Steve Albini on being an artist
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- Опубликовано: 5 фев 2025
- From the DVD extras of "D.I.Y. OR DIE: Burn This DVD" (the DVD of my film "D.I.Y. OR DIE: How To Survive as an Independent Artist")
www.diyordie.org
Interview: Kime Phuong Le
Camera: Jonathan Buchanan
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I could listen to this guy talk all day
late 2001. backstage at a Shellac show in Chicago.
Control of the means of music/record production is infinitely more important than turning a "profit". Selling out gives the means of production to bosses, who are totally profit-driven. As a musician, you no longer have control or the ability to make decisions.
R.I.P. Steve Albini
What amazes me is that in the days of Big Black, he used to hang up the phone when Major Labels called him, how did he know these things even then?
I would imagine you would need to see yourself or others get taken advantage of before you could know what the labels were capable of.
He's a smart guy.
keeblin he observed major labels court and then abuse a lot of the bands that he produced for like Nirvana, Jawbreaker, Urge Overkill (I'm not sure he produced them. But had a close relationship with them on T+G)
@@pchopgoogle2565those bands are all after Big Black…
"When a band is thrust in front of me... wiggled like a severed head... it makes me hate them." I feel like radio has ruined a lot of decent bands for me that way.
and now 9 years later, sponsored social media ads of bands took on that same role
Now we’re getting fast food rapper meals being pushed on us.
honest,sincere and f**king genius!!
nothing more??? He's arguably part of three of the BEST noise bands ever that's all. Oh yeah, and he produces underground bands for cheap and overcharges signed bands.
Very good point. The essay is also essential reading in my view.
Dude, I love you and support you so much that I sat through that commercial hoping it got you something from Adsense.
Keep up the good work and I'll catch you down the road.
As a matter of fact Nirvana were thrust in front of me like that with their Nevermind album. Even in Germany there were huge billboards advertising the album everywhere. It felt as if Geffen really wanted this to be a success.
I was about 18 when all those early Sub Pop records came out and I had seen them during their Bleach-Tour with Tad promoting God's Balls, so I was eagerly awaiting their 2nd album at the time. I wouldn't go as far to claim that the campaign surounding it or the music itself made me hate them, but I certainly lost interest anyway.
Most people disagreed, though, and I guess it translated into money well enough! ;-)
Same feeling about Nevermind, i was 14-15, we all skated to a friend’s that got the tape - I thought euuwww yuk, “new-wave”…none of those chugga-chugga heavy hooks & kick drum beats, & guttural screaming badassness that Bleach had!
@@slimchance7748 Funny enough I also despised Soundgarden's Superunknown when it first came out, after I had so much admired Badmotorfinger's utter heaviness. I changed my mind later on and really got into that album. Never happened with Nevermind, though.
@IntristicValue
Have you watched the video of Steve Albini talking about the Music Industry? This video only shows a part of the interview.
RIP
my fucking hero
the man speaks sense
its true about everything though. not just music.
DVD extras, not film proper. He was so busy it took him a year to get to my email, and film was done.
RIP to a based human
For the record, he is the man and I agree with most of what he says.
This guy is a true musician, but not some idealist wannabe either. He is fuckin brilliant.
I guess I need to clarify that since people got hung up on two fuckin words I said and didn't read into it. I hate making these long specific comments but no one seems to get reading between the lines and figuring out meaning from anything! god
@Rankmoistmeat - To call Albini paranoid for not equating "industry" with terms like "trust" and "making friends" is a mistake, I think. You put them in ALL CAPS as though they couldn't be more obvious when I would think the opposite would be, if not the rule, at least the more feasable.
He's right. I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks like this.
I don't know why you thought that was directed at you but it wasn't.
@spicyMcHAGGIS9green
I have been in a punk band for years and never made a red cent
Surely that's punk?
"wiggled in front of me like a severed head" oh Steve... :) :) :)
In other words, diy, as much as possible
Can't help but agree with what he says about publicity, when shit indie bands are forced down your throat 24/7 you can't help but despise them.
@spicyMcHAGGIS9green
100% false, a lot of punk bands make negative..that's why you'll have to be willing to risk everything in order to do something you really love. That's why Albini had a side job back when he was in Big Black.
I'd love to ask him - without a tape recorder - what he had spoken to kurt cobain about throughout the In Utero sessions..... open ended question obviously.....
nobody is talking about the video at all. jesus. these yt comment wars are awful...
He says the Truth, as a live band..... Management takes a cut, Overhead takes a cut, what he doesn't realize is, You gotta spend Money to Make Money. Until you get a van, don't get a sound guy. Until you got a bus, don't get label management. When you got a bus, you can weigh the label..... Rock is a tough market, no one drinks, so successful rock clubs are few. You MUST SELL BEER, and as a side note, YOU MUST HAVE GOOD MUSIC! SELL BEER through music.
Sure he had an opinion, you have to have a place to start from or you’ll not be able to create anything. What I understood about him is he never took royalties and he tried to be fair to the artists he produced.
I have a suspicion that the people who bring up "rights" and "free speech" the most often have never themselves truly had their rights challenged or even threatened.
And if they are an American (which I am also) their "love" of America probably has more to do with hating other countries than appreciating their own.
Wow man, you have no idea how prophetic this was. It's only gotten soooo much worse
@tiki2188
Nah, he's just sarcastic..almost every true Punk rocker is.
Hes a "recordist"
I love how most of the idiotic comments below have NOTHING to do with this video
@tubbythug92
Every? No, but most. I don't see it as bad either.
As if no one could guess from my comments Im a pretentious asshole myself, and the fact is many alternative artists (and I include indie, prog, everything like that) are as well. Dont be off put by the word, it is what it is. I'd take being a pretentious asshole who's true and out for the music than anything else.
Just play live and make good music and do it all by yourself with the right people . When you think too much about a fuck up music bussines.. i think the art suffers from that.
@THEONETRUENEOSPHERE Why is it bullshit?
@spinozareagan Using "gay" as a pejorative term = worse than using some tedious internet word.
@IntristicValue you own slaves?
@easymac75 I don't know what you're talking about. I am an American and do not hate other countries, and am appalled by America's foreign policies and warmongering. Not everyone with a gun is a "USA! USA! Fuck yeah!" type.
@spinozareagan Using "gay" = fail
The title of this is quite misleading. Good talk tho.
But hey, if you're an American and you don't hate other countries then the sort of person I'm referencing must simply not exist, right?
@TyghtAlso They sound bad enough to me though.
it's hardly communism, I don't get your critique.
@IntristicValue
Too bad he's giving advice to the average person, and not to the exception who needs no advice. You'd think an intelligent man would understand something like that.
hahahahahah fantomas graffiti behind him on the wall
Hey I know this comment is From 11 years ago but I’m pretty sure it says Thomas. Hope you are well
to wit: if the band is not presented "artistically"- and as perhaps even "underground" but instead is using the commercial apparatus to promote itself... albini "hates" them. here we hit on the ancient musical cliche--- has the band gone, or not gone, commercial?. were the stones and beatles commercial?...absolutely. albini gives us the fan as artist pose- ever searching for truth and "authenticity" --- as doctrine. careful when marketing to the kids.
No particular woman....
you people argue about the most ridiculous shit in the comments. You may be talking about 'issues' but only that.
@spinozareagan using gay as an insult = just as bad
Schwul oder nicht, Albini hat uns das Leben erst möglich gemacht.
Der geniale Tontechniker hat weltweit für Strategien gegen die Enge gesort.
math sucks.
It was a joke, son. Sarcasm.
“Drink Kerosine”
BIG BLACK!!!!!!
@spinozareagan fail
fine, before the Internet made bands into beggars taking literally everything they were offered
UR THE ONE THAT IS AWFUL !!! GAY !?!
...
...just kidding :) i'm awful :) Steven would hate us all passionately in our pettiness.
@IntristicValue Too many non sequiturs.
Steve Albini seems really paranoid when it comes to the music industry.
Like when he says that a booking agent wouldn't give a fuck about the well-being of a band that, however, had HIRED him, because surely they TRUSTED him, and had MADE FRIENDS with him.
Yea of course people often act in their own self-interest, but for a band and their booking agent, finding a mutually acceptable compromise will ultimately serve the band and the booking agent better than if they'd never come together.
" They're not earning the money, they're just doing things." Yeah, they're doing a job, which is earning money.