63 Facts About Steve Albini

Steven Frank Albini was an American musician and audio engineer.

Steve Albini earned a degree in journalism at Northwestern University, Illinois, and wrote for local zines in Chicago.

Steve Albini formed Big Black in 1981 and recruited Santiago Durango and Dave Riley.

Steve Albini formed Shellac with Bob Weston and Todd Trainer in 1992, with whom he released several albums, including At Action Park and 1000 Hurts ; To All Trains was released ten days after his death.

Steve Albini refused to take royalties on albums he worked on, operating fee-only.

Steve Albini founded the Chicago recording studio Electrical Audio in 1997, dedicated to recording a sharp live sound at a cheap price.

Steve Albini was an adherent to analog recording, and praised the increasing independence in music resulted by the internet.

Steve Albini was infamous for authoring transgressive art as a reaction to people taking artistic compromises; Albini expressed regret for this past mindset in his final years.

Steven Frank Albini was born in Pasadena, California, to Gina and Frank Addison Albini.

Steve Albini was Italian American, and some of his family are from the Piedmont region of Northern Italy.

Steve Albini was introduced to the Ramones by a schoolmate when he was 14 or 15.

Steve Albini bought every Ramones recording available to him and credits his career to their first album.

At 17, Steve Albini was involved in a severe road accident, being struck by a car while riding his motorcycle, which resulted in a serious leg injury.

Steve Albini said that he studied painting in college with Ed Paschke, someone he calls a brilliant educator and "one of the only people in college who actually taught me anything".

Steve Albini co-managed Ruthless Records with John Kezdy of the Effigies and Jon Babbin.

Steve Albini formed Big Black in 1981 while he was a student at Northwestern and recorded their debut EP Lungs, released on Ruthless Records.

Steve Albini played all of the instruments on Lungs except the saxophone, played by his friend John Bohnen.

Also, it caught the attention of Robert Plant, who later chose Steve Albini to produce Walking Into Clarksdale, his album with Jimmy Page.

In 2023, Steve Albini said he had become embarrassed by the name.

Steve Albini formed Shellac in 1992 with Bob Weston and Todd Trainer.

Steve Albini died ten days before the release of their seventh studio album To All Trains.

Steve Albini became widely known after recording the 1988 Pixies album Surfer Rosa.

Steve Albini did not see himself as a record producer, which he defined as someone completely responsible for a recording session.

Steve Albini left creative decisions to the artist and saw it as his job to satisfy them.

Steve Albini felt that putting producers in charge often destroyed records, and that the role of the recording engineer was to solve technical problems, not to threaten the artist's creative control,.

Steve Albini felt that his involvement in recording was unimportant and sometimes created public relations problems for acts, or could distract from the record.

Steve Albini refused to accept royalties, preferring to charge a fixed fee.

At the time of his death, Steve Albini charged $900 a day, less than a quarter of the rate a producer of his experience would typically charge.

Steve Albini was a vocal critic of major labels and artists, but would work with anyone who requested his service regardless of their style or ability.

Steve Albini required no audition, only an expectation that the act would take their work seriously.

In 2004, Steve Albini estimated that he had engineered 1,500 records.

Steve Albini was influenced by the English producer and engineer John Loder, who recorded numerous early punk records quickly and cheaply.

Steve Albini advocated analog recording, believing it would be irresponsible to give clients digital files as masters, as he feared emerging digital formats risked become unusable in later formats.

Steve Albini preferred to record bands together in live takes rather than overdub, believing this created the most natural result.

Steve Albini aimed to create a faithful document of the performance, and said "I would be very happy if my fingerprints weren't possible".

Steve Albini used few effects and little compression, preferring to preserve dynamics and "hear the band rather than the machine".

Steve Albini wrote that producers and engineers who raise the vocals in the mix to make the music "sound more like the Beatles" were pandering to commercial interests.

Pitchfork wrote that Steve Albini "captured the quiet and the loud all at once".

Steve Albini disputed his reputation for working with "hard-hitting grunge bands" and for imposing an "uncompromising sound", saying he had recorded hundreds of acoustic albums and that he did not impose his taste on his clients.

Steve Albini said most artists wanted him to create an "organic" sound.

Steve Albini charged a flat fee, with higher rates for major label artists and more affordable prices for smaller bands.

Steve Albini preferred not to be credited and would seemingly work with any artist who reached out to him.

In 2018, Steve Albini said the reduction in the power of record labels over the preceding 25 years had reduced the prevalence of producers who are there only to exert artistic control over the recording.

Steve Albini saw the increasing affordability of high-quality recording gear as a positive development, as it allowed bands greater freedom to record without studios.

Steve Albini argued that record companies exploit artists and illustrated how bands can remain in debt even after selling hundreds of thousands of albums.

Steve Albini presented a hypothetical financial breakdown for a rock band with a $250,000 record deal, showing that while the label earned $710,000 and the producer made $90,000, each band member received only $4,031.25.

In November 2014, Steve Albini delivered the keynote speech at the Face the Music conference in Melbourne, Australia, in which he discussed the evolution of the music industry over his career.

Steve Albini described the pre-internet corporate industry as "a system that ensured waste by rewarding the most profligate spendthrifts in a system specifically engineered to waste the band's money", which aimed to perpetuate its structures and business arrangements while preventing almost all but the biggest acts from earning a living.

Steve Albini contrasted it with the independent scene, which encouraged resourcefulness and established an alternative network of clubs, promoters, fanzines, DJs and labels, and whose greater efficiency allowed musicians to make a reasonable income.

Steve Albini argued that the increased availability of recorded music stimulates demand for live music, boosting artists' income.

From 1983 to 1986, Steve Albini wrote for the newly launched Chicago music magazine Matter.

Steve Albini frequently expressed a general dislike for pop music, which he said was "for children and idiots".

Steve Albini disliked electronic dance music and the club scene.

Steve Albini was noted for his abrasive views throughout his career, especially during the 1980s, when his bluntness was regarded in the alternative rock scene as a sign of authenticity.

In 1994, after albums by Urge Overkill, the Smashing Pumpkins and Liz Phair brought new attention to the Chicago music scene, Steve Albini wrote a letter to the Chicago Reader music critic Bill Wyman titled "Three Pandering Sluts and Their Music-Press Stooge".

Steve Albini described the songwriter Courtney Love in print as a "psycho hose-beast".

Steve Albini added he had falsely assumed that many social problems, such as misogyny and homophobia, were already solved, especially as the underground musical communities he moved in were "broadly inclusive".

Steve Albini often treated fascism and authoritarianism as jokes in his younger years, and regretted that he did not foresee what he saw as a resurgence of these ideas.

Steve Albini avoided drugs and alcohol; his father was an alcoholic, which made him aware of his "own vulnerability to addiction".

Steve Albini maintained a food blog, documenting meals he had cooked for Whinna.

Steve Albini appeared on the food show Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown.

Steve Albini was an avid poker player, particularly in mixed games.

Steve Albini died from a heart attack at his home in Chicago, on May 7,2024, at the age of 61.