Steve Albini's Death Shed Light on Music Industries Shortcomings
Legendary music producer Steve Albini died this week of a heart attack at 61. Albini was best known for his prolific work ethic, producing thousands of albums in his lifetime. A couple of classics from his producing discography include Nirvana’s In Utero, PJ Harvey’s Rid of Me, and The Pixies’s Surfer Rose. He also had a pretty prolific career as a bass player in multiple noise-rock and post-hardcore bands. I won’t lie I really only knew of this man for his involvement with In Utero, but his death caused a resurfacing of many of his strong opinions about the music industry. Many of these opinions come from a very well-known article he wrote in 1993 titled “The Problem with Music.”
This article is an incredibly detailed breakdown of the financials in the music industry. Famously, Albini says that a band (mind you, this is in the 90’s) selling 250,000 records would make a third less than working at 7-11 after all of the BS that the record labels take. He goes in-depth into how record label middlemen use their street cred to buddy up with bands and then create unfavorable/complicated contracts for the bands. It is a little outdated with the advent of streaming, but the idea still remains. Albini also goes in on how capitalistic forces push the music industry into homogenization. He comes at it from a producer's perspective, talking about how the production style in the early 90’s tried to make everyone sound like they were making beer commercials. His points are interesting, and I think they translate pretty well to producers trying to TikTokify their music. This reminded me of a recent Zane Lowe interview with Ezra Koenig where Koenig discussed how a modern “We Are The World” would be incredibly boring because of how homogenous everybody sounds. Albini also believes that producers shouldn’t get royalties and famously didn’t receive royalties for In Utero. Albini’s segment with Anthony Bourdain on Parts Unknown also resurfaced this week as he presented similar views to the 1993 article.
Watch the Parts Unknown segment here
Read Albini’s famous article here
The song of the summer has been released, ladies. No, I’m not talking about " me espresso” (I love that song, though). Charli XCX finally released her fourth single from her upcoming album, “360.” It's a thrilling, rave-inspired dance track that describes our collective obsession with her. “When you look in the mirror, do you like what you see? / When you look in the mirror, you’re just looking at me?” absolutely gooped and gagged me. To go along with the iconic, hot girl voyeur themes of the song, Charli enlists a slew of internet “it” girls for the “360” music video. Rachel Sennott, Julia Fox, Chloe Cherry, Chloe Sevigny, etc. There is a tad bit too much self-awareness in the beginning as all the girls are sitting around a table contemplating who the next internet hot girl will be. They say they must find the next one, or else “their kind will cease to exist.” A playful take on the niche internet micro-celebrity factory that many of these “hot girls” come from.
While I love Charli and am feasting on all these new tracks, the amount that I am plugged into her community causes me to be overexposed to the snippets for each of these singles. I swear I heard the snippet for “Von Dutch” every day for a month. The track slaps, but when I listened to it in full for the first time, I was really thinking, “Is that it?” I felt this to a lesser extent with “360,” but I still felt like the chorus was overexposed to me. There is some deep thought here about TikTok and the music industry, but I’ll leave that to the professionals.
I wanted to highlight two albums this week that I absolutely adored. The first is Kamasi Washington’s Fearless Movement. The legendary jazz saxophonist released his most weirdly accessible album yet. I became aware of Washington because of his contributions to tracks on To Pimp a Butterfly. His playing on “U” and “Mortal Man” elevated some of the best jazz rap ever. Around this time, Washington released The Epic, an almost 3-hour avant-garde masterpiece. From this album, Washington became known for incredibly fast-paced sax-playing and sweeping psychedelic/spiritual arrangements. “Changing of the Guard” is a really powerful highlight from this album. I have seen some criticism (pitchfork) saying that Washington didn’t master this different form of Jazz as well as his sweeping epics. I have to disagree. The Epic will be Kamasi Washington’s Kind of Blue, but Fearless Movement will be his In A Silent Way (where my Miles Davis heads). There are surprising amounts of vocals on this album. Many tracks feel like a funk-jazz or rap-jazz fusion. There are even moments that sound like traditional movie scores (“Interstellar Peace”). This album feels like Washington is showing off his range. Despite this, there are still classic Kamasi Washington moments. “Prologue” is a great example of this. Sweeping and speedy, “Prologue” evokes great tracks from The Epic. This album is great, and Pitchfork are hater :).
The last album I wanted to talk about this week is Ibibo Sound Machine’s Pull The Rope. An afro-funk band that incorporates a lot of English electronic influence. I am amazed at the melding of these two genres. The electronics are fresh and funky and they complement the rhythms and vocals so well. “Fire” and “Rope” are standouts from this album for me. Also the cover is very aesthetically pleasing.
Thanks for reading :) besos <3
Jonny’s Songs of the Week:
Prologue - Kamasi Washington
Garden Path - Kamasi Washington
360 - Charli XCX
Fire - Ibibo Sound Machine
Pull The Rope - Ibibo Sound Machine
Dirty Work (From Hacks Season 3) - King Princess
Damn - Kacy Hill
World on a String - Jessica Pratt
Maria - Dua Lipa
