Steve Albini makes a living out of heaping scorn, along with the occasional release from his band Shellac. It is this attitude that the mainstream music industry is evil that attracts him so many followers and so much business. When Nirvana wanted to prove to the world that they were still ‘independent’, they went to Steve Albini to seek his blessing for the album “In Utero”.
Today Steve went back to his roots, deciding to take on the famous indie band, or moderately successful mainstream one Sonic Youth. According to Steve in his GQ interview, Sonic Youth basically squandered a prime opportunity to continue to expand the independent music scene. Instead, they worked as scouts, searching for other indie rock to co-opt into the mainstream. He even did one of his famous “Now I don’t want to say they were wrong, but they basically ruined everything for everyone.”
All of this of course harkens back to his now famous article “The Problem with Music”. Anyone speaking to Mr. Albini first has to prepare themselves for the most caustic response imaginable when they ask:
“What do you think about bands that sign to major labels?”
Usually he’ll say “They are ignorant fools who will be indentured servants to their corporate music master for an indeterminate period of time” or something less nice. He’ll then pull out that excel spreadsheet that describes exactly how doomed they are. Perhaps he might even tell those future major label signers to take jobs at 7/11 instead, since after all fees are paid for, they’ll have almost nothing.
Weirdly, it sounds like his evisceration is getting less biting. Maybe it has to do with him getting old, not being able to muster the bile he used to have. Some of what he said even sounded nice, like how he was happy that festivals existed to treat bands properly. He even said how good treatment can be good business, which is shocking since business is never something he’s endorsed before.
The second shock had to be an admission of him: that had he been in the same position as these bands were at 18, he might have signed a contract as well. Fortunately, no talent scout ever got near Steve before he transformed into the lovable curmudgeonly rocker we all know and love. If that happened, we might not have gotten such bands as Big Black, Shellac, and the notoriously named band Rapeman.
So yeah, Steve Albini deserves a medal. It is hard to be this angry all of the time; he’s like the Lewis Black of indie rock. Plus, he calls out a lot of the grossness that other musicians are either willfully ignoring or complicit. Thanks to his tireless efforts on this front (and the advent of the internet) great deals of bands have avoided needless exploitation. And for that, Steve deserves a medal.