Steve Albini : What Are The Best/Worst Albums He's Engineered?

Worst: did he work with Garbage?

Worst: Any records where he completely hides the vocals underneath a "really good guitar sound"

his engineering on Whitehouse records is excellent.

Also, the Breeders' "Pod" was purty amazing at the time.

I'd rather not delve into his awful mix jobs; IMO his approach only works with a select few bands, so his what-you-hear-is-what-you-get approach usually doesn't work to these ears.

I love that he made Dirty Three's Ocean Songs sound so dry and dusty. And if you compare McLusky's My Sadness And Pain Is More Painful And Sad Than Yours with the Albini-recorded McLusky Do Dallas, it's obvious that Albini made that band. As for subpar recordings, I thought that he could have done a lot better with Jawbreaker's 24 Hour Revenger Therapy.

Personally, I think that he did a huge discredit to GSY!BE by removing the tape-experiments/edits/mixing and samples. Pursuing an 'authentic' record of the actual tracks that the band creates (the raw materials) is a creative injustice.

This seconds Jim's comments - getting the material down on tape, then fucking up the post-production, or simply removing it. Like, leading the band out into the public eye, naked.

I've heard another album he's done with them, really spiff stuff.

Best: Surfer Rosa

My least favourite (maybe because it's a little far from Albini-type aggressive indie rock bands): The Auteurs - After Murder Park

-- chuck (cedd...), July 23rd, 2003.

I strongly disagree, because his seemingly-capricious tampering with the volume heightens the wavering emotional tension in these songs, whether or not this was his intention to do so. Which makes them more easily relatable to a seriously disturbed listener's emotional mood swings; the fluctuating volume level nicely coheres to the undulating passive-aggression, as it is expressed in alternately brisk whispers and fierce ululations, with the expected catharsis either never being achieved, or belatedly arriving in ramshackle form at the end of each song. This is just the method in which highly repressed emotions are experienced when they resurface for the first time in one who's been emotionally abused: in fits, spurts, in a scattered and "random" manner, with the memory unsuccessfully trying to block out or lower the scale of these sharp, serrated feelings that have been buried alive for so long. The volume should be left on high for every one of these neglected feelings to be safely and wholly released, as they've been struggling to get out so badly..

The versions of these songs on Rid of Me remain superior to the ones on 4-Track Demos for precisely this reason: the Albini production gives them more texture, and subsequently more depth, by alternating the volume and pinpointing the ambiguity that such sonic contrast embodies. My words here are in direct opposition to the thoughts that Mr. Stephen Thomas Erlewine has expressed on this album, elsewhere.

For example, take "Rub 'Til it Bleeds" --> on 4-Track Demos, it's slower, clearer, and more consistent in sound, elongating its emotional reverberations and therefore, diluting them. On Rid of Me parts of it are whispered menacingly, parts of it are shrieked, and parts are wholly inaudible, with the tension rising and falling at each chorus and a relatively longer "aaaaaaand" in the middle, before the mad attack of agonizing threats of I'LL RUB IT, UNTIL IT at the end. And I think this is the way Polly, or the listener in whom the song strikes a moment of emotional relatedness, experiences either an overwhelmingly disturbing emotion or an overwhelmingly disturbing emotion's memory (the "and you believed me" - line suggests the entire song is sparked by the memory of a horrific incident in the past): in a non-linear, unpredictable, jagged manner, with the pitch of feeling very strong in some moments, and more faded in others.

the insanity of RID OF ME - "polarizing" production and all - saved my life, as it helped me come to terms with my own insanity. so perhaps I'm biased

yeah i thought this was a threda revival.

*shudder*

Giddy Motors "Make it Pop" -- they actually sound a lot like Shellac.
A Whisper in the Noise "Through the Ides of March"
Cinerama "Disco Volante". I really like his work on Gedge projects.

Generally, I prefer his work on cinematic records to punk stuff. Yeah, I'm an Albini junkie, I'll admit it.

Dislike..."In Utero"? ;-)

STEVE ALBINI

Obscure/Unknown/Underappreciated Steve Albini produced recordings

OPO/POO: Steve Albini

Drums on Surfa Rosa really rock my world too.

Don't really know much else of Albini's work, but the from what I've heard his drums and vocal recording is fantastic.

On his punk/rock recordings I feel that he typically goes for tinny rather than bassy.

Mclusky Do Dallas sounds incredible. Mclusky is a good band, but Albini's tweakings here makes them godlike.

That Chevelle album... Point 1 I think... the songwriting is weak, but the sound is sweet.

NOW... knowing Albini to be a Lightning Bolt fan, how nice would it be to hear that band done proper?

Worst: Silkworm "Developer" (according to some)

NOW... knowing Albini to be a Lightning Bolt fan, how nice would it be to hear that band done proper?

Yea, for real.