didn't make it to disc): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXN_EmhkQSM
Re: Steve Albini has died
#49His recounting of the recording of “In Utero” on Conan O’Brien’s podcast (along with Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic) is a fantastic hour of storytelling and rock history. Can’t recommend it enough. https://www.earwolf.com/episode/dave-grohl-krist-novoselic-a...
Also this being his last social media post is peak Albini: https://bsky.app/profile/electricalwsop.bsky.social/post/3kr...
Never used bsky much since I couldn't find anyone interesting. Had I known about him, I might have used it more... rip.
Re: Steve Albini has died
#50"I would like to be paid like a plumber: I do the job and you pay me what it's worth. The record company will expect me to ask for a point or a point and a half. If we assume three million sales, that works out to 400,000 dollars or so. There's no fucking way I would ever take that much money. I wouldn't be able to sleep." [0] https://news.lettersofnote.com/p/nirvana
I'm trying to reconcile that 'plumber' against George Martin with the Beatles. He was paid like a plumber for the first couple years, and... EMI treated him with such disdain that he ended up leaving. I'm sure the money was much better after he left, but... had EMI just been slightly nicer to him, they'd have owned him for many more years.
That said, I think his relationship with his bands opened up areas for him to contribute to the core product more than Albini perhaps did (Martin played piano on some tracks, scored out any classical parts for other musicians, etc).
Martin may have been the middle ground between the 'producer-as-top-billing' and 'paid like a plumber' spectrum Albini seems to identify.