STEVE ALBINI

You know, Steve Albini is Steve Albini.

still one of my favorite replies pic.twitter.com/21eV0Q8a03

— Good Steely Dan Takes (@baddantakes) February 6, 2023

Which seems glib to say, but at a certain point I just accepted that he’s a prickly dude who’s annoying in certain ways but has mellowed out in others. (Seek out some of his zine writing from the 80s! It ain’t pretty, he’d probably disavow that now.) He kinda is who he is and I decided to just accept that and love Shellac with a full heart, because it makes life happier.

For an example closer to home - and rest his soul, not to rankle anyone - Morbs’ posts used to drive be absolutely nuts. His proclamations, his responses; to me, a conflict-averse guy, he was a desert cactus. But at some point I just embraced that Morbs was Morbs.

I want to know when and why albini went to christiania, it seems like the total opposite of his vibe, I just picture him scowling at all the crusties and dealers the entire time

ha, I kind of agree with the stance on record labels, they are after all on the other side of the deals with streaming services that cheat artists out of money, and they are the ones that are supposed to be representing the artists!

more power to anyone who can extract joy from his music it must take some serious alchemy

1. a few years ago, he tweeted some shit wherein Spotify and/or some of the other streamers were being criticized, and he made a point to say that the major labels still sucked worse… my recollection was that major labels had no specific bearing on this topic, but in his mind, even the unprecedented usurious of Spotify and Big tech were no patch on major labels, as if it was still 1987…

This seems accurate? Part of the context where I’ve seen him make this argument was about Eve 6’s royalties, like they get nothing from streaming because of unrecouped advances from 1996. Label deals are still pretty bad for most artists AFAICT.

Layer that with the sweetheart deals majors made with Spotify to get chunks of cash that completely bypassed artists, hurting their own artists and every indie.

Yeah, I mean, Spotify might not pay much, if anything, but no one is in debt to Spotify, and Spotify does not own the rights to anyone's music.

It’s good to pay attention to Albini when he records cool stuff and makes cool albums and wins at poker; it’s really bad to pay attention to him when he’s criticising music he doesn’t like, because he’s awful at it, has always been awful at it, and it makes him look stupid.

the fact that he was a major talking head in the wax trax doc is so interesting to me. im really curious of the politics of that haha. what would jim nash say ?

cretins like Eddie Trunk

...who last night, the very same night BONNIE FUCKING RAITT won one of grammy's biggest awards and STEVIE FUCKING WONDER rocked the fuck out of "higher ground," tweeted that he fast forwarded thru the entire show because he didn't see any "rock" or "guitars." fuck every one of those cretins indeed.

(ok, back to your regularly scheduled discussion.)

2. Is there such thing as a baseball fan who showers gleeful contempt on football or other sports, as if they are illegitimate (notwithstanding the injuries that render football often perilous for players)?

the late dr. morbius

xpost
the Grammys just need to give the band UFO a lifetime achievement award and he might shut up

I want to know when and why albini went to christiania, it seems like the total opposite of his vibe, I just picture him scowling at all the crusties and dealers the entire time

most european bookers sort of reflexively book bands at christiania because they've been putting on shows forever and you can pull a good crowd at the main club there. it's probably a lot less shocking now as a place post-legalization in the u.s. (and post their heavy crackdown on harder drugs, though I assume that waxes & wanes) but prior to the present age it was pretty shocking to pull in & like everybody is white guys with dreads smoking giant bombers in the open. anyhow the main venue there was hosted pretty much every non-mainstream genre you can think of, tour routings for indie bands are kind of like trade routes and it's a stop.

jenny lewis opinions? not a high bar i guess

You are wrong to expect this.

How is veronica moser wrong to expect “minor curiosity and interest in genres they are not daily immersed in”? Isn’t that just basic intellectual curiosity? For that matter, how does your example of trawling through Cecil Taylor’s entire oeuvre constitute “minor curiosity”? For me personally, I never had much use for much of what is considered metal (Black Sabbath’s first four records excepted), but realized the other day that I hadn’t knowingly heard an Iron Maiden song. So I checked out a few, more-or-less dug them, and will probably leave it at that. I had some minor curiosity about them, and didn’t need to listen to their entire catalog to satisfy it. I think we’ve all done that to varying degrees, and I doubt we’d be on this board if we hadn’t.

I recall unperson wrote a piece rating Britney Spears album covers(?)... surely even that qualifies!

ftr the youths have a more developed sense of Minor Curiosity than my generation did -- thanks to modes of distribution.

yeah, this. in a lot of ways the u.s. was getting more reactionary and hostile, the music business was becoming more neoliberal, and punk rushed in to fill a void for a generation, it was a meaningful identity and then a means of living and was guarded with almost a religious zeal. like everything in america it was shaped by white supremacy. i think albini's set of tics reflect all of that, and also that maybe he's savvy enough to perform for his aging audience, it's probably good for business.

map otm

Punk rock dudes recording sessions of themselves
They don't give a fuck about anybody else

Yet the refrain would still be LOST WAGES

the thing about his Dan/Boz Scaggs/etc hate is it's just reflexive punk stuff, it's not really more complicated than that. Fuck that music the yuppies like, that kinda thing. It's pretty immune to self-interrogation is you let it bake in too long.

^^^ otm

Learn to work the Travis Bean
Play just what I feel

Yeah, as demonstrated, I doubt Albini, smart guy that knows about music, could clearly put into words his hate for Steely Dan without describing something that is not Steely Dan. He hates the *idea* of Steely Dan. It's just punk reactionary goofing.

I think you can predict Albini liking or not liking an artist's music on purely ideological grounds. Stevie Wonder fought a valiant struggle to wrestle back rights to his catalog from Motown, thus Albini likes Stevie Wonder. Rush were a bunch of quasi-Ayn Rand-heads so he hates Rush. He flip-flopped on hating Trans Am when they decided not to let their music be used in a commercial. I think he posted something like, "Hey guys, I like Trans Am now!"

Did Steely Dan ever stump for Reagan or anything like that?

Weird that this prick hasn’t been cancelled yet

99 new answers

Sixty-Year-Old Man Demonstrates Shitposting Prowess

i mean there are any number of things you can bash this guy for but please stop taking his tossed-off steely dan takes so deeply seriously

is the word 'cancel' ironic or not?

do you have special glasses that make 97% of the thread invisible when you post

They're two entities who take recorded sound very seriously, but have entirely opposite philosophies around it; why should this antipathy shock anyone?

Feel like the whitest music imaginable is the poll that would end ILM and we have to do it.

― Unfairport Convention (PBKR),

why bother? everyone knows it's Pavement.

great posts, map.

i find the idea you can 'cancel' someone to be abhorrent moralistic stone-throwing - sure, if they've done something terrible you can withdraw your custom or attention, but in more ambiguous cases it feels like it isn't even accurate to say everyone (the moralistic 'we') has en masse decided to do so - usually many don't - and i do not wish albini 'cancelled' especially as i rather enjoy a lot of his work, BUT it is clear that his recent spree of atonement and personal growth etc etc has been with rather more in mind than just the edgy art of the 80s. witness the edgy tour diaries of the 80s - yeah he was a silly young man, but if the july 18 entry here doesn't chill your blood then idk: https://web.archive.org/web/20000818044126/http://petdance.com/actionpark/bigblack/tourdiary/ (CW: bad stuff)

now my intention posting that here is not to invite castigation on someone who's clearly not the same person as he was 35 years ago (not to mention living in a world that is not the same as it was 35 years ago), but to add colour to his notion of the redemptive journey. these are the pits from which he rose. they're ugly. he'd definitely agree they're ugly. you may not agree that he has atoned for such things - what are basically self-admitted crimes, even - but let's be clear: if you want to 'cancel' albini, the distance between what he was and what he is must be taken into account. the reason why everyone turned en masse on cornelius wasn't so much what he'd done as a kid way back in the 1980s but the lack of remorse, even the glee in recounting it, and the lack of an apology. it feels to me that albini is legitimately sorry and self-reproachful about his behaviour during those days

that said, having read that a few months ago, i have felt like i'll find it hard to listen to anything he made before shellac, knowing these were some of the thoughts and impulses coursing through his brain in those days - i don't think you can cancel art on any grounds other than aesthetic, but big black is all about the aesthetic of the edgy young man and i personally don't need that in such a concentrated form. shellac onwards, and (some of) his engineering jobs, though? forever.

ofc if you read the above link and are sufficiently repulsed to cast albini out for good, that's your decision. he makes a good case study in forgivability imo, in that his crimes are neither too concrete to be absolutely condemnatory nor trifling enough that castigating him for them looks petty

And it goes both ways — I don't expect some 17-year-old Harry Styles fan to go trawling through Incantation's catalog, or Cecil Taylor's, to find something they like! Why should they?

― but also fuck you (unperson), Monday, 6 February 2023 bookmarkflaglink

Because a 17 year old is often in discovery mode and absorbing all sorts of random things so they absolutely should be listening to some free jazz.

It's a shame that age is used as an excuse not to engage, so it goes the other way too.

"i think albini's set of tics reflect all of that, and also that maybe he's savvy enough to perform for his aging audience, it's probably good for business."

Performing for an audience and giving them what they want sure is punk tradition. Savvy.

You don't need to go back to his youth to find some reprehensible shit said by Albini - see: meeting Tyler the Creator/Odd Future less than a decade ago. If people want to take him to task for that, right on. The reaction to a tossed off tweet about not liking Steely Dan has been silly, though.

His tweets on music does make it look like the contrition over past deeds as a bit of an act. Still has that edgelord in him.

And when people say sorry and mean it they also quieten down quite a bit. Highly suspect behaviour.

some steely dan fans are pissed around here it seems

some steely dan fans are pissed around here it seems

― CerebralCaustic, Tuesday, 7 February 2023 9:38 PM (one hour ago)

Literally came back to this board just to see this happening.
Steely Dan fucking sux, this board has a hard-on for them (except 40% of it according to this old poll).

Nick Cave: I just think artists should freely express themselves without a filter, even if there are consequences, and even if it’s a little messy sometimes

ilx: die in a fire you old bastard

Steve Albini: I have no respect for jazz, techno, rap, or most of the other musical art forms coincidentally created by black people. My hobbies are playing poker and starting arguments with people on twitter, where my persona is that of a grouchy, obstinate misanthrope. Please enjoy my band, “Rapeman”

ilx: what a mensch!

omg

Tbf Cave is 4-5 years older than Albini

"Literally came back to this board just to see this happening."

The board is a dictatorship not a democracy. The ilx police will be at your door soon.

(except 40% of it according to this old poll).

29/100 = 29% iirc

Dated a girl in the mid-80s who got free tickets from work to see the Red Hot Chili Peppers at the Vic. We came for opener Trouble Funk, who absolutely slayed. Started before house lights went down, bounced non-stop for an hour. We bolted two bars into the yabba dabba doo. https://t.co/9qARZIPRIp

— steve albini (@electricalWSOP) September 27, 2021

Ugh

In the UK the ageing soulboy white rock critic's African-American band of choice circa 1985 (or so I've been led to believe)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtV_nQKhkdY

tbf Trouble Funk ruled and always ruled.

I will now always think of RHCP as “the yabba dabba doo,” thanks based Albini