‘I want to do things in a way that is consistent with my personal philosophy of independence, self-determination, absolute total honesty, and common sense,” is how Steve Albini summed up his approach to making records in a 1994 interview with Chicago magazine. Whether you saw the musician and recording engineer, who has died aged 61, as a bastion of ethics in a broken industry, a tape-obsessed iconoclast, an underground historian, or a proto-edgelord with the unusual ability to evolve, there is no disputing that he stuck to these beliefs.
There aren’t many people in the game who do that, and fewer still who leave behind a legacy that can be said to have shaped the narrative of modern alternative music, from Big Black to PJ Harvey, Nirvana to Joanna Newsom. Here are 10 of Albini’s best records as both a bandleader and analogue-zealot studio genius.
