Steve Albini, the Insult Comic

“I privation to find the feline that invented compression and teardrop his liver out. I hatred it. It makes everything dependable similar a brew commercial.” Photo: Paul Natkin/Getty Images

Steve Albini was a large signaling engineer. (And helium preferred being called an engineer, not a producer, he’d punctual you.) He was besides a large musician, a large poker player, and, by each accounts, a beauteous loyal friend. But Albini besides became well-known for his biting wit, which could chopped a beloved band, political movement, oregon Las Vegas performance venue wide down to the speedy successful conscionable a azygous sentence. For years, helium took nary prisoners, adjacent shitting connected bands he’d worked with loudly successful the press, a determination that led to Chunklet magazine naming him 1 of the “100 biggest assholes successful rock.”

And portion Albini walked backmost immoderate of his fight-picking successful caller years, which helium explained successful this fantabulous Guardian profile from past year, helium inactive held astatine slightest immoderate vitriol for ticket fees, eclipse fans, and people who deliberation Pearl Jam has ever made a cleanable record. Below, you’ll find an annotated enactment of immoderate of Albini’s slayer witticisms from implicit the years, each successful his memory. The satellite volition beryllium worse present without Albini astir to clasp america each to account.

When Nirvana went to marque In Utero, they wanted to prosecute Albini, successful portion due to the fact that they were specified large fans of his enactment with the Jesus Lizard. After a telephone telephone betwixt Albini and Kurt Cobain, the technologist wrote a missive to the band proposing however he’d marque the record, explaining everything from what workplace he’d similar to usage to his wide doctrine of engineering. He besides went into his implicit refusal to instrumentality “points,” oregon a percent of sales, connected the record, writing, “I deliberation paying a royalty to a shaper oregon technologist is ethically indefensible,” and adding, “I would similar to beryllium paid similar a plumber: I bash the occupation and you wage maine what it’s worth. The grounds institution volition expect maine to inquire for a constituent oregon a constituent and a half. If we presume 3 cardinal sales, that works retired to 400,000 dollars oregon so. There’s nary fucking mode I would ever instrumentality that overmuch money. I wouldn’t beryllium capable to sleep.”

After signing the four-page letter, Albini ended it with that supra postscript, arsenic good arsenic with an “Oi!,” reiterating his punk bona fides with conscionable 14 abbreviated words.

While fans hail Albini’s enactment with bands similar the Pixies, that doesn’t mean helium ever made the champion content connected the existent bands. After signaling the Pixies’ Surfer Rosa successful 1988 for conscionable $1,500, helium went connected to roundly crap connected the set successful the press, telling Forced Exposure successful 1991 that the Pixies grounds helium conscionable finished is “a patchwork pinch loaf from a set who astatine their top-dollar champion are blandly entertaining assemblage rocks,” adding: “Their willingness to beryllium guided by their manager, their grounds company, and their producers is unparalleled. Never person I seen 4 cows much anxious to beryllium led astir by their chemoreceptor rings.”

It’s a beauteous debased blow, considering Albini adjacent admits successful the communicative that helium thought Surfer Rosa was “pretty bully astatine the time” helium was helping marque it. His crook could beryllium explained by the the band’s label, Elektra, bringing him backmost into the fold a mates of years later, erstwhile the set needed to grounds a one-off way for a statement compilation. In the Forced Exposure piece, Albini said, “The set had been getting the Big High Building ‘pampered performer’ attraction for a mates of years by past and were consequently bored and dour,” and elaborate however the Elektra adjacent sent him a fancy engraved Omega ticker aft the fact. “As soon arsenic idiosyncratic astatine the excavation country offers maine what it’s worth,” helium said, “I’m going to person a hellhole of a bully dinner.”

To Albini’s credit, helium owned up to his harshness decades later, saying successful the property that helium regretted what he’d said astir the set and adjacent becoming bully friends with the group’s Kim Deal. When quality astir Albini’s decease broke, Deal’s different group, the Breeders, posted that they were mourning their erstwhile shaper and friend, saying, “He built worlds.” The Pixies, connected the different hand, posted a precise succinct “RIP Steve Albini.”

In 1993, Albini wrote a agelong portion for The Baffler called “The Problem With Music.” It’s good worthy a read, particularly if you’re funny successful the economics of being successful a mildly palmy band, which truly haven’t changed each that overmuch successful the past 30 years. It’s besides chock-full of Albini-isms, from wherefore helium thinks producers should halt trying to marque bands dependable similar the Beatles (“Fuck’s sake, Thurston Moore is not Paul McCartney, and cipher connected Earth, not with unlimited clip and resources, could marque the Smashing Pumpkins dependable similar the Beatles. Trying conscionable makes them look adjacent dumber.”) to wherefore it’s bullshit that everyone with a small spot of cognition is called a “producer” now.

He besides gets into the nitty-gritty of being an engineer, the pros and cons of antithetic signaling equipment, and wherefore helium hates “trendy electronics and different flashy crap that cipher truly needs.” Albini was a instrumentality of analog signaling and kept his workplace afloat of instrumentality that helium deemed acceptable, from microphones to aluminum guitars. Tube limiters — which attenuate the dynamic scope of a dependable — were perfectly not permitted.

There are fewer bands Albini seemed to hatred much than Steely Dan, whom helium often colorfully crap connected successful interviews and connected his X and Bluesky accounts. “Christ the magnitude of quality effort wasted to dependable similar an SNL set lukewarm up,” helium wrote successful February 2023, pursuing it up with, “Look astatine yourselves. Calling them ‘the Dan.’ Go trim your beard.” He described an interrogation helium saw with Donald Fagen successful which the Steely Dan subordinate said helium was inspired by his “deep emotion of the blues” and past laid what Albini called “his jazz dork hands connected the fucking electrical piano.”

Albini past landed the level by delivering the enactment supra astir wedding bands and conceding that helium does really benignant of similar Boz Scaggs, adjacent though, similar Steely Dan, helium thinks Scaggs makes “cocaine crap music.” Touché, bully sir. Touché.

One of Albini’s astir storied rants was a 1994 missive helium wrote to the Chicago Reader, the section alt-weekly, which is titled “Three Pandering Sluts and Their Music-Press Stooge.” In the letter, which is addressed to esteemed euphony professional Bill Wyman, Albini calls Liz Phair “a fucking chore to perceive to,” says the Smashing Pumpkins are “ultimately insignificant,” and calls Urge Overkill “wieners successful suits playing frat enactment rock,” yet signing the missive with a elemental “fuck you.”

Critics are lone penning astir the supra bands, helium says, due to the fact that immoderate music-publicity instrumentality told them to, saying, “Watching the 3 artists you moo astir prostrate themselves earlier the altar of publicity these past 12 months has been a root of unrivaled hilarity present successful the ‘bullshit’ camp, and seeing them descend into the obscurity they person earned by blowing their promo wads volition beryllium arsenic satisfying.”

When Diagonal statement brag Oscar Powell e-mailed Albini if helium could usage a decades-old illustration of his dependable connected a way by his band, Powell, helium astir apt conscionable expected a elemental yes oregon no. Instead, helium got a agelong reply from Albini detailing however overmuch helium hates creation euphony and nine culture, with lines like, “I’ve ever detested mechanized creation music, its anserine simplicity, the clubs wherever it was played, the radical who went to those clubs, the drugs they took, the crap they liked to speech about, the apparel they wore, the battles they fought amongst each different … Basically each of it: 100 percent hated each scrap.” Still, helium concludes, Powell tin usage the sample. As helium explains, “I americium against what you’re into, and an force of wherever you travel from but I person nary occupation with what you’re doing …”

When asked astir the exchange by Marc Maron connected an occurrence of the WTF podcast, Albini adjacent went truthful acold arsenic to treble down, explaining that successful his caput and astatine slightest erstwhile it comes to disco, “When you spot these mustached schmucks successful their silk shirts, it’s casual to beryllium offended by that culturally without being offended by the cheery and soul-music roots.”

There was nary emotion mislaid betwixt Albini and Amanda Palmer successful 2012, erstwhile the Dresden Dolls beforehand pistillate was successful the midst of asking her fans to not lone money her caller grounds via Kickstarter, but besides the drawstring quartet and horn conception she said she needed for her tour. (She raised much than $1.2 cardinal connected the medium Kickstarter alone, a fig that you’d deliberation would much than wage for each of that, to accidental the least.)

Posting connected his ain Electrical Audio connection board, Albini wrote, “I person nary cardinal occupation with either asking your fans to wage you to marque your grounds oregon spell connected circuit oregon play for escaped successful your set oregon stitchery astatine a mud pit downstate and merchantability meth and blowjobs to each other. I wouldn’t stoop to doing immoderate of them myself, but horses for courses.” He would ne'er bash that, helium says, due to the fact that helium values self-sufficiency, thing helium intelligibly thinks Palmer does not. “If your presumption is that you aren’t capable to fig retired however to bash that,” helium says, “that you are forced by your ignorance into pleading for donations and foundation work, you are past publically admitting you are an idiot, and demonstrably not arsenic bully astatine your assemblage arsenic Jandek, Moondog, GG Allin, each set ever to spell connected circuit without a slush money oregon the kids who play connected buckets downtown.”

After a small back-and-forth with Palmer and her fans successful the press, Albini did an email interrogation with the U.K. work Stool Pigeon, successful which helium explained helium wasn’t conscionable huffy that Palmer seemed to person frittered much than $1 cardinal away, but that she was besides asking for fans to travel beryllium members of her set connected the road, each without wage and nether the guise that they’d beryllium getting a supercool acquisition that lone she could provide. “It’s cheapness repainted arsenic generosity and it’s gross,” helium told the publication. “Using radical successful this way, exploiting their bully quality for one’s ain benefit, is simply a crab that taints galore enterprises and it ever reflects poorly connected the exploiter. It’s 1 of the things I hated astir astir the old-school grounds business, the signifier of fucking with radical who loved euphony truthful overmuch they would enactment up with endless greed and maltreatment conscionable to beryllium a portion of it.”