[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

Originally Posted by SuchFriendsAreDangerous

Here is another lost gem recorded by Steve Albini. What is fantastic, is that the Geffen "people" involved with In Utero were right , Albini's mixes for bands are often "unreleasable" in the most popular, commercial sense, but in the raw, guttural, wrenching sense, they are priceless. Albums like In Utero, Shannon Wright's Over the Sun, Pussy Galore's Dial M For Motherfucker, Tad's God's Balls, Superchunk's No Pocket For Kitty, obviously the Jesus Lizard's Goat, Helmet's Meantime, P.J. Harvey's Rid of Me, Hubcap's Those Kids Are Weirder, Left Over Crack's Fuck World Trade, Godspead You Black Emperor's Yanqui UXO, F-Minus' "Wake Up Screaming", The Desert Fathers "The Spirtuality", The Ex's "Turn", Ferocious Fucking Teeth's Ferocious Fucking Teeth S/T, The Strain's Teeth...

these record are not commercially marketable, but they are epic records for that crisp, loud, guitar feedback, drum oriented sound which ONLY Steve can seem to properly capture.

I think Shannon Wright's Over the Sun, Nirvana's In Utero, P.J Harvey's Rid of Me, Jesus Lizard's Goat, and Pixies Surfer Rosa is a legendary enough discography by itself and are his best work, in fact some of the best albums of all time, let alone all the other great albums and bands he's worked with..

I posted this in the In Utero thread, but I think this discography or recordings, not even including his own music and bands, warrants its own thread to discuss the greatness or shit on it entirely as only SYG gossip can

 

Originally Posted by Steve Albini

I reject the term "piracy." It's people listening to music and sharing it with other people, and it's good for musicians because it widens the audience for music. The record industry doesn't like trading music because they see it as lost sales, but that's nonsense. Sales have declined because physical discs are no longer the distribution medium for mass-appeal pop music, and expecting people to treat files as physical objects to be inventoried and bought individually is absurd.
The downtrend in sales has hurt the recording business, obviously, but not us specifically because we never relied on the mainstream record industry for our clientele. Bands are always going to want to record themselves, and there will always be a market among serious music fans for well-made record albums. I'll point to the success of the Chicago label Numero Group as an example.
There won't ever be a mass-market record industry again, and that's fine with me because that industry didn't operate for the benefit of the musicians or the audience, the only classes of people I care about.
Free distribution of music has created a huge growth in the audience for live music performance, where most bands spend most of their time and energy anyway. Ticket prices have risen to the point that even club-level touring bands can earn a middle-class income if they keep their shit together, and every band now has access to a world-wide audience at no cost of acquisition. That's fantastic.
Additionally, places poorly-served by the old-school record business (small or isolate towns, third-world and non-english-speaking countries) now have access to everything instead of a small sampling of music controlled by a hidebound local industry. When my band toured Eastern Europe a couple of years ago we had full houses despite having sold literally no records in most of those countries. Thank you internets.