STEVE ALBINI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HW4mwjSIkoE&feature=share

Steve Albini drives a PT cruiser

i'm going to pretend you didnt say that

http://www.electricalaudio.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?p=815166#p815166

;_;

pt cruiser is very much in character

the only bad thing about driving a PT cruiser is when you pass another PT cruiser and the driver looks at you with a knowing smile

hope the pt cruiser has truck nutz

just plz tell me it's not a convertible

Know why he must like it? Quality engineering.

i wanted him to drive a beatup GMC A-Team van

you guys I'm really bummed out by this

then again I heard a while ago that Maynard gets around LA in a smartcar which made me lol so, idk...maybe I can get over this

Problem with Music sequel, of sorts:

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/nov/17/steve-albinis-keynote-address-at-face-the-music-in-full

Imagine a great hall of fetishes where whatever you felt like fucking or being fucked by, however often your tastes might change, no matter what hardware or harnesses were required, you could open the gates and have at it on a comfy mattress at any time of day. That’s what the internet has become for music fans. Plus bleacher seats for a cheering section.

"for music fans"

Once we release music it’s out of our control. I use the verb “release” because it’s common vernacular. But I think it’s a perfect description. Even more apt if you consider what happens when you release other things, say a bird or a fart. When you release them they’re in the world and the world will react and use them as it sees fit. The fart may wrinkle noses until it dissipates. The bird may fly outside and crap on windshields; it may get shot down by a farmer. It’s been released, so you have no control over it. You can’t recall the fart, however much you would like to. You can’t protect the bird.

Music has entered the environment as an atmospheric element, like the wind, and in that capacity should not be subject to control and compensation. Well, not unless the rights holders are willing to let me turn the tables on it. If you think my listening is worth something, OK then, so do I. Play a Phil Collins song while I’m grocery shopping? Pay me $20. Def Leppard? Make it $100. Miley Cyrus? They don’t print money big enough.

piece is written like a true libertarian

I mean he's not wrong but there's some serious social darwinism implications to his stance (ie if bands can't make a living at their music it's their tough shit for not being good enough, and the old system that protected them was wrong to do so)

remember back when Albini would take potshots at like, Fugazi. now he's just making Miley jokes like everyone else.

Albini thinks the old system didn't protect the vast majority of bands at all. That's basically the whole thesis of the first "Problem With Music" and he reiterates it in the new one.

I think his point is that it's a wash. Yes, people make less money from selling records, but the flipside is that distro is virtually nothing, recording costs are a fraction of what they once were, and (at least established) bands potentially make more money playing live than they used to.

ie if bands can't make a living at their music it's their tough shit for not being good enough

this is true tho. how many bands do we really need? only a couple are really entitled livings imo, the other 100000000 bands the world is currently blessed with? extraneous to literally everyone... no?

if bands can't make a living at their music it's their tough shit for not being good enough

I would bet an amusingly large sum of money on this not being an accurate reading of his views

to answer the OP, albini is currently waiting for a train

what's interesting about his argument (well one thing interesting about it) is that the atomization of culture doesn't bother him. He thinks it's great to have a million different micro-scenes sustaining themselves but essentially isolated from each other. Which okay yeah it has its virtues. But it makes every scene feel so *small* and insignificant.

xp

only a couple are really entitled livings imo, the other 100000000 bands the world is currently blessed with? extraneous to literally everyone... no?

exactly. the market works!

I see an awful lot of packed shows these days. These micro-scenes get out the vote.

Is his point that it's a wash? The thesis seemed stronger than that, on my first reading. I read Albini as saying that things are better now, given how critical he was in the past:

I’ll start by saying that I’m both satisfied and optimistic about the state of the music scene. And I welcome the social and technological changes that have influenced it.

Although they are largely anecdotal, the picture he paints of the pre-Internet industry seems more or less right. The radically increased accessibility of recording technology is definitely great for musicians, although this seems related only tangentially to the changes in the distribution system of the finished products. And the increased accessibility of music is obviously good for listeners, at least in the short term. However, on first reading, I do not see that he really makes a strong case for how 'the new model' allows musicians to make a living from their music, aside from charging higher prices for live performance: it seems to depend too strongly on the voluntary goodness of audiences and on sales of "ephemera and merchandise" (in which case musicians are really making living from things that are incidental to the music).

he seems much more positive to me

he does not actually address what musicians who have seen their incomes collapse are supposed to do, or whose fault that is

I think that's what he's saying "optimistic" - that he doesn't see the effect of these changes on the "industry" as cause for concern, as he thought the industry was pretty shit

definitely libertariany and I'm bummed he devolves into pop-baiting at the end just in case anyone forgot he could, but he does give a little more historical context beyond "my hit in the 90s used to make me this much, now i get this much"

also, from albini's perspective, most musicians who've seen their incomes collapse were already "fucked" in his pov twenty years ago

Also, first four Def Leppard albums obv = classic

xpost

he's saying what I always wished more indie lifers would say -- music becoming much much cheaper to record, cheaper to distribute, cheaper to hear is a net win for everybody, and it hurts people at the top far more than it hurts people who just wanna make whatever they want and/or hear whatever they want and aren't too considered with becoming rich rock stars.

I do wish he'd made clearer that he must think Spotify is a sick joke. It's going to be too easy for people to ignore the bit about "hybrid approaches" and pretend he's signing off on every type of "brave new world" we're being offered

it hurts people that used to be at the top of the music industry. It is absolutely awesome for people at the top of the tech industry. old boss same as the new boss etc.

xp

it's funny how he can get so het up about the intense machinations of the gargantuan dinosaur music industry and then give not a single sentence of consideration to the tech industry, which has basically just replaced the tech industry and still funnels money upwards, away from musicians.

lol replaced the OLD MUSIC INDUSTRY that should say

OTM

I mean who does he think really makes money off of youtube etc

miley

I mean I'm sure radio appeared ABSOLUTELY INSANELY AWESOME to the first musicians that got played on it, and they were more than happy to do whatever just to be on it, sign away rights, not pay any attention to where money was going etc. until oh wait it's four decades later look how that whole industry turned out oh what do you mean someone else owns all my publishing and has been collecting my royalty checks...?

I really like how he pointed out internet making international distribution so easy to do now, it'll be interesting to watch music culture be less and less America-centric in the future.

he's definitely in that realm of indie iconoclasts who focus their bile on peers but get a little vague when it comes to the world outside. quick to point out how someone is failing to be as cool as music dude as him, strong feelings about the ethical treatment of room sound. less confident when it comes to evils he doesn't see first-hand.

i mean when the dude from cracker is going on about how the majors found a new way to steal his "low" money, steve's going to be a little more interested in saying "told you so, shoulda stuck with pitch-a-tent" than "yes, start-ups are evil"

that sounds about right

outic otm. it's just a new industry sorting itself out, capital catching up to a pretty radical technological break that has made a temporary space for culture that will lose/is losing the battle again.

it's definitely his own fault he's getting sum-ups like this

Stereogum ‏@stereogum 59m59 minutes ago
Steve Albini still loves online streaming, hates Miley Cyrus http://bit.ly/1uFPe2c

hope somebody makes an image for a spotify debate article with Taylor Swift and Bob Seger on the anti-side and dave grohl and steve on the pro

I'd actually love to see a breakdown of what a band makes now vs. 15-25-35 years ago (be most interesting by some sort of median success metric so the platinum artists of their era vs. whatever exactly approximates that these days on down to the bar bands). Obviously return on recorded media is going to be lower, but cost/distribution of same also less and I do wonder if touring is more lucrative now.