[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

Originally Posted by Glice

Oh good, here's a good place to unload some vitriol.

tl;dr: Fuck Steve Albini, again.

A lot of people agree with you, but I think Steve is such a contentious prick sometimes because he is part of the big music industry, and has recorded albums for many of the "leading" bands of the 80s, 90s, and even 2000s... The guy has seen the belly of the beast, if he spits a little fire and throws a lot of salt in its direction, how could we judge him harshly for it? The mainstream music industry NEEDS an insider who is slowly sabotaging it from the inside out, and that is Steve Albini. Further, look at the records I posted, they are some of the best records ever recorded, and it is Steve's recording style that contributed. As he said in his letter to Nirvana in 1992, the recording industry likes to invade the studio, fill it with industry sycophants, and have them steamroll all the credit while taking all the money. Steve on the other hand, is always interested in recording a serious album. That, and sometimes, simply put, and I speak from experience, bands in the recording studio can be a seriously immature pain in the ass. The engineer needs to be a dick sometimes, but not a pretentious or insidious kind of dick. Recording industry goons are dicks because they want to pimp the band and have the label make all the money. Steve is a dick sometimes because he just wants to help the band get their record recorded in a reasonable amount of time, and sometimes in the studio it takes tough love. Whenever I am in the studio recording with a band, I am always having the nudge everybody along, bands have a notoriously short attention span and recording a record takes a lot of concentrated effort. I have been ten times the dick Steve is in the studio, because sometimes you have to, to get the fucking job done. The studio isn't for partying excessively, its not some kind of jam space, its not a place to bring the chicks you're fucking, its a place to record a fucking record, sometimes bands and bandmates need a less than friendly reminder of this..

1) For which read: His idea of recording is that it should sound like a 'live band' in an era when most music is recording-first. His recording techniques are a perspective until he starts talking.

But I agree with him, so many albums are so utterly over-produced. People rely to much on technology. What makes some of the records of the 1960s so fucking epically great? The minimal use of technology, of overdubs, of studio magic, an instead, just set up the mics and press record.

2) Bands who are good at being live bands often don't know about the nuances of recording, which is a very different thing. Albini has made deficient records for these people, frequently.

You're going to have to give examples, because otherwise your are simply bellowing out of your ass.

3) 'I'm just an engineer' is a cop-out. There's modesty and there's damaging bands and washing his hands.

Bullshit, again, name names or get the fuck out.

4) Many of his records sound like total shit. How do you fuck up the Stooges?

I disagree completely, but these are matters of taste aren't they. Too me, that "live" sound of Steve Albini recods is so uniquely his own trademark, that no one else can pull it off, and no other records sound as crisp, sharp, or pure. As to The Weirdness, I couldn't disagree with you more, and if anybody fucked up that record, it was the Stooges themselves. Me, I LOVED the production on that record. Too many people complain about "low vocals", I just don't hear it, but maybe I love instrumentation so much that what I like about Steve Albini recorded records is that the instrumentation isn't hidden behind the vocals..

5) His idea of recording comes from a very specific era of 80s punk and punk-ethos. Even the people who operate in that narrow era are also aware of what happened afterwards.

Yet that style and ethos is not limited to the 80s, it is one worth aspiring for in any era.

6) It is 2013 and he's still analogue. Which is an exceptionally niche area. Which is also making a virtue of an authenticity that means precisely fuck all to punk rock.

AND GOD BLESS THE MAN. THERE IS NOTHING I CAN'T STAND WORSE THAN THE OVER DIGITALIZATION OF MUSIC. IT ALL SOUNDS LIKE SHIT. IT ALL SOUNDS LIKE A FUCKING BING CROSBY RECORD. FUCK DIGITAL. NOTHING BEATS TAPE. NOTHING. PERIOD. FUCK PRO TOOLS. FUCK COMPUTERS. KEEP IT ANALOG, AND GOD BLESS STEVE FOR DOING THIS.

Remember in the 1990s how bands were buying all kinds of bad as 1970s Gibsons and Fenders at the pawn shop for dirt cheep because all those terrible sounding, ugly as hell 1980s "techno" guitars were in the vogue? Hahahaha!! As if a 1970s Fender was trash!!!! Same thing with analog recording, it is the crown jewel. THE HUMAN EAR HEARS IN ANALOG, MUSIC SHOULD BE RECORDED THE SAME. True, modern digital technology is getting increasingly better and not "clipping" and computers are getting fast enough to catch up with analog recording, but still, nothing captures the raw sound in a room better then a magnetic tape. It picks up EVERYTHING as it exists, which is how the ear hears it in real time. Tape sounds like real life, digital sounds like it was fabricated using a synthesizer. Guitar feedback through a digital recording sounds like a fucked up CASIO KEYBOARD from the 1980s. Is that a band or some asshole playing the organ at the mall? Drums through digital recording don't sound like instruments, the sound like drum machines. FUCK DIGITAL RECORDING.

7) Continual and unrelenting sexism that isn't 'ironic' and never has been. It belongs in the 1970s.

You're talking out of your ass again. The guy as recorded albums for some of the most influential women playing music in the past 30 years, and probably recorded more women than any other single engineer or producer ever!! Only John Goodmanson has worked with as many or more women musicians...

8) For every record that survives the various exchanges/ trade-offs between his atavistic techniques, convoluted understanding of what rock is and his false humility and still manages to be passable,

The guy is who is he is, at least he is himself, instead of some kind of industry parasite.

9) Many of those shit records sunk smaller bands.

Bullshit. Name names or get the fuck out.

10) Acting like his reputation isn't something he's interested in does nothing about the fact he has a reputation; shit records are blamed on the bands, doubly so because he's at pains to deflect his responsibilities onto the bands.

I don't think he isn't interested in his reputation, I just think he isn't about living solely through it, saying to himself in mirror every day, "Fuck yeah I AM Steve Albini, I recorded with Nirvana, PJ Harvey, even the Stooges.." Instead he just is himself, sometimes he is a total curmudgeon, sometimes a sincerely nice guy, but who isn't?

11) He is a whiney motherfucker who has made precisely one good record in 30 years, and half a good one about 15 years ago.

He records at least 3-5 great records a decade, you're totally tripping. And as dead_battery already mentioned, the irony of you whining and bitching is hilarious as the way Robin Thicke looks.

12) For all his criticism of industry-capital he's never apparently done anything except operate in the manner of a contractor. That is, he'll cross the picket line but never believe himself to be 'part of' the industry.

Cross the picket line. You're cute. Really. How long did it take you to think of that analogy? The guy doesn't think of himself as some kind of crusading outsider, he knows he is part of the big music industry, but he clearly and consistently operates in an entirely different way and approach.

12) When organising ATP, there were a pitiful minority of British bands involved, in spite of the festival being in the UK.

True, but that never seemed to bother the MASSES of Brits showing up every year did it

13) His records (to repeat) sound like shit.

An opinion, which you're free to share, but its a matter of taste, and obviously like MILLIONS of fucking people disagree with you completely