as well as being an arrogant one?
Scroll down the responses in the link.
First he just says anything electronic is shit. Then the simplistic rockism that it requires no talent. Then, ok it may require skills but its still shit. Then goes on to say he does like some electronic music, but all other electronic music is shit, even stuff he hasn't heard. This from the guy that produced Whitehouse’s albums from the 90s and thinks they produce some of the most challenging and intelligent music. How the fuck is Whitehouse more complex and ‘worthy’ than Burial????? Wtf?
it is albini
for fucks sake, of course he's a cunt, why would you want it any other way?
Ha ha
he's a wind up merchant
dont take him so seriously
I dunno, i've never met him.
I have heard Songs About Fucking though and on that basis i like him an awful lot.
haha
OTM
This guy has it right
'I wouldn't take Steve's opinion of this or that electronic music any more seriously than I would Jay-Z's opinion of this or that doom metal band.'
I love Albini's music but I don't particularly care for some of his opinions.
Well, he's partly right
Burial is shite.
^
my face is currently
a very ..err..po'd one.
what a tit though. i love all of his music.
but.
wot a tit.
I'm going to repeat that in ym head all day.
*my
Albini is a bit like Wrighty
with musical talent
Ha ha
i've read quite a few interviews with him
and i've always got the impression that he's pretty okay, just playing up to his arrogant cunt image, it's mostly quite funny.
i'll give him credit
for one cool angle when calling rap the 'dumbest genre' ever for example. Basically if his diatribe against rap wasn't predicated on a disclaimer that he grew up and socialised in a white male dominated rock n roll society and therefore limited in his tastes-i'd call him a racist motherfucker...or wrightywrew..but he completely pre-empts that charge..he's just aa ignorant motherfucker.
Funny how his production reminds me a fair bit of rap production though...
I can really see him producing an awesome Dalek album, or something on Def Jux. Loads of grindy stripped up beats, would be ace.
He's a bit of a tool yes, but he's Steve Albini. He made his name by creating a vitriolic persona in his writings for fanzines- see Our Band Could Be Your Life for details on that. I'm certain he is calculatedly pushing buttons to piss people off. But as someone quotes above it is kind of like asking the wrong person for an opinion on this particular subject.
* ripped up
seriously?
i'm not into a massive amount of hip hop, but sonically i can't see much common ground between it and anything he's produced.
powerful drums,
live organic gritty sound. etc.
probably not masses of stuff like Kanye West and the smoother stuff that floods today's markets
but a lot of the left field hip hop is similar. And to take an example like Public Enemy or Beastie Boys, I think the similarities become clear. Listen to Jay-Z's 99 Problems and tell me the ghost of Albini isn't haunting the production there...
I could even pick some similarities between Burial, who he lambasts there, and his own work....
You joking!
Are you not getting him mixed up with Rick Rubin?
Surely the hip hop drum sound is more likely influenced by the loud drums in funk and soul from the 70s rather than Silkworm albums or something?
.
the man's a joker and he likes it that way
He did a wicked job
on YCNI:M'S All Roads to fault album in my humble opinion!
A
genius and a cunt!
yeh I think he likes it that way, its the way hes always been
haha whitehouse
my life hasnt been the same since hearing those guys
get ony our kneeeeeeeeeeeeeees you caaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan!
and stick that tampon up your arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrse.
But you're doing hte right thing.
Well
anyone who questions whether the proverbial emperor of Burial actually has any clothes is good in my book (not that I happen to dislike 'Untrue', just, you know...), and if those people happen to have been responsible for 'Songs About Fucking' as well, then...
He's very opinionated
- hey! - a lot like we are. And he's got a point. Lemme tell you how many people have claimed to be musicians and then when I ask them what instrument(s) they play they say, "None." Wtf?! Just because you can rhyme "gun" with "one" doesn't make you a musician!!
It's pretty much one of those
damned if you do, damned if you don't musical debates.
Each side has a point, but equally there is a massive hole in each side's argument. I think albini realises that partway through the debate as he starts to backpedal quite frantically.
steve albini
the same one who was in one of the first loud rock bands to use a drum machine and who released a kraftwerk cover as a single?
^ i was thinking this
alcxxk 1
Steve Albini 0
no, i'mjust saying
that he clearly doesnt hate all electronic music. he basically single handedly invented industrial, as far as i'm aware (well, Out Band Could Be Your Life says that Ministry basicaly took his ideas and ran with them)
obviously industrial is semi-electronic, non "club" dance music, but still, electronic/non organic elements
it was before i actually read his thread tho (see below)
killing joke and the gristle
i would say they got there first.
wereTG actually industrial?
anddid KJ have a drum machine track before the first BB record?
i dont know cos i know shit all about tg and kj, and dont even like bb much
i dont think kj did, but
the sound was very processed and robotic and 'industrial'. first album in 79, and i think you can definitely hear an influence on big black.
the genre is named after throbbing gristle's record label, their first album was 77.
TG
Throbbing Gristle 'invented' it, I suppose, but if you want a precursor to Big Black etc, check out Chrome.
hmm
add justin broadrick to the industrial pioneer list
but
"Making records from previously-existing components (via editing) is obviously easier than writing, performing and recording music made up from scratch. It is easier in the same way it is easier to play a piano than it is to build one and then play it. I don't think even the loudest defenders of this idiom would deny this."
is bullshit
as someone who plays lots of instruments and has over the last year or two started producing electronic music, coming up with something satisfying on a computer using samples is way harder than knocking out some semi interesting guitar riff. the "building a piano" comment is bullshit, and supposes that rock music is completely original in every instance
Yeah,
I've just started making little hip-hop beats with my new SP-303 and it's far more difficult than banging out a verse/bridge/chorus thing on my guitar.
But would it be harder if you'd originally started by making electronic music?
I reckon all in all, if you took two people with little to no prior musical knowledge and told one to make electronic music and another to write the next 'Atlas' or 'Waiting Room' or whatever, the electronic one would come up with something faster.
are you calling atlas electronic?
Wait a minute
just a pedants note but to say BB invented the use of drum machines in rock is too ignore what Suicide were doing at the start of the 70's, so don't. Plus if you are going to mention TG don't forget Caberet Voltaire and SPK.
suicide were hardly a rock band
i'd say they were a
very good example.
music trivia that probably everyone knows: state trooper by bruce springsteen was heavily influenced by suicide's self titled record.
nah, I just picked two great catchy songs.
i read
all 23 pages of that thread and all it did was confuse me.
i think burial is brilliant but obviously some people don't, fair game.
I can't thinkof one single rapper
who would actually give a shit what Steve Albini thinks about them.
in sort of related news
http://www.thehoodinternet.com/2007/08/r-kelly-vs-shellac.html