Word: albini
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...Steve Albini has had a significant influence on rock music. He was in a band that influenced a lot of other bands. He produced lots of those bands. If you live in America, you've heard one of these bands. But Albini is a polarizing figure; not all agree that his influence is salutary. Most of this irritation stems from two things: his stringent demands for integrity in music and his own apparent violations of the edicts he lays down. Also, he's probably the most arrogant guy on the planet...
...Stevey started out writing arrogant articles for Chicago zines. (He was also in a New Wave band, but he'd probably prefer that you didn't know that.) As a zine writer, Albini demanded "independence, self-determination, absolute total honesty and common sense" from bands and was always ready to write some off as sellouts. In 1982, he formed Big Black. Big Black is a band you've probably never heard of. Steve likes it this way. After a couple years of touring and a couple albums, Big Black broke up because too maybe people liked them. Meaning about...
...only one album; it was named Two Nuns and a Pack Mule. The best song builds slowly from a single guitar and frequent silences; then it adds a bass line, then some white noise and then Steve's voice. The song is hypnotic, even lovely, but in typical Albini fashion, this song is called "Kim Gordon's Panties" and features classy lyrics like "If I had that to come home to, I'd never leave my bed." Steve's that kind...
...prostitutinghimself, but rather extorting major labels withoutgiving a damn about the quality of the music hehappens to be recording--is relatively reasonable,but he's still intuitively branded a sell-out bymany. His position is somewhat undercut by hisdistinctive "engineering" style, which is perhapsthe most influential Albini legacy. Steve tries tomake it sound like the band is performing live inyour speakers, and he's quite good at this. Heusually mixes guitars and drums high and vocalslow. Music critics usually dub the sound "raw,"but this is a simplification...
...PUBLIC DISCLOSURE: My Personal Beef with Mr.Steve Albini: Steve called Surfer Rosa, thefirst album by the Pixies and an album notincidentally produced by Steve-o himself, "apatchwork pinch loaf from a band who at their topdollar best are blandly entertaining collegerock." This really angers up the blood. SurferRosa is one of the best rock albums ever. ThePixies are one of the best rock bands ever. On theother hand, Steve recorded a song called "nuttyabout lemurs." This counts for a lot, in my book...