STEVE ALBINI

You have the choice of ignoring Steve Albini's social media presence

He does not! Yes I wish he'd stick to techie/industry subjects but he was cranky in his 20s so hardly likely to change now. Better this than some smarmy twat who treats everyone like shit in private, have known people like that and it's not pretty.

I’m sympathetic to hating the sound of ‘80s radio

― papal hotwife (milo z), Sunday, September 3, 2023 12:51 AM (seven hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Same! I've always hated it too and actually glad he's laid out the recipe there for reference. Seemed like the point was originally to comment on the techie aspect.

I treat albini like some guy I know who only listens to 90s German techno (like Tresor and almost nothing else), he is sound and interesting to listen to on almost any subject but you just wish he would learn to stfu about music he doesn't like.

otm

I deeply resent his masculinist alpha nerd persona and the permission he gave to a generation of indie boys to indulge their worst selves - I relish every opportunity to take shots at him now since people were afraid to do so for ages because he and his fans were so toxic

If everything on the radio in the '80s sounded like the Jesus Lizard, he would probably consider it the best sounding decade in the history of music. The dude has changed his mind about a lot of things, but he's really never wavered from his ideal studio sound, and hates most stuff that deviates from it, whether Prince or Steely Dan or whatever. Has he ever had a bad thing to say about '80s Cheap Trick? He'd probably posit them as victims of a predatory industry.

all '80s pop would've been immeasurably improved by slathering it in a bass guitar fret-buzz, relegating all low end to the bass drum, and having someone mumble about serial killers over the top, of course.

Otm

The sound of young American testosterone.

i hate to get hermeneutically suspect, but nothing sounds more insecure than the I AM A MONSTER fronting of
boom
bap
boom
bap
bassline stolen off tracy pew
“He was so quiet, he always kept to himself, we never even heard him raise his voice.”
trebly discordant guitar figure
shouting
*
30years ago i loved that shit - can barely go near it now

i thought about doing a 50 point (and i hate this term) "pigfuck" poll, but most of the options were
"i'm a lumberjack and i'm ok"

One must first determine the boundaries of the pigfuck genre before embarking on such an undertaking.

you just wish he would learn to stfu about music he doesn't like.

I don't think 140 characters or whatever is a good medium for it, but I mostly enjoy Albini's petty hatreds and the subsequent awkward interactions

e.g nardwuar: "Why didn't you like MDC?" / albini: "They were stupid and bad."

mackaye: "You gave Rites of Spring a sort of slag" / albini: "yeah, they were awful" / mackaye: "yeah, uh huh" ... "well that's a nice guy even if he wrote a mean review of Rites of Spring which was one of the greatest bands of all time"

Henry Rollins writing in his diary about wanting to beat him up -- also gold! Did they ever have a roundtable together now that they're both of the getting invited to the same conferences stage of life?

When people employ “that pig won’t fuck” as a rhetorical mic-drop, are you persuaded?

Having just read Bateman’s glowing analysis of post-Gabriel Genesis in American Psycho, I really want to check out their ‘80s material for precisely its ‘80s-ness.

tbf some of albini's most fruitful production projects have not been macho dudes: Low, PJ Harvey, Breeders, Nina Nastasia ...

That may be, but there’s still something about someone who just can’t keep their tired-ass opinions to themselves and continually expresses them in what is basically a hateful way.

*waits for someone to googletrump with my own tired-ass opinions*

To be fair, most of the time someone's pestering Albini for his opinion on this or that (for Nardwuar that was quite literally the case)

The true irony is that a lot of Electrical Audio's gear is from the 80's. Especially studio B

So true, haha. Neotek? If anything he's STUCK in the 80s.

Who doesn't admire the drum sounds he's gotten over the years, Nirvana/Pixies/PJ all rule. I feel like at one point I understood his general (lets call it) anti-80s thing, insofar as, bands shouldn't assigned to some producer they don't know, who vastly alters the way the poor band already sounds (ostensibly what got them signed in the first place), especially if its in service of whatever fancy studio shit came out that month. That's noble and sensible. But at the same time, doesn't Eliminator kind of rule?

Tbf I was pretty disturbed by hearing about Prince assaulting Sinead when she first went public with it. Of course there was no follow up from the press or internet or metoo movement at the time and everyone decided to just talk about how brilliant Prince was for the next 30 years.

yeah but do you expect me to believe that's albini's actual problem with him

plenty of people have talked / are talking about it ime

maybe not so much in the press because they need their social justice heroes to be clean but plenty of prince fans / ex-fans (including me) have been very critical of his abusive and predatory behaviour

however if albini's diary entries are to be believed he should probably reserve more of that outrage for himself

Saying that Prince is bad music “made uglier by his behavior” feels like kind of a “…and such small portions!” thing… like if he really is so disturbed by reports of Prince’s behavior, he almost seems to minimize that aspect of his objection by tagging it on that way.

No one is obligated to like Prince’s music, of course, but it just feels like such a defiantly contrary take (when coming from a writer, performer, and producer of popular music) as to perhaps benefit from further elaboration…

(I guess I mean “contrarian” take)

Really enjoying ILXors doing "physician heal thyself" routines to a guy bemoaning a serial groomer and abuser because he used the no-no word on a Tellus cassette in 1985

what word would that be whiney

do you want to share or are you just bluffing

It is The Worst Word but ... that ... still doesn't make it equivalent to a decades-long pattern of physical and sexual abuse against women unless you're trying to win ad hom points on a message board

I have read albini pre-face turn bragging about his sexual assaults so fuck off

steve has to throw out some controps occasionally like many other people on the internet because I don’t think he enjoys being liked excessively as a person

xpost Well fair enough then

I think the weirdness around albini being distinct from the weirdness around other Problematic Acts People Love is basically just about who it is that identifies with him & how with that identification his/their identity is seen as neutral and sympathetic whereas other identities are not

His aesthetic preferences have always been bullshit but I’m also not expecting him to start gushing about Kylie minogue ilm style, I’m ok that he remains consistent in that regard but people should take it much much less seriously / authoritatively

Did 20 songs, tried not to include any I worked on but made an exception for Nina. pic.twitter.com/kHPQ0BgZ0W

— steve albini (@electricalWSOP) September 4, 2023

Okay, now that is the kind of thing I can get behind.

500 Miles?????!!! LOL!

Appliances SFB was such a great band

What's the 20 songs in response to? Also, did he type it up on an analog typewriter?

It's in response to this prompt that has been making rounds on Twitter for the past few days:

Make a 20-track comp of your all-time fav tracks, each artist can only feature once. Not the 'best' songs, the ones that bring instant joy the second you hear the first note, the ones that give other people the best insight into what stirs your soul. Share when ready. #20tracks

— Nick Worrall 🎸 (@heathensquirrel) August 20, 2023

xp yeah it's an original fender bassman typewriter

Weird that he’s still on Twitter, I assumed he left

I smell Poll Week 2!

re: 500 miles & Buddy Holly, Albini somewhat abashedly repped for them before (probably in the context of a "what songs are you ashamed you like" type thread), but I didn't realize he was baring his soul there.

Ashamed of Buddy Holly? What a prat.

Seconded

lol at original fender bassman

It's weird doing a list. Like there's no Specials on there but I fucking love the Specials. How did I make a list of 20 songs and not put "Monkey Man" on there? There's no instrumental music, no Sandy Nelson, no Shadowy Men, no Link Wray, all of which bring a smile to my face.

— steve albini (@electricalWSOP) September 4, 2023