The evolution of Steve Albini
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
I think most people understand this instinctively, but some are just taught to behave differently and some doubting Thomases need to see to believe. They need to see that these people in the out groups are just trying to live their lives in ways that are not meaningfully different from their own. If more people would listen, we would recognize this.
I don't think this is necessarily a good rule of thumb in general. Lots of topics have 3 levels of understanding, where the dumbest level and the smartest level have the same answer but for different reasons, and there is an incorrect middle level that is tempting if you know just enough to be dangerous.
Take flat earth for example. It's not the very dumbest people who think the earth is flat. The dumbest people just repeat what they learnt at school! The dumbest people are not remotely open to adopting new and strange ideas. The people who fall for flat earth are those who are smart enough to entertain an unusual perspective, but not smart enough to refute it.
35 years!
In the meantime we were treated to a huge pile of pseudo intellectual babble he used to defend his position.
It's hard to explain Albini without the context of the 80s. You can watch Stranger Things all you want, if you weren't someone who grew up in the 80s political-cultural-social-economic environment the statements and actions of guys like Albini(and much of the punk and even thrash movements) are going to seem bewildering and/or purely offensive.
That said, somewhat obsessed with answering that lol
and then the article is wrong about the lyrics of course. The lyrics are not about the joys of arson; there is no joy in the song. The song is about being stuck in a small town life with no possibility of escape, and getting so bored that self-immolation like South Vietnamese monks starts looking like your best option.
It's the internal sounds of a mind damaged beyond recognition by the rust belt. And I agree, it's some of the most beautiful music ever made.
There was a lot of artistry in early Lou Reed too. I still think it's lame that the velvet underground not only were bad musicians but that they took pride in sounding unpracticed. That whole ethos pervaded the punk scene from the very beginning and I think a lot of Albini's choices about his vulgarity and whatnot have a lot to do with wanting to be like those dudes even though he did practice.
And I don't really make a huge distinction between them. The first Velvets album doesn't feel like anything about it was diminished by the musicianship. (I wish I could play that badly!)
Also let's not forget John Cale was classical trained, and was probably the biggest proponent of "noise" in the band.
I don't think I was intending to say that - or if I did it was meant to be echoing back what you were implying except with big scare quotes around it.
Nico was quite charming on the first Velvets album and her Desert Shore is close to a masterpiece.
Not really.
The "punk ethos" is DIY
It is not that punks take pride in being "unpractised" it is that they are doing it themselves, for themselves, their way
Not always. Many punk bands are extremely accomplished.
> The scene effectively made "non-corporate" and "untalented" synonyms
Nonsense! "Corporate" and "bad", are synonyms. Talent has little to do with it.
Nobody gets to hear the enthusiastic, but bad, opera singers. Too much capital involved in putting on an opera. Every body in earshot hears the enthusiastic, but bad, punk rockers because DIY.
There is a certain irony.
Many punk bands played quite well despite this attitude.
I can't think of a really bad band either.
https://www.udiscovermusic.com/stories/sex-pistols-music-fea...
John Lydon was recently advertising butter on UK TV. I'm not sure you can call that "sticking to [the punk] attitude".
Both are great artists and Jello's Label was really important.
Albini went from being a privileged edgelord to an admirable grownup through listening to others and self-introspection and understanding. He was never afraid to voice his ignorant and tone-deaf opinions, which we all have. But he would have never changed if he had kept them to himself or if he was not capable of self-reflection.
We are all deeply flawed in our relationship with others; ultimately, the best we can hope for is some redemption of our sins towards others when we mature.
He's one of my profoundly flawed role models.
I think he views those mistakes as mistakes, not as valuable lessons; one of the things that makes his mea culpa authentic is that he doesn't valorize them at all; in fact, he openly mocks the idea that those mistakes could be valorized.
I agree; a lot of that was puerile garbage. What I recognize from those outbursts is the almost-manic raw juvenile need to be a contrarian and stir shit up. I empathize because I felt it when I was young.
Complicated guy. I was hoping he'd also renounced his hatred of jazz when I opened the article, but no such luck it seems.
There’s enough melody amongst the noise to keep it interesting, and the youthful finger-pointing aggression and characterization makes it unique.
One of my favourite bands (The Crooked Fiddle Band - check them out) have a very dense acoustic heavy sound in that they're a traditionally instrumented folk band with other instruments. When I learned Albini was engineering one of their albums (he did two), I couldn't think of a better match.
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(But, from your other comment on this thread, that might not make a difference to you! I'll note that this an artistic judgement though, not a moral one, and you seem to value his artistic output.)
True in both cases, I haven't listened to either of those in decades, while Atomizer remains essential listening.
> Now whenever any public figure is made to answer for their former bad self, they go on an apology tour where they say all the right things about being a work in progress, and learning and listening, and so on. Rarely do they break down the actual specifics of what they said, why it was wrong and why they regret it.
> “The one thing I don’t want to do is say: ‘The culture shifted – excuse my behaviour.’ It provides a context for why I was wrong at the time, but I was wrong at the time.”
When boomers became reagan voting nimbys you'd think the gen x would become grubby self important dicks themselves but every gen x Ive run into in real life is ironic and self effacing as they were when I was a babe but are now 50
Also, a higher percentage of Gen X voted for Reagan than did the boomers in 1984 (Gen X wasn't old enough to vote in 1980).
Steve was highly opinionated, quirky, even then, but rarely a dick (to anyone who didn't deserve it). I think he was just Steve Albini. Understandably, I think - the forums weren't moderated in the way hacker news is, it was a bit more like a wild west subreddit.
I don't think we'll be seeing this sort of turnaround from Jim Goad.
Everybody admits that he downproduced her to shit. Still, he has some golden moments, like a water painter over an oil painter. It's a hit or a miss.
I'm not so sure about the article though. There is a simpler explanation: Albini will act in the way that pisses off religious right wingers the most. When that meant being rude and vulgar, he did so in the most over the top ways. When it means self flagellation for being a white male and "making space" for others, he will do that. You can be sure that however culture evolves in the next 20 years, he'll be doing whatever enrages Fox News the most.
Steve is a guy who actually hates music and artists. He's mostly about his politics, but his politics are simplistic to the point of stupidity. His "punk" principles have become mainstream and now he openly serves power. He is still the same guy who's never wrong even when he's saying "I was wrong" because now he's on the right side of history (which is just the right side of power). The idea that he has the "knowledge of self that billionaires pay to discover on ayahuasca retreats" is hilarious. The funny thing about this redemption-of-Steve piece is it focuses on all the wrong reasons for what makes him off-putting. His abrasiveness was his vulgar affect, fine. But the problem with Albini is that he was always a tedious, scold who never said a thing that wasn't entirely predictable, who happened to be a capable verbal bully with ice in his veins. Nothing essential has changed about him.
Steve's a talented audio engineer who's helped make some great albums and that's pretty much the only good thing about him.
Also, his band Shellac is brilliant
In Australian terms, maybe it's a little like Adelaide.
You can drive across whole swathes of country where small towns are hard to tell apart both visually and culturally. I can say with zero irony that the most interesting distinction between a lot of small towns in Texas, Missouri and Oklahoma is which style of barbecue they feature, and if you're not into cowboy shit or outdoor activities your options are limited (if there are any at all).
As a specific (ironic) example: the Chinese restaurants in your average Western American small town are the "Epcot Center for the plebes" version of Chinese culture; (some) Chinese restaurants in New York City aren't.
It's nonsense to say that an agglomeration of cultures somehow produces "the opposite of culture". At worst you could end up with lots of culture, but no particular unique culture. But that never happens: culture begets culture, it turns out. New York and LA are both the most cosmopolitan cities in the US, and the most culturally significant ones.
He's basically the 9001 white guy to announce that the real rebels are the ones who conform. A born-again. The average Guardian reader.
The comment about him being on the right side of history is incisive.