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RIP Steve Albini

Petridis fails to mention Albini's best production (imo) Pod by The Breeders.

Also worth mentioning (if only to show the range of his work) is Thank Your Lucky Stars by Whitehouse (released the same year - 1990)
 
I did not know he produced Journal for Plague Lovers. Hat fucked.

Listened to the Wedding Present's Seamonsters and Slint's Spiderland (which he didn't produce, but loved) in his honour last night. I was going to see Shellac next month as well, and I assume they would have played Primavera since they're there every year.
 
I hadn't even noticed (or had completely forgotten) that he engineered the second Jarvis solo album. As well was his stuff with black midi. Not to mention the legendary Beavis and Butt-head Experience album
 
Fucking hell, no real Agee these days and still producing and making great music. Christ this has been a shit week.
 
Voley said:
I've always thought the mighty drum sound at the beginning of this is equal parts Steve Albini / David Lovering.



If that was all he'd contributed to music, it'd be enough.

Really genuinely shocked by this.
Click to expand...


Albini would never take credit for the drum sound or anything else. He always maintained that the musicians create the sound and he's just there to record it.

I think it's fair to say he new how to mic up a kit though. Particularly cymbals, which often get a bit lost in a mix.

Here's another great Albini-assisted drum sound:
 
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Orang Utan said:
oh dear, not quite as redeemed a character as we may have thought:
medium.com

Now That Steve Albini is Dead, Letâs Reflect on His Admitted Love (and Promotion) of Childâ¦

If you are reading this, then you probably have heard that the esteemed rock musician and producer Steve Albiniâââwho produced bands likeâ¦
medium.com medium.com
There are some things you can’t row back on. Ugh.
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yeah - just saw that on fb. the stuff he comes out with is really, really vile. sickening stuff.
 
I recall that from years ago, tho I had pushed it out of my mind. I have always taken it as part of his ‘fuck you and your bourgeoise sensibilities’. Not that much different to punks wearing swastikas to annoy their parents, or calling your band Rapeman.

I have yet to see anyone complaining about how he was really abusive to them, physically or really personally (saying Steely Dan are a bunch of cunts doesn’t count).
 
:weed:

Didn't realise he'd produced so many albums I like! Having said that, slightly less heated than the child porn stuff, I don't like the production on 'Rid of Me' - think the first PJ Harvey album has a better feel to it.
 
belboid said:
I recall that from years ago, tho I had pushed it out of my mind. I have always taken it as part of his ‘fuck you and your bourgeoise sensibilities’. Not that much different to punks wearing swastikas to annoy their parents, or calling your band Rapeman.

I have yet to see anyone complaining about how he was really abusive to them, physically or really personally (saying Steely Dan are a bunch of cunts doesn’t count).
Click to expand...

I would say that having anything at all to do with child abuse images amounts to, at best, complicity in that abuse. Whatever motivations he may have had or claimed to have had doesn't change the consequences.

It's a weird one, he gets such glowing reports from everyone he worked with but then there's this absolutely vicious side to him that goes way beyond controversy for its own sake. I never liked his own music because it gave me the sense that he was making something unpleasant on purpose. Something like Metallica, that's bad music made by people who don't know how to make good music. Albini could have made whatever he wanted, and he chose to make something horrid. But then he helped so many others make beautiful music, and music that uses ugliness and harshness to achieve something beyond look how harsh and ugly I can be. But Shellac sounds to me like an uncommonly clever teenage boy screaming 'fuck you' at everyone and everything.
 
I don't think there's any way to defend the kind of child porn he was promoting. It was porn with toddlers being tortured and murdered and he said he got off on it. And he did it repeatedly and never changed his stance, still supporting his child pornographer friend. Yeah, he was never accused of abusing a child himself, but he made it clear that he thought it was fine if people did that so that he could get off on looking at pics of it.

There's no excuse and it's not "fuck you and your bourgeois sensibilities."
 
I actually liked Shellac but they are an acquired taste. Plus the last time I saw them was during the general election and my memory of the gig is tainted by stupidly checking Facebook towards the end and discovering Johnson had won.

His abrasive production style worked with Rid of Me and the whole concept PJ Harvey was going for at the time - it wouldn't have worked with Is This Desire?
 
scifisam said:
I don't think there's any way to defend the kind of child porn he was promoting. It was porn with toddlers being tortured and murdered and he said he got off on it. And he did it repeatedly and never changed his stance, still supporting his child pornographer friend. Yeah, he was never accused of abusing a child himself, but he made it clear that he thought it was fine if people did that so that he could get off on looking at pics of it.

There's no excuse and it's not "fuck you and your bourgeois sensibilities."
Click to expand...
I agree. No matter how much you may like the guy’s work, there’s absolutely no justification for that behaviour, not even if you frame it as ‘epater les bourgeoisie’. That argument is just desperate clutching at straws to defend monstrous behaviour. I found that article so difficult to read. I’d been planning on listening to a load of Big Black and Jesus Lizard records last night but reading that was enough for me change my mind and delete the playlists.
 
I feel let down by obituarists in supposedly trustworthy sources like the Guardian. You’re not supposed to have to do one’s own research on whether a celebrated music engineer was an overt enthusiast for images of children being abused.
 
Loved 'Rid of Me'.

Didn't know about the child porn stuff.

Seen tweets about how he hated anyone not jabbed-up

Sounds like a right cunt.

Meh!
 
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