12 ms·

Albini pitching Nirvana: “I would like to be paid like a plumber” (1992)

346 points by sanj 5y ago

Kaibeezy 5y ago
Hero. What does “in the courtyard” mean?
- Q6T46nT668w6i3m 5y ago
  In-between
- viscanti 5y ago
  In the middle.
- pimlottc 5y ago
  In the ballpark
  - copperx 5y ago
    Knowing Albini is a baseball fan, you know it's a deliberate choice of words. I don't know why, though.
- CPLX 5y ago
  Almost
shaunxcode 5y ago
And to be clear a perfect record was born.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- tptacek 5y ago
  Nevermind is the better Nirvana album.
  - WaxedChewbacca 5y ago
  - Synaesthesia 5y ago
    Nevermind and In Utero are both 5 star albums, as is the MTV Live unplugged. Which one is "superior" is a matter of opinion.
    - tptacek 5y ago
      Pretty sure the "matter of opinion" bit is implied in a comment like that. If you need it clarified, no, I have neither empirically demonstrated nor formally proven that Nevermind is a better Nirvana album than In Utero. I merely know it to be the case. :)
      - Synaesthesia 5y ago
        I know the feeling, maybe better and catchier pop songs but the rawness and rough sound of In Utero scratches a particular itch for me.
  - whiddershins 5y ago
    Strong disagree. For me Nevermind is more pop.
    - tptacek 5y ago
      Which is to say, it sounds better. And it should: Nevermind was a much more deliberate, planned, and practiced album. The band was at each others throats by the time In Utero wound up, and it shows. In Utero is dark and brooding, which is why people say they prefer it, but it's also grating and one-note. With apologies to James Spader, it's noise rock for people who don't like noise rock, and indie pop for people who don't like indie pop. Nevermind is also clearly the more influential of the two albums. Zillions of bands have tried to make albums that sound like Nevermind. In Utero? Maybe Neutral Milk Hotel? And they did it better! I remember something Jim DeRogatis said about Big Black on Sound Opinions back when it was on WKQX, something about how Albini was an interesting artist with lots to say but that his albums were really unpleasant to listen to. That's In Utero for me. As an edgy teen? Loved it. Today? I can barely get through it. 7.4/10.0. Part of it is that as a 90s kid who owned a couple of Big Black albums, I listened to a lot of albums just because Albini recorded them; In Utero is not the most interesting affect he had on a band. "Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge On Seattle" is, however, the best Nirvana song.
vikingcaffiene 5y ago
I'm not sure a lot people know that Albini ended up washing his hands of his work with Nirvana. After the recordings were wrapped and the mixes were done, Kurt was really unhappy with some of the sounds. If memory serves it was the vocals and the bass. They ended up doing some overdubs and sharpening things up in the low end in mastering. The very thing Albini specifically said he didn't want them to do. I personally think the results speak for themselves. In Utero is a FANTASTIC rock record. I can't help but wonder what the original would have sounded like though...
- Exmoor 5y ago
  There are Albini rough mixes out there. Not sure where to suggest looking for them (phone posting), but I no imagine they're not too hard to find.
- bwoodward 5y ago
  You can find his mixes on Nirvana's youtube channel --- Heart Shaped Box [1] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9pwGlgQz2E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9pwGlgQz2E
  - jhap 5y ago
    Can someone with more experience help me recognize the differences between this version and the released version? I'm having trouble hearing them.
    - bwoodward 5y ago
      You might like this video -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6Gp8up3l8Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6Gp8up3l8Y
      - gregsadetsky 5y ago
        Thank you so much for posting this
    - 5y ago
wolverine876 5y ago
Other than a few technical details, most of it seems to me like DIY punk cliches and goes on much too long. But I guess they know the business better than I do, hired Albini, and made a hit record, if that's what they wanted. I though the sound on In Utero was too glossy. Listen to live Nirvana, including their official live album. Nothing in a studio, by anyone, can compare and with the live material available it has no reason to exist. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhYNe6yu0JM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhYNe6yu0JM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGc8jL4dzao https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGc8jL4dzao Admit it - you were sleeping. Was it for years? Now you're awake again.
- CPLX 5y ago
  The thing about cliches is that they only become that via repetition. For example at one point it wasn’t a cliche to talk about Lord of the Rings characters over alternating bouts of English folk music and heavy rock. And then it was. But in the middle there was the part where people waited in line outside the record store and rushed home to get it on the turntable and had their minds blown. As someone who was around and actually working as a record producer in the same era this letter was written I feel confident saying that the ethos described here was in fact out of step with the mainstream approach to making rock and roll records. Doing things the way he’s describing was in fact an “alternative” approach to coin a phrase. That it was rapidly becoming the mainstream at the time and eventually a cliche is also true. But I think it’s fun to evaluate things in the relevant context, or you’ll skip right from considering things obscure to overdone and miss the exhilarating part where something genuinely valuable and novel is gaining mass acceptance for the first time.
  - prpl 5y ago
    > Doing things the way he’s describing was in fact an “alternative” approach to coin a phrase. Grohl had been in a Dischord band and Kurt/Dave on Subpop with Kurt being great friends with Buzz Osborne (among so so so many other things in Seattle scene). I’m sure Steve knew that too. Different pedigrees, sure, but explaining an alternative approach would be speaking to the choir - so it was never a letter to Nirvana, more like a letter to Geffen.
sneak 5y ago
His best work is on Surfer Rosa, in my amateur opinion. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKHsSz1dAac https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKHsSz1dAac (good speakers, loud, or you're only cheating yourself.)
- funkaster 5y ago
  I agree with you, but I'm also a die hard fan of Pixies. First time I heard Smells Like Teen Spirit my first impression was "wow... that sounds like Nirvana trying to sound like Pixies", which later on Kurt Kobain also said[0]. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smells_Like_Teen_Spirit#Writing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smells_Like_Teen_Spirit#Writin...
- tptacek 5y ago
  Is it? He didn't produce Come On Pilgrim, which has the same "pre-Dolittle" sound. I don't know that the "in the room with the band playing live" effect jumps out at me about Surfer Rosa --- also my favorite Pixies album. Pod or Rid of Me would be my Albini production picks, if only for how different they each are to their immediate successor albums. If I can't pick an actual Albini album, that is (my pick would be At Action Park).
turdnagel 5y ago
This is a great letter. My favorite piece of writing from Albini is "The Problem with Music" [https://thebaffler.com/salvos/the-problem-with-music https://thebaffler.com/salvos/the-problem-with-music] in which he explains how record companies were screwing artists in vivid detail, numbers included. The first two paragraphs alone are worth reading.
- CamperBob2 5y ago
  That's interesting. "Producers who aren’t also engineers, and as such, don’t have the slightest fucking idea what they’re doing in a studio, besides talking all the time. Historically, the progression of effort required to become a producer went like this: Go to college, get an EE degree. Get a job as an assistant at a studio. Eventually become a second engineer. Learn the job and become an engineer. Do that for a few years, then you can try your hand at producing. Now, all that’s required to be a full-fledged “producer” is the gall it takes to claim to be one." Why does a record producer or recording engineer need an EE degree? They might need to repair a console, I guess, but they aren't going to design one from scratch.
  - b3morales 5y ago
    I assume this was before the career path was formalized enough to have its own recognition in school. You would take an EE degree and specialize in the things that are relevant to recording. Similar to how Computer Science was originally taught to and by people doing math degrees (or sometimes also EE).
  - Q6T46nT668w6i3m 5y ago
    Recording engineers frequently design components from scratch.
    - CamperBob2 5y ago
      Yeah, he goes on to partially answer the question with respect to the engineers' role, but I still don't see what any of that has to do with production.
cityzen 5y ago
Love the shout out to the Jerky Boys
- chrissnell 5y ago
  Hahaha, I came to say the same thing. It's an obscure line ("I'll wrap your head in with a ratchet!") but anybody who ever heard it will instantly recall this Frank Rizzo classic. I wonder if the Nirvana guys got a chuckle or just read it quizzically.
- mattl 5y ago
  Pablo honey?
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
vlunkr 5y ago
If you're not familiar with Albini, he's worked lots of great bands. Pixies of course, The Jesus Lizard, Mclusky, his own band Shellac to name a few. Nirvana was good, but they've come to overshadow the really great music scene they emerged from. It's too bad his work with Fugazi didn't work out. Apparently the band and Albini decided they both didn't like and they re-recorded it at another studio.
- vba616 5y ago
  I was never that crazy about Jesus Lizard, but I never understood why Nirvana and not them, relatively speaking. I liked Goat, Liar, and Down better than Shot, which seems to correlate with Albini producing only the first three.
- 01100011 5y ago
  Don't forget Big Black. I can't find the words to describe what listening to that was like in the 80s as a young computer hacker. To me, it's like shoving a couple William Gibson novels into my eardrums. It is harsh, loud, sterile, ethereal, haunting, electric and beautiful.
  - Beltalowda 5y ago
    There's a 90s MTV interview with Alibini and the rest of Shellac on YouTube (back when there was still music on MTV), and he jokingly complained how their concerts never attracted hot chicks but just computer programmers and the like :-)
    - quickthrowman 5y ago
      Women don’t like Shellac because Steve Albini wears his guitar as a belt, true story. My March 2020 Shellac tickets are finally going to be used in May, I’m excited!
- bredren 5y ago
  Albini also worked on Joanna Newsom’s Ys.
icambron 5y ago
He had me until the money part. Don’t be like this; capture the value you add or someone else will. You’ll be forever in debt to my priceless advice.
- Synaesthesia 5y ago
  That's exactly where he won me over.
  - xeromal 5y ago
    I've gotten into a few arguments with friends over the years about this way of thinking. I've always felt the same way. I tend to undercharge my labor and sell things for cheaper than they should be according to people closest to me. I pay my subcontractors more than they should be apparently. I understand capturing as much value as possible, but that's not in the cards for me. I feel as long as I make enough money to be happy, that's ok. Everyone tells me I'm dumb so I'm probably hurting myself, but I really appreciate Albini's insistence not to take so much money.
- atoav 5y ago
  The money thing is simple here: A mixing engineer who gets royalties will no longer be able to 100% go for the bands vision, but rather for what they think the market likes. So it is a perverse incentive. If you are after maximizing the amount of money you earn rather than focus the creation of good work and/or art audio engineering might not be the right field for you anyways. Firstly because there is not a lot of money in it, secondly because there is not a lot of money in it for people who always priorize money over art.
  - pawelmurias 5y ago
    He is producing a mass market product not art for arts sake. In this case how much money the product makes directly and indirectly (future sells of other stuff in the brand) is the measure of it's artistic value.
    - 5y ago
dalbasal 5y ago
Interesting! I know those albums and the era better than any (teenage years), so it's fascinating hearing behind the scenes. I think a lot of what made that era productive was a peaking of tension between slick commercial music and grittier, "underground" sounds and themes. Ozzy & Black Sabbath went from shocking to mainstream. Punk became a main street cafe aesthetic. In the 90s, after the grunge explosion, "underground" was ironically mainstream and that contradiction resulted in some terrific albums. Nirvana and Kurt certainly traded in this tension. My favourite example is rage against the machine. Extremely dissident sound and vibe. I think they recorded very raw. But, they still achieved pop music ideals. Ratm songs are catchy and iconic in exactly the same way a Michael Jackson song is. You start tapping your pencil to it from the first note.
jstummbillig 5y ago
Albini is and interesting guy, very eloquent, but also inconsequential and illogical in a lot of regards (for example his reasoning for still using analogue tape, that it would be most likely to survive a nuclear war and still be able to be used with the equipment that is left afterwards). Albini loves to paint himself as different. A lot of it is, maybe unintentionally, geared towards making his side of the job simpler, while also feeding the ego of his clients, making all the creativity about them, which bands of course love. Credits where credits are due, that's pretty smart. > Most contemporary engineers and producers see a record as a “project,” and the band as only one element of the project. [...] My approach is exactly the opposite. I consider the band the most important thing" There is nothing oppositional about this statement. A record is by all worldly definitions a project and most producers would still agree that the band is the most important element of that project. > I do not want and will not take a royalty on any record I record. No points. Period. I think paying a royalty to a producer or engineer is ethically indefensible. Royalties for producers are like buying stock in a band. The producers gives money (offered as production time), and gets shares in return. Just like stock, it makes projects possible that otherwise wouldn't be. That's a good thing. It's also immensely smart for the band, because obviously not everyone is as great a guy as Albini is, and having your producer have financial motivation to make sure the record succeeds (which you don't have to have when being paid flat) is a sensible thing to want for a working band in their producers. FWIW, the way that Albini describes his work I completely agree with his no-royalties stance, but only in regards to himself: If your thing is making a big show out of how you are not getting involved in things, you best stay a hired hand. Turns out tho, a lot of bands actually want a producer that helps decide. It's kinda what you go into the studio for now. Everyone chump can mic up an amp well enough. > I would like to be paid like a plumber: I do the job and you pay me what it's worth. [...] Whatever. I trust you guys to be fair to me and I know you must be familiar with what a regular industry goon would want. Well, Albini, that is exactly not how a plumber gets paid. As a plumber you will be able and expected to to produce a detailed offer and not make their clients guess a number. Pay-what-you-want is a cop-out for people in power, just like job descriptions without salary (ranges) are a copout. Yeah, you have an idea of what you want. Stop making it awkward for the other party. Speak the fuck up. > I, however, already have more work than I can handle Nobody in this industry does it without an ego and a varying measure of arrogance (since nobody in music can give you any answers but as a maker you have to believe you do know better). That ego is dependent on people wanting to work with you, and that is dependent on the people you worked with. Past clients predict future clients. Nobody wants to work with shit clients in the future but that is what will happen when the stream of good clients ebbs. Best case Albini was being dishonest to himself. But probably just boasting.
flobosg 5y ago
If you like Albini’s writing you might be interested in the cooking blog he penned for a while some years ago: https://web.archive.org/web/20180125095923/http://whatimadeheatherfordinner.stevealbinicooks.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20180125095923/http://whatimadeh...
whiddershins 5y ago
Albini is a complicated figure and much of his rhetoric is at times in contradiction with his actions. In Utero is a truly fantastic album, and the sound was/is radical and unusual and … It’s unclear to me whether this had anything to do with what the band wanted, being true to how the band heard themselves, or any of that stuff.
slimeboty 5y ago
OK now read it again in David Brent's voice. The guy is problematic.
funstuff007 5y ago
What I find interesting is the sweating over the details in a recording studio, and then people go to see the band lives and you lose a large chunk of what they've been haggling over due to irreproducibility.
- CharlesW 5y ago
  Those are very different things — one is a studio movie, one is Broadway play. Both can be appreciated through their own lenses.
  - funstuff007 5y ago
    Right, and I view as the best possible job I can do and the other is best possible job I can do a given day.
da39a3ee 5y ago
Albini sounds really full of himself. I bet he was the sort of person who doesn't shut up. What Americans call a blowhard. In Utero seemed to lack the rhythm and energy and melodies of Nevermind and Bleach.
garrickvanburen 5y ago
Brilliant business lessons in here for independent consultants: how to set a floor for value pricing, and how to clearly scope the work, how to act like a person.
m1gu3l 5y ago
Respect for not wanting to take points and being straight up about his idea of a reasonable compensation.

346 points by sanj 5y ago

Kaibeezy 5y ago

Hero. What does “in the courtyard” mean?

Q6T46nT668w6i3m 5y ago
In-between
viscanti 5y ago
In the middle.
pimlottc 5y ago
In the ballpark
- copperx 5y ago
  Knowing Albini is a baseball fan, you know it's a deliberate choice of words. I don't know why, though.
CPLX 5y ago
Almost

shaunxcode 5y ago

And to be clear a perfect record was born.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
tptacek 5y ago
Nevermind is the better Nirvana album.
- WaxedChewbacca 5y ago
- Synaesthesia 5y ago
  Nevermind and In Utero are both 5 star albums, as is the MTV Live unplugged. Which one is "superior" is a matter of opinion.
  - tptacek 5y ago
    Pretty sure the "matter of opinion" bit is implied in a comment like that. If you need it clarified, no, I have neither empirically demonstrated nor formally proven that Nevermind is a better Nirvana album than In Utero. I merely know it to be the case. :)
    - Synaesthesia 5y ago
      I know the feeling, maybe better and catchier pop songs but the rawness and rough sound of In Utero scratches a particular itch for me.
- whiddershins 5y ago
  Strong disagree. For me Nevermind is more pop.
  - tptacek 5y ago
    Which is to say, it sounds better. And it should: Nevermind was a much more deliberate, planned, and practiced album. The band was at each others throats by the time In Utero wound up, and it shows. In Utero is dark and brooding, which is why people say they prefer it, but it's also grating and one-note. With apologies to James Spader, it's noise rock for people who don't like noise rock, and indie pop for people who don't like indie pop. Nevermind is also clearly the more influential of the two albums. Zillions of bands have tried to make albums that sound like Nevermind. In Utero? Maybe Neutral Milk Hotel? And they did it better! I remember something Jim DeRogatis said about Big Black on Sound Opinions back when it was on WKQX, something about how Albini was an interesting artist with lots to say but that his albums were really unpleasant to listen to. That's In Utero for me. As an edgy teen? Loved it. Today? I can barely get through it. 7.4/10.0. Part of it is that as a 90s kid who owned a couple of Big Black albums, I listened to a lot of albums just because Albini recorded them; In Utero is not the most interesting affect he had on a band. "Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge On Seattle" is, however, the best Nirvana song.

vikingcaffiene 5y ago

I'm not sure a lot people know that Albini ended up washing his hands of his work with Nirvana. After the recordings were wrapped and the mixes were done, Kurt was really unhappy with some of the sounds. If memory serves it was the vocals and the bass. They ended up doing some overdubs and sharpening things up in the low end in mastering. The very thing Albini specifically said he didn't want them to do. I personally think the results speak for themselves. In Utero is a FANTASTIC rock record. I can't help but wonder what the original would have sounded like though...

Exmoor 5y ago
There are Albini rough mixes out there. Not sure where to suggest looking for them (phone posting), but I no imagine they're not too hard to find.
bwoodward 5y ago
You can find his mixes on Nirvana's youtube channel --- Heart Shaped Box [1] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9pwGlgQz2E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9pwGlgQz2E
- jhap 5y ago
  Can someone with more experience help me recognize the differences between this version and the released version? I'm having trouble hearing them.
  - bwoodward 5y ago
    You might like this video -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6Gp8up3l8Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6Gp8up3l8Y
    - gregsadetsky 5y ago
      Thank you so much for posting this
  - 5y ago

wolverine876 5y ago

Other than a few technical details, most of it seems to me like DIY punk cliches and goes on much too long. But I guess they know the business better than I do, hired Albini, and made a hit record, if that's what they wanted. I though the sound on In Utero was too glossy. Listen to live Nirvana, including their official live album. Nothing in a studio, by anyone, can compare and with the live material available it has no reason to exist. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhYNe6yu0JM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhYNe6yu0JM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGc8jL4dzao https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGc8jL4dzao Admit it - you were sleeping. Was it for years? Now you're awake again.

CPLX 5y ago
The thing about cliches is that they only become that via repetition. For example at one point it wasn’t a cliche to talk about Lord of the Rings characters over alternating bouts of English folk music and heavy rock. And then it was. But in the middle there was the part where people waited in line outside the record store and rushed home to get it on the turntable and had their minds blown. As someone who was around and actually working as a record producer in the same era this letter was written I feel confident saying that the ethos described here was in fact out of step with the mainstream approach to making rock and roll records. Doing things the way he’s describing was in fact an “alternative” approach to coin a phrase. That it was rapidly becoming the mainstream at the time and eventually a cliche is also true. But I think it’s fun to evaluate things in the relevant context, or you’ll skip right from considering things obscure to overdone and miss the exhilarating part where something genuinely valuable and novel is gaining mass acceptance for the first time.
- prpl 5y ago
  > Doing things the way he’s describing was in fact an “alternative” approach to coin a phrase. Grohl had been in a Dischord band and Kurt/Dave on Subpop with Kurt being great friends with Buzz Osborne (among so so so many other things in Seattle scene). I’m sure Steve knew that too. Different pedigrees, sure, but explaining an alternative approach would be speaking to the choir - so it was never a letter to Nirvana, more like a letter to Geffen.

sneak 5y ago

His best work is on Surfer Rosa, in my amateur opinion. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKHsSz1dAac https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKHsSz1dAac (good speakers, loud, or you're only cheating yourself.)

funkaster 5y ago
I agree with you, but I'm also a die hard fan of Pixies. First time I heard Smells Like Teen Spirit my first impression was "wow... that sounds like Nirvana trying to sound like Pixies", which later on Kurt Kobain also said[0]. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smells_Like_Teen_Spirit#Writing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smells_Like_Teen_Spirit#Writin...
tptacek 5y ago
Is it? He didn't produce Come On Pilgrim, which has the same "pre-Dolittle" sound. I don't know that the "in the room with the band playing live" effect jumps out at me about Surfer Rosa --- also my favorite Pixies album. Pod or Rid of Me would be my Albini production picks, if only for how different they each are to their immediate successor albums. If I can't pick an actual Albini album, that is (my pick would be At Action Park).

turdnagel 5y ago

This is a great letter. My favorite piece of writing from Albini is "The Problem with Music" [https://thebaffler.com/salvos/the-problem-with-music https://thebaffler.com/salvos/the-problem-with-music] in which he explains how record companies were screwing artists in vivid detail, numbers included. The first two paragraphs alone are worth reading.

CamperBob2 5y ago
That's interesting. "Producers who aren’t also engineers, and as such, don’t have the slightest fucking idea what they’re doing in a studio, besides talking all the time. Historically, the progression of effort required to become a producer went like this: Go to college, get an EE degree. Get a job as an assistant at a studio. Eventually become a second engineer. Learn the job and become an engineer. Do that for a few years, then you can try your hand at producing. Now, all that’s required to be a full-fledged “producer” is the gall it takes to claim to be one." Why does a record producer or recording engineer need an EE degree? They might need to repair a console, I guess, but they aren't going to design one from scratch.
- b3morales 5y ago
  I assume this was before the career path was formalized enough to have its own recognition in school. You would take an EE degree and specialize in the things that are relevant to recording. Similar to how Computer Science was originally taught to and by people doing math degrees (or sometimes also EE).
- Q6T46nT668w6i3m 5y ago
  Recording engineers frequently design components from scratch.
  - CamperBob2 5y ago
    Yeah, he goes on to partially answer the question with respect to the engineers' role, but I still don't see what any of that has to do with production.

cityzen 5y ago

Love the shout out to the Jerky Boys

chrissnell 5y ago
Hahaha, I came to say the same thing. It's an obscure line ("I'll wrap your head in with a ratchet!") but anybody who ever heard it will instantly recall this Frank Rizzo classic. I wonder if the Nirvana guys got a chuckle or just read it quizzically.
mattl 5y ago
Pablo honey?

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

vlunkr 5y ago

If you're not familiar with Albini, he's worked lots of great bands. Pixies of course, The Jesus Lizard, Mclusky, his own band Shellac to name a few. Nirvana was good, but they've come to overshadow the really great music scene they emerged from. It's too bad his work with Fugazi didn't work out. Apparently the band and Albini decided they both didn't like and they re-recorded it at another studio.

vba616 5y ago
I was never that crazy about Jesus Lizard, but I never understood why Nirvana and not them, relatively speaking. I liked Goat, Liar, and Down better than Shot, which seems to correlate with Albini producing only the first three.
01100011 5y ago
Don't forget Big Black. I can't find the words to describe what listening to that was like in the 80s as a young computer hacker. To me, it's like shoving a couple William Gibson novels into my eardrums. It is harsh, loud, sterile, ethereal, haunting, electric and beautiful.
- Beltalowda 5y ago
  There's a 90s MTV interview with Alibini and the rest of Shellac on YouTube (back when there was still music on MTV), and he jokingly complained how their concerts never attracted hot chicks but just computer programmers and the like :-)
  - quickthrowman 5y ago
    Women don’t like Shellac because Steve Albini wears his guitar as a belt, true story. My March 2020 Shellac tickets are finally going to be used in May, I’m excited!
bredren 5y ago
Albini also worked on Joanna Newsom’s Ys.

icambron 5y ago

He had me until the money part. Don’t be like this; capture the value you add or someone else will. You’ll be forever in debt to my priceless advice.

Synaesthesia 5y ago
That's exactly where he won me over.
- xeromal 5y ago
  I've gotten into a few arguments with friends over the years about this way of thinking. I've always felt the same way. I tend to undercharge my labor and sell things for cheaper than they should be according to people closest to me. I pay my subcontractors more than they should be apparently. I understand capturing as much value as possible, but that's not in the cards for me. I feel as long as I make enough money to be happy, that's ok. Everyone tells me I'm dumb so I'm probably hurting myself, but I really appreciate Albini's insistence not to take so much money.
atoav 5y ago
The money thing is simple here: A mixing engineer who gets royalties will no longer be able to 100% go for the bands vision, but rather for what they think the market likes. So it is a perverse incentive. If you are after maximizing the amount of money you earn rather than focus the creation of good work and/or art audio engineering might not be the right field for you anyways. Firstly because there is not a lot of money in it, secondly because there is not a lot of money in it for people who always priorize money over art.
- pawelmurias 5y ago
  He is producing a mass market product not art for arts sake. In this case how much money the product makes directly and indirectly (future sells of other stuff in the brand) is the measure of it's artistic value.
  - 5y ago

dalbasal 5y ago

Interesting! I know those albums and the era better than any (teenage years), so it's fascinating hearing behind the scenes. I think a lot of what made that era productive was a peaking of tension between slick commercial music and grittier, "underground" sounds and themes. Ozzy & Black Sabbath went from shocking to mainstream. Punk became a main street cafe aesthetic. In the 90s, after the grunge explosion, "underground" was ironically mainstream and that contradiction resulted in some terrific albums. Nirvana and Kurt certainly traded in this tension. My favourite example is rage against the machine. Extremely dissident sound and vibe. I think they recorded very raw. But, they still achieved pop music ideals. Ratm songs are catchy and iconic in exactly the same way a Michael Jackson song is. You start tapping your pencil to it from the first note.

jstummbillig 5y ago

Albini is and interesting guy, very eloquent, but also inconsequential and illogical in a lot of regards (for example his reasoning for still using analogue tape, that it would be most likely to survive a nuclear war and still be able to be used with the equipment that is left afterwards). Albini loves to paint himself as different. A lot of it is, maybe unintentionally, geared towards making his side of the job simpler, while also feeding the ego of his clients, making all the creativity about them, which bands of course love. Credits where credits are due, that's pretty smart. > Most contemporary engineers and producers see a record as a “project,” and the band as only one element of the project. [...] My approach is exactly the opposite. I consider the band the most important thing" There is nothing oppositional about this statement. A record is by all worldly definitions a project and most producers would still agree that the band is the most important element of that project. > I do not want and will not take a royalty on any record I record. No points. Period. I think paying a royalty to a producer or engineer is ethically indefensible. Royalties for producers are like buying stock in a band. The producers gives money (offered as production time), and gets shares in return. Just like stock, it makes projects possible that otherwise wouldn't be. That's a good thing. It's also immensely smart for the band, because obviously not everyone is as great a guy as Albini is, and having your producer have financial motivation to make sure the record succeeds (which you don't have to have when being paid flat) is a sensible thing to want for a working band in their producers. FWIW, the way that Albini describes his work I completely agree with his no-royalties stance, but only in regards to himself: If your thing is making a big show out of how you are not getting involved in things, you best stay a hired hand. Turns out tho, a lot of bands actually want a producer that helps decide. It's kinda what you go into the studio for now. Everyone chump can mic up an amp well enough. > I would like to be paid like a plumber: I do the job and you pay me what it's worth. [...] Whatever. I trust you guys to be fair to me and I know you must be familiar with what a regular industry goon would want. Well, Albini, that is exactly not how a plumber gets paid. As a plumber you will be able and expected to to produce a detailed offer and not make their clients guess a number. Pay-what-you-want is a cop-out for people in power, just like job descriptions without salary (ranges) are a copout. Yeah, you have an idea of what you want. Stop making it awkward for the other party. Speak the fuck up. > I, however, already have more work than I can handle Nobody in this industry does it without an ego and a varying measure of arrogance (since nobody in music can give you any answers but as a maker you have to believe you do know better). That ego is dependent on people wanting to work with you, and that is dependent on the people you worked with. Past clients predict future clients. Nobody wants to work with shit clients in the future but that is what will happen when the stream of good clients ebbs. Best case Albini was being dishonest to himself. But probably just boasting.

flobosg 5y ago

If you like Albini’s writing you might be interested in the cooking blog he penned for a while some years ago: https://web.archive.org/web/20180125095923/http://whatimadeheatherfordinner.stevealbinicooks.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20180125095923/http://whatimadeh...

whiddershins 5y ago

Albini is a complicated figure and much of his rhetoric is at times in contradiction with his actions. In Utero is a truly fantastic album, and the sound was/is radical and unusual and … It’s unclear to me whether this had anything to do with what the band wanted, being true to how the band heard themselves, or any of that stuff.

slimeboty 5y ago

OK now read it again in David Brent's voice. The guy is problematic.

funstuff007 5y ago

What I find interesting is the sweating over the details in a recording studio, and then people go to see the band lives and you lose a large chunk of what they've been haggling over due to irreproducibility.

CharlesW 5y ago
Those are very different things — one is a studio movie, one is Broadway play. Both can be appreciated through their own lenses.
- funstuff007 5y ago
  Right, and I view as the best possible job I can do and the other is best possible job I can do a given day.

da39a3ee 5y ago

Albini sounds really full of himself. I bet he was the sort of person who doesn't shut up. What Americans call a blowhard. In Utero seemed to lack the rhythm and energy and melodies of Nevermind and Bleach.

garrickvanburen 5y ago

Brilliant business lessons in here for independent consultants: how to set a floor for value pricing, and how to clearly scope the work, how to act like a person.

m1gu3l 5y ago

Respect for not wanting to take points and being straight up about his idea of a reasonable compensation.