See Steve Albini Has Died

[Who Rattled Your Cage]

RIP.

Steve Albini, Storied Producer and Icon of the Rock Underground, Dies at 61

The Shellac and Big Black frontman, who recorded classic albums by Nirvana, Pixies, PJ Harvey, and more, died of a heart attack

pitchfork.com

 

[FactChecker]

Mildly curious to know if Albini ever mentioned Morrissey in an interview ever (they would never have worked together). He wouldn't have liked him but might have made an acid comment. Several other US extreme alternative acts like Ministry and others made sneering comments over the years, although he was the gateway into "altenative rock" for an awful lot of Americans in the early 90s.

 

[ZOOM FROM GLOOM]

Mildly curious to know if Albini ever mentioned Morrissey in an interview ever (they would never have worked together). He wouldn't have liked him but might have made an acid comment. Several other US extreme alternative acts like Ministry and others made sneering comments over the years, although he was the gateway into "altenative rock" for an awful lot of Americans in the early 90s.

No disrespect to Finn, but I would have loved it if Quarry was recorded and mixed by Albini.
Though, yes, I think we can safely say Albini
would not have worked with Morrissey. Then again, maybe for perverse reasons, Steve would have taken on the job. It would have been interesting, to say the least. I always wondered why Eno turned down the offer to work with M. Another missed opportunity.


Really hope they keep his studio going, and that his engineers there pass along Steve’s recording techniques onto the next generation.

 

[Famous when dead]

There were a couple of possible connections a while back...
Would have been interesting.
FWD.

Mando's partner:

Matt:

 

[gashonthenail]

Songs About f***ing is a classic.

 

[BookishBoy]

I'm too much of a lame-assed indie kid to care about 99% of Albini's work (that's my problem not his, obviously!), but holy hell what he did with the Wedding Present's sound on Seamonsters was astonishing.

 

[nicky wire's legs]

Only 61?

 

[Famous when dead]

 

[Gregor Samsa]

The stark, physical sound on Songs: Ohia’s Magnolia Electric Co album is my foremost connection to Steve. What a visionary.

 

[FactChecker]

Some of the late 70s/post punk stuff he liked isn't so far away from what Johnny Marr was keen on as well: Wire, The Fall, as well as funk influences. They travelled off in completely different directions however.

There was an old My Bloody Valentine interview from the early 90s where Kevin Shields says UK 80s indie fans weren't just about The Smiths, there were people listening to Big Black as well. And of course The Wedding Present crossed between both worlds.

 

[Sal Kramer]

I was fortunate to see Shellac play live at the Knitting Factory in NYC in October of 2002. They were a force to be reckoned with.
I'm sure everyone on this site owns at least one record that Steve Albini produced. (Though he did not like that title. His credit was usually "Recorded by Steve Albini.")

 

[FactChecker]

Thinking a bit more about this over the past week, and re-reading various old interviews....

I see the divide between Marr and Albini coming over how they feel about 60s rock. Albini seems to be very much anti-Beatles, with a strong whiff of it being a punk purity test to hate them. There's an absolutely ancient and obscure fanzine article he did after John Lennon's assassination which is pretty much "who cares about a fake old hippy" (paraphrase). And a general distrust of the idea of the Rock Star as a Prophet/"Voice Of A Generation" - the US underground Albini was in aint never gonna get fooled again by any false teachers, which is why they detest The Clash as not real punks but respected the Pistols. The 60 rock they like is the more abrasive, transgressive variety, garage bands and The Stooges. Mainstream rock is only acceptable when its guys like Cheap Trick f***ing up the formula deliberately and not taking themselves seriously at all.

Whereas with Marr loves The Beatles and Rolling Stones but doesn't want to be a lazy imitator. He also loves plenty of the new wave and punk world as an infusion of new ideas. He doesn't mind doing big guitar blasts like "The Queen Is Dead" or "London" and leaving the feedback on the tape.

It wasn't technically impossible there could have been an Indie Guitar Hero Supergroup with Marr, Albini, Kevin Shields, with Kim Deal on bass, that could have made an interesting album, but Steve would have refused to take part. However in the few days since he died someone has put all his stuff on Spotify even though he was against it, so it's tragically inevitable that soon AI will be used to create weird "what if..." collages of musicians who never worked together.