Steve Albini (1962-2024)

[Gregor Samsa]

Steve Albini.

[Drucker]

Steve Albini.

Completely gutted. Big Black remain one of my favorite bands and I think achieve nearly everything that makes punk rock great. And the albums he engineered of course are among the best of the last few decades, and Goat and Pod are still some of my absolute favorite of all time. My band played a Big Black cover set for Halloween in 2010. He made a great appearance on Conan O'Brien's podcast a few months ago with Dave Grohl and Krist Novaselic. Just absolutey gutted.

[dadaistnun]

After Nina Nastasia's (abusive) partner took his own life and she was of course feeling unmoored with nowhere to go, Albini & his wife insisted she come to live with them for quite a long time until she was back on her feet and ready to record again. That anecdote alone made me think so much more of him as a person in addition to his great work in the studio.

[beamish14]

Steve Albini.

Completely gutted. Big Black remain one of my favorite bands and I think achieve nearly everything that makes punk rock great. And the albums he engineered of course are among the best of the last few decades, and Goat and Pod are still some of my absolute favorite of all time. My band played a Big Black cover set for Halloween in 2010. He made a great appearance on Conan O'Brien's podcast a few months ago with Dave Grohl and Krist Novaselic[/url]. Just absolutey gutted.

POD is incredible. I could listen to “Lime House” on repeat for an hour. This is just an astronomical loss for music. I bought many albums just because he recorded them

I have a framed vinyl of Big Black’s Atomizer in my office. The way he screams “Set me on fire!” in “Kerosene” never fails to hit mei’m going to ask

[zedz]

He produced so many great albums, including personal favourites like Rid of Me, After Murder Park and Secret Name, but I think his four albums for Magnolia Electric Co might be his lasting legacy, and they sound nothing like much of the music that made him famous.
Lonesome Valley

On the other hand, and also fantastic:
The Power of Independent Trucking

[domino harvey]

And before those, Molina recorded this Songs: Ohio “Steve Albini Blues”

For those who haven’t read it, this long piece of advice Albini penned against signing with a major label was gospel for many an indie band since

And my favorite Albini recording is the album Axes by Electrelane, which is mixed to be one hour-long piece of continuous music, with songs bleeding into each other with no breathing room (which was contentious at the time, as I remember many friends hating it, but I think it holds up as a masterpiece of an album)

[Drucker]

Albini also championed a band called Silkworm and engineered most (all?) of their albums, having been a high school classmate of one of the members. Alibini gets a lot of screen time with some funny anecdotes in their documentary available at the link.

[domino harvey]

Love Silkworm. What’s tragic is the last songs that they recorded before their drummer was killed (by a woman trying to kill herself in a car accident) is their best material and I believe would have made for the true classic album many others agreed they had in them (the songs were released on the Chokes! EP)

[Drucker]

Love Silkworm. What’s tragic is the last songs that they recorded before their drummer was killed (by a woman trying to kill herself in a car accident) is their best material and I believe would have made for the true classic album many believed they had in them (the songs were released on the Chokes! EP)

Indeed. Albini seriously tears up while reminiscing about him in the documentary.

[beamish14]

I highly recommend Albini’s work with cellist Helen Money

[domino harvey]

Another great overlooked Albini album is Shannon Wright’s Over the Sun - Wright is much more well-known in France than she is here, but it’s the only album of hers that really sounded like one of her live shows (and mimics their loud/soft composition)

[domino harvey]

The Guardian had the worst timing today

[pianocrash]

[/quote]Albini always championed Kim Deal as a genius all throughout their working together/friendship, and I always admire him for that.

Also, he was the person who suggested a very young Britt Walford (Slint) for Pod's drum duties, which I feel Albini had a knack for casting the perfect players when asked, especially for Fred Schneider's Just Fred (Rick Sims, Judah Bauer, and most of Six Finger Satellite & Shadowy Men From A Shadowy Planet). Likewise, he also suggested Silkworm's Andy Cohen for Bush's touring lineup, which must've been something to witness entirely (wish I could've seen one of those dates).

There are few people within the cultural public sphere that I've ever witnessed actual growth and a maturity and acceptance of life as I did in Steve over the past decade, but I also feel quite blessed that he was always in the periphery of just about all the music that helped me to exist in this life. He'll always be around in some way just as he was before today, but I'm still saddened for his partner, Heather, and all his close Chicago, Electrical Audio & elsewhere families.

Also, he was, obviously, quite the gear dork.

[pianocrash]

The Guardian had the worst timing today

Not as great as the red box in Todd Solondz's Storytelling....unless this is the International Cut #-o

But somewhere in between those two might be the Chicago flag :-$

[Blutarsky]

I have to admit that this has been one of the few celebrity deaths which has made me stop everything I was doing. Just this past Sunday I was doing chores around my house listening to Songs About F*****g and forgetting how much that album meant to me in college.

I always appreciated how much he championed Kim Deal and her work with The Breeders, going as far to engineer most of their recordings except for Last Splash. Of all his albums he produced, Rid of Me, Pod, and In Utero will always be on a short list of my favorite albums ever made, thanks in part for how he was able to showcase each musician at their full potential. A real loss today to the world of music.

[Drucker]

Also, he was, obviously, quite the gear dork.

Man, imagine if he had contributed to our UHD encoding threads!

[swo17]

Other great albums not yet mentioned:

[therewillbeblus]

Goat was actually the first album mentioned, but it’s worth doing twice

[swo17]

Ha, fitting!

[hearthesilence]

This was a complete gut punch, I just played his stuff all day. I lived within walking distance of Electrical Audio, and even though I never had a reason to go in, much less record anything there, I loved the idea that it was around. Albini was one of the rare individuals I could actually look up to for being so damn principled and putting it in practice in everything he did - goes without saying he made and shepherded so much great music, but he was also an incredible human being who gave back to the community ALL the time. If you're from the Chicago area and follow whatever was written on him in the papers, you'll know what I mean. Chicago's going to feel emptier without him.

[bdsweeney]

Everyone's got their favourites and they're all correct. For me, Songs: Ohia's Magnolia Electric Co. Only read for the first time today that "Farewell Transmission" was recorded first take.

Can recommend this read: The evolution of Steve Albini: ‘If the dumbest person is on your side, you’re on the wrong side’

Good case study of the pitfalls of being ironic, and then recognising so.

[pianocrash]

Other great albums not yet mentioned:

It's a common misconception that Albini recorded this whole LP (I mean, it sounds like he did!), but he only worked on one track ("Nothing Ever Changes")- Eli Janney (GVSB, Late Night With Seth Meyers house band keyboardist) was responsible for all the rest.

I'l go ahead and mention Bedhead's Transaction De Novo, since it's a towering LP that still! doesn't get talked about enough, Arise Therefore by Palace Music, Stella by Uzeda (or any of theirs, for that matter), Starters Alternators & Dizzy Spells by The Ex, and Further Complications by Jarvis Cocker. Sunn O))) & Mono also come to mind (Om, too!), but I guess I could list records all night long at this point. Tim from Silkworm worked & toured with Sunn on the last few releases, as did Dave Pajo (who is always on tour with someone, lord bless).

Seamonsters by The Wedding Present is absolutely wonderful, and, like Arise & In Utero, was recorded at Pachyderm in Cannon Falls, Minnesota, a studio that Steve adored & utilized often.

[swo17]

Oh, I meant to mention Transaction de Novo, not sure how it got left out from my post

[domino harvey]

Going through the Steve Albini engineering list on Wikipedia and discovered he recorded one of my favorite Guided by Voices songs, "He's the Uncle" (plus "It's Like Soul, Man" and 'Sheetkickers," which both ended up on classic GBV's most Frankenstein album, Under the Bushes)

Also never realized he produced pretty much every album Scout Niblett released outside of her first and most recent ones. My fave of these records would be Kidnapped by Neptune

On the negative tip, he ruined Mogwai's My Father, My King, with even the worst live recording sounding better than the recorded version-- can't win 'em all!

[hearthesilence]