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Albini was, is, and always will be the same asshole he's always been. If you want to elevate a resentful, antisocial, mean, jerk, he's the poster boy. This essa
by ctrlp 3y ago
Albini was, is, and always will be the same asshole he's always been. If you want to elevate a resentful, antisocial, mean, jerk, he's the poster boy. This essay is gross. That this writer thinks Missoula, Montana was a "cultural vacuum" because it didn't have a CBGB speaks to his cultural narrowness. Even aside from his lickspittle praise for Steve, it discredits him. Long and short, Steve is townie royalty. He and his ilk are as status-conscious as the people they despise. People like Steve are, in the end, parasitic on society as a whole. There is a role for them but it's very small and can't and shouldn't scale. Just imagine a world full of Steve Albinis! "Reject Authority" says the micro-controlling authoritarian. Very persuasive. "Be Authentic" but don't like music or bands I don't approve of. Inspiring! "Think for Yourself!" but we only want "people that politically basically think like we do" at our concerts.
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.
- zoklet-enjoyer 3y agoI think the type of person who thinks there's no culture in small towns just never goes to places like that. Montana is great and has its own culture. When I travel I try to hit up small towns and out of the way places. Some of the best times of my life were spent traveling around rural New South Wales, specifically the Bega Valley. If there's people, there's culture.
- drewcoo 3y agoMissoula isn't really a small town. It's a university town with a med center. It's pretty urban for a sparsely-populated western state! That said, it's in the west, so one of the biggest attractions to living there is getting out of town and into some nature. In Australian terms, maybe it's a little like Adelaide.
- CuriouslyC 3y agoWhen people say small towns have no culture, what they mean is "small towns have (mostly) a monoculture which is (usually) a slight variation of the regional culture." These towns might be chain store wastelands, or they might have some unique local character (e.g. Fredericksburg, Tx) but either way if you want to watch a Balinese shadow puppet show, eat Sudanese cuisine, catch a concert that isn't the local popular style, dance at a club playing German minimal techno or just interact with ethnicities that aren't european/hispanic you're probably out of luck.
- ctrlp 3y agoMissoula in the 70s/80s was still a traditional Western American small town. What you're referring to is the opposite of culture. The importation of cultural representations from "afar" is a sort of Disneyfication and dilution of local culture. What you're talking about could more accurately be described as cosmopolitanism, basically Epcot Center for the plebes.
- CuriouslyC 3y agoNot at all. Jews in NYC have a distinct culture, as do Ethiopians in DC, as do Vietnamese in Houston, as do Chinese in San Francisco. It's not "Epcot for plebes" as you so pejoratively state, it's diaspora adapting to local conditions and selectively integrating to create something actually new, unique and interesting. 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).
- drcode 3y ago> 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
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- pessimizer 3y agoHe's moved from lecturing and hectoring people with some authority, because of how good an engineer and guitarist he is, and how successful he's been in the industry, to being a guy who lectures and hectors people about morality with absolutely no authority. 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.
- daydream 3y agoI don’t agree with some of this comment. But I agree with more of it that I thought I would initially. The comment about him being on the right side of history is incisive.