STEVE ALBINI

jacob collier and gg allin; both suck

your mistake is thinking there are only two extremes

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/24/Vanilla_Ice-To_the_Extreme_%28album_cover%29.JPG

But you could say that Steely Dan represents white dudes who appropriate black music
and Albini represents white dudes who think authenticity means removing all traces of black influence from your music

swear to God one of my fav bands but Twitter is gonna make me hate Steely Dan by the end of the week

If you need your faith restored, read any of Becker's letters to Jann Wenner, Wes Anderson, et al.

Seeing recent headlines about Paul Schrader dissing The Last of Us (and the Sight & Sound Poll)--same Albini Energy there.

"Dominion sucked"

But you could say that Steely Dan represents white dudes who appropriate black music

please explain how they do this any more egregiously than literally any other predominantly white rock band of this era

Yes, please.

you realize that "represents" means they are not the only ones who did this

"ha ha, these people I cannot stop trolling say the 'the dan,'" says the be-fedoraed midwestern neo-puritan, despite the fact that as a dorky cub reporter for the Helena Hog Testicle (or whatever the paper was) he referred to the corporate rock band he loved in a live review as "the Halen."

Keep a movin; Dan
Don't you listen to him, Dan

What are his thoughts on the Lt. Dan Band?

No legs

One of the oddest early Albini raves I'd read was for UB40. Were they weird noise reggae before red red wine?

https://i0.wp.com/www.swanfungus.com/blog/matter1/matter_7.jpg

first UB40 album and adjacent singles is neither weird nor noise but it is excellent in a way they moved away from when the hits got bigger

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKEqGcES4Xw

I was scrolling thru Albini's tweets... they're sure a mix of poker, politics, and declaring popular music to be irredeemable. He won't even let his Reply Guys off the hook, when one of them's like – "Well, Steve, you must admit that it may be a gateway to blah blah..." NOPE

"I was 55 when my wife got me into soul music" Jesus christ! and Bill Withers? does he not know that he's the one black artist that shitty James Taylor/David Crosby, no dancing folkie singer-songwriter people can countenance? Not a good look for Mr. MX-80!

Not sure I'm entirely comfy with yr last point there, at least the way you phrased it

Hey, I thought he never drives 55!

uh

I mean, Bill Withers is great

totally great

Steve seems like

(1) pretty sound on politics, even on calling out people who you might expect him to be tribally loyal to
(2) boringly obsessed by a hobby I have no interest in
(3) conservative and reactionary about any music that isn't exactly his thing, in a way that can come across as pig ignorant, because it is pig ignorant.

These three traits were all very much the standard for most of the American punks I knew about 20 years ago. So I don't know why he's treated as some kind of special case.

xxxpost yeah, that post read creepily adjacent to Withers is 'not Black enough' as an artist to count or something. not that I'm defending Albini's musical tastes but idk maybe take another avenue to crack at them.

i'm down with all pro-Withers sentiment itt.

He makes good money off poker, hardly a hobby! Unless you meant recording albums by ex members of the Jesus Lizard et al.

he's stated in interviews electrical audio would have gone belly up without his poker winnings

neanderthal otm and that idea is as pernicious as anything albini has said

when's that UB40 piece from?

I think it's not "conservative and reactionary about any music that isn't exactly his thing" about music as much as it is the context around how the recording was made. Even in that thread, his dislike of Steely Dan has to do with how it got made, related to his general perspective on how major-label albums get made (see The Problem with Music and also the ethical choice to take a flat fee on In Utero rather than points).

Also, he followed up the tweet by saying he was riffing on Laura Jane Grace's tweet about being the kind of punk who hates football.

CaAL otm

Yeah I'd say "conservative and reactionary about any music that isn't his thing" would seem often spot on e.g. "I detest club culture as deeply as I detest anything on earth."

September 1983 xxxpost

https://swanfungus.com/2008/11/matter-music-magazine-volume-1-number-5-september-1983/

Interesting, that was about the time Labour of Love was released

his reactionary bit about big musical pronouncements is the antithesis of other grouchy old authenticity punk Henry Rollins, who really only seems to talk about music to praise things he likes these days.

^which is in general a good approach if you can manage to pull it off

Yeah, Rollins seems like a useful contrast.

shame about his music but I trust rollins to make an OK jazz playlist at least

He did one in 2010 — part of a series of Blue Note compilations. It's pretty good!

Rollins' Choice

Steely Dan does suck though

― papal hotwife (milo z), Monday, February 6, 2023 2:32 PM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

xps

nice one hank. actually much less basic choices than I expected

can't remember exactly why albini hates jazz other than his general disdain for music that sounds good and brings people joy. he seems to think it's a con of some kind iirc

This is where Albini was a year ago at least, contrite but also mentioning that he feels he hasn't been held to account for his edgelord behavior and writing. But by whom it's not stated.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7iYe-3bRwg

https://i.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/037/310/CjQ-v9oWgAAuoiO.jpeg

xps my opinion is steely dan and albinicore are two of the more unpleasant forms of music out there and why bother with ether

or either

having read the journal or whatever it is above I'd rather this dickhead just went away forever instead of making a performance out of this whole thing

Quite a condescending interview with Gillian Gilbert in there.