RIP Steve Albini, who probably hated everything we love

 

Steve Albini's disdain for dance music was unequivocal—he didn't just dislike it, he "100 percent hated" it, along with the creators and consumers who embraced it.

Even in his later years, Albini engaged in a self-critical examination of his views. One headline capturing this evolution read, "If the dumbest person is on your side, you're on the wrong side," encapsulating his candid reflections. While Albini's disdain for dance music remained steadfast, he never retracted his scathing remarks, even amidst this introspection.

His antipathy toward dance music resembled a fervent rejection akin to a Christian's aversion to sin or a toddler's resistance to bedtime. Albini's animosity extended far beyond mere personal preference, serving as a blistering indictment of the entire ecosystem that birthed and perpetuated the genre.

This sentiment gained widespread attention when artist Powell sought clearance for a sample featuring Albini introducing a song at a Big Black gig from the '80s. Albini's response, reproduced on a billboard, candidly echoed his disdain for house music, its creators, consumers, venues, attire choices, and seemingly anything associated with it—past, present, or future. He harbored a deep-seated disdain for:

“its stupid simplicity, the clubs where it was played, the people who went to those clubs, the drugs they took, the shit they liked to talk about, the clothes they wore, the battles they fought amongst each other… basically all of it, 100 percent hated every scrap… The electronic music I liked was radical and different, shit like the White Noise, Xenakis, Suicide, Kraftwerk, and the earliest stuff form Cabaret Voltaire, SPK and DAF. When that scene and those people got co-opted by dance/club music I felt like we’d lost a war. I detest club culture as deeply as I detest anything on earth. So I am against what you’re into, and an enemy of where you come from.”

For those familiar with Steve Albini's presence in Chicago over the past three decades, his scathing critiques of electronic music were nothing new. Michaelangelo Matos recently compiled some of Albini's most memorable denunciations of electronic music, shedding light on the precursor to Powell's viral marketing campaign.

In a 1993 interview with Reactor, an early Chicago rave zine edited by Dave Prince, Albini expressed his disdain for dance music at the height of his notoriety. While he acknowledged punk as having significant merit, he dismissed dance music as a "delusional pretension," arguing that it lacked substance worthy of serious consideration.

““[Anyone who thinks] that taking ecstasy and dancing with a bunch of teenagers out in the middle of a cow pasture is some sort of political statement … that’s so utterly preposterous on its face that anybody who takes it seriously has got to be completely brain-dead. I suppose while under the influence, even an idea as ridiculous as that can maintain your attention for a short period of time, but there’s got to be some hours of the day when these people aren’t on drugs.”

 

Fifteen years later he found dance music still twitching and pulled out his bat to deliver a few more whacks:

“I basically hate dance music, and I don’t mean music of traditional dances like folk music, I mean music made since the disco era for the purpose of dancing drives me insane. When I’m forced to endure that music, it’s about the only music that actually irritates me.”

 During a Reddit AMA in 2012, Steve Albini provided a concise historical overview of house music in three sentences. The first sentence contained inaccuracies, the second was largely accurate, and the third offered a critique that was not unfair.

“Interestingly, here in Chicago the term ‘house’ originally just meant music that would get the room (the house) excited. House music could as likely be deep cuts from old soul records as disco tracks, live hotmixes or Kraftwerk. Like the term ‘punk’ (or most things, really) once it lost its original meaning and got formalized into a single style it lost most of its appeal.”

Many within the Chicago dance music scene held a deep admiration for Steve Albini, viewing him as a revered figure among audiophiles. His unwavering ethics and dedication to what he deemed important resonated with those who valued authenticity. Albini staunchly advocated for artists and fans, dismissing others in the industry, such as lawyers and managers, as mere nuisances or worse, parasites.

During the late '80s and '90s, there was significant overlap between various scenes, particularly centered around influential establishments like the Wax Trax record store and Medusa's nightclub. Despite any offense taken to Albini's criticisms of certain music or artists, many recognized his perspective as just one of many, albeit with a unique background and viewpoint.

While Albini may not have fully grasped the appeal of electronic music, especially from the perspective of those outside his own experiences, he eventually acknowledged the validity of differing viewpoints. As he reflected on his own limitations, he recognized that others might have different perspectives, and sometimes, they were even correct.

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