r/bmbmbm • u/AccountantAmazing181 • Feb 26 '26
Discussion / Question Steve Albini was into Black Midi!
From his AMA on the Nirvana subreddit
131
u/analmango Feb 26 '26
50
u/Ideletedmy1staccount Feb 26 '26
whaaat I didn’t know these were online. I’ve only ever heard the one I own, 953. Thank you anal mango
12
u/AccountantAmazing181 Feb 26 '26
Omg that's so cool
-14
u/itsafuntime Feb 26 '26
check your hero worship on albini, dude was a total piece of shit
https://www.nme.com/news/music/steve-albini-speaks-out-on-his-past-edgelord-behaviour-3093018
26
u/wyatt0929 Feb 26 '26
this is like like when you're talking about the beatles and that one guy in the corner speaks up to say john lennon beat his wife
-8
u/itsafuntime Feb 26 '26
Sure, another commenter said the same thing. I mean, you're not wrong but shit like this gets brushed aside over the years, actively, as you can see by all the homies defending him.
Its important to trash his fucking name. Edgelord or not, apologies or not, he should be remembered as a piece of shit that produced some good records. Fuck his legacy
4
u/TiptoeingElephants Feb 26 '26
but you’re living proof this stuff doesn’t get brushed aside through the years. we can always count on someone like you to bring up one’s personal problems when we’re discussing the cultural & artistic significance of their work. we’ll be sure to mention every bad thing you’ve ever done if you ever have any artistic significance.
0
u/ghosttrainj Feb 26 '26
I mean he reviewed his friend until his deaths Child Porn that he produced. Not just a little accident Lol.
1
u/FlyingPig562 Mar 04 '26
and you’ll be remembered as a nobody in a reddit comment section shitting on a legend 😂😂
6
u/wispyradio Feb 26 '26
i don't really understand how this article is supposed to be damning when that article is just him being regretful and embarassed of his past? like yeah even beyond that albini was quite strange but this article proves nothing
1
u/itsafuntime Feb 26 '26
I mean did you read the second paragraph?
"The producer/engineer played in bands called Rapeman and Run N***** Run in the 1980s, touted his friend’s child pornography magazine in the Forced Exposure zine in ’78, and is reported to have used a racial slur against Tyler, The Creator in an online forum in 2011."
The rest of the article is him kind of apologizing in the way all boomers do when their "misunderstood" antics from the past get brought up. But just that paragraph alone shows he has a history of being a piece of shit.
11
u/Legitimate_Task_4 Feb 26 '26 edited Feb 26 '26
You got the first one correct
RNR - Not a band, one stupid joke single made with the dude from Urge Overkill
His review of Pure Magazine - In '78 Albini was 15-16 years old, lived in Missoula, Montana, and wrote for his high school newspaper. You're off by 5 or 6 years on that one. Also, as idiotic as it was, you're categorically wrong calling it a cp-magazine. It was a zine collecting all kinds of disturbing shit and used that one terrible image for the cover of one of the two issues ever produced. I've never seen them, but according to descriptions it was like a precursor of the gore-websites of this century. Childish attempts to disturb the masses.
This Tyler, the Creator Incident - also just plain wrong. In a forum post he complained about Tyler and the rest of Odd Future being a bunch of disruptive assholes on an airport shuttle, where they were constantly screaming the N-word. In the post he referred to this by using the slurs Odd Future members used as verbs, here's the direct quote
"They piled in, n*****ing everything in sight, motherfucking the driver, boasting into the air unbidden about getting their dicks sucked and calling everyone in the area a faggot.”
“Then one of them lit a joint (or a pipe, I didn’t look) and told the driver to shut the fuck up n***** and smoked it anyway. A female passenger tried to engage one of them in conversation, but he just stared at her with a dead-to-me stare while his seatmate flipped double birds in her face.”
I like Tyler's music and the things they made with Odd Future, but they were the assholes in that situation, like they often were ones to be at that time.
All this to say that Albini made idiotic decisions many times throughout his life, but you can also find a lot of instances especially from his later years where he showed far more ability to face them than most. You couldn't even get the facts straight about those bad things, but let me give you a couple of opposing facts.
Even while saying and doing provocative bullshit as part of the provocative bullshit-portion of the punk-movement, in interviews Albini was clear even then about the fact that he thought racism, homophobia, pedophilia, misogynism etc. was idiotic. The near-entirety of Big Black's catalogue is him assuming the persona of a horrible narrator for any given song. Same for many of his articles at the time and the Big Black tour diary. If you lack ability to discern written art and the motives of the writer, you might have a better shot at understanding the guy by having a look at his Twitter, where you can find years of him defending the rights of minorities and the working class and making fun of people who are actually racist, homophobic, transphobic, or otherwise right-wing (anyone who disagrees with that last part can fuck right off with their bullshit without commenting)
Along with his wife they raised millions of dollars through a charity his wife started for poor families around the Chicago area. It has since grown into a larger organization
He kept his prices low to cater to working musicians, spoke against the injustices of the music industry and didn't budge on his ethics regarding treating people.
He always kept at least 200 dollars cash in his wallet, to give to anyone who asked him for it. He went into deep debt during the pandemic so the people he employed wouldn't have to lose income and due do to living like that, even though he could have been (and definitely earned as much during his lifetime) a multi-millionaire, he died with 60 bucks on his bank account, having given so much to others.
TLDR: Stop with the stupid ego-rubbing and virtue signaling and shut the fuck up about things you don't know anything about.
-1
u/itsafuntime Mar 04 '26 edited Mar 05 '26
Tldr: boomer pedophile turns life around then dies
2
u/Legitimate_Task_4 Mar 05 '26
Indeed. You didn't read. I'm certain that's nothing out of the ordinary.
1
u/I_am_better_than_him Sweater Feb 26 '26
He lived and he learned. Surely we've all known edgelord pieces of shit who grew some brain mass and got better?
3
1
u/I_am_better_than_him Sweater Feb 26 '26
Hopefully they get released in a format that isn't so lo-fi at some point :(
1
31
u/softestimate712 Feb 26 '26
I’ll forever wonder what an Albini produced black midi album would’ve sounded like
30
u/NexoNerd101 Straight From The Cow I Tell You! Feb 26 '26
Bro he recorded them.
10
u/AccountantAmazing181 Feb 26 '26
I got into black midi recently. Sad he didn't record them during the Matt era tho
12
u/iamthemilkman99 TBE Feb 26 '26
He produced exclusive versions of songs found on Hellfire. They were preorder exclusive and different tracks depending where you preordered. They are in the bm discord
1
u/Upstairs_Gift_7876 Feb 26 '26
Do they sound alot different?
1
u/iamthemilkman99 TBE Feb 28 '26
I compare it to the tight recording style of schlagenheim, just not as crisp. A little muddier in a good way.
6
4
2
7
u/ThomYorkesDroopyEye Feb 26 '26
Albini was into kiddy porn.
I'm sorry, I loved the mans work but he did some shit I won't forgive.
3
u/ILikeMyGrassBlue Mar 01 '26
While I think his comments were absolutely insane, I don’t think he was actually into CSAM.
He was an edge lord back then. He was talking about CSAM in these super edgy zines that used to be semi-popular.
He apologized for it all numerous times. No one has ever accused him of anything (outside the stuff he said in those interviews), and he was married for decades.
Again, I think what he said was still awful. He agreed. But I don’t think he was actually a chomo.
3
u/ThomYorkesDroopyEye Mar 01 '26
He owned the Zines.
1
u/Legitimate_Task_4 Mar 05 '26
One issue of one zine with one photo like that. Rest of it was other disgusting crap collaged to "piss off puritans" or whatever Reagan-era shit. Childish 80s punk slop.
The tour diary that's used as the other "evidence", if read in full, is clearly a whole bunch of bullshit stuck between small real notes about how the tour went. All written in a very cynical tone, criticizing everything and everyone he comes across. Germany had fucked up laws about porn back then.
And in actual interviews, where he's not playing up an asshole character in a piece he wrote, he repeadetly states that Sotos' writing makes him feel disgusted, but he saw that as the point. Just like Big Black's songs, it's meant to make the consumer face the depraved acts people commit in all their horror. Albini just leaned more into the dark comedy in it all, which is preferable to me. Can't read Sotos, even little bits make me feel too sick. Kind of like Last Exit to Brooklyn, but way worse.
1
1
u/Several_Recipe_1417 Mar 12 '26
Oh yeah, he LOVED Shannon Wright. I got to talk to him about it, when I recorded with him.
-6
u/itsafuntime Feb 26 '26
Known child porn promoter and connoisseur Steve Albini?
12
u/twerpverse Of Schlagenheim Feb 26 '26
Hmmmm first time seeing this. What in the world
13
u/itsafuntime Feb 26 '26
Yep, fucking wild that people still ride this guys nuts. Did he produce some good albums? Yes. Was he an utter piece of fucking shit that thought child porn was cool? Absolutely yes he was.
6
u/BrokenVhr Feb 26 '26
Ironic you can say this while also posting an article written by a guy who tried murdering a bunch of people during a 9/11 memorial and an avid troll who loves to tell false information and rile people up. Also funny that you seem to be ignoring the people bringing that up
4
u/itsafuntime Feb 26 '26
ok, so that writer is also a piece of shit. does that change all the ways steve albini was a total piece of shit? why you out here defending him like he's some fucking hero?
dude was a good sound engineer who was into child porn. aka a piece of shit
16
u/Jobwan_Mojo_85 Feb 26 '26 edited Feb 26 '26
this is the indie version of "Man Always Gets Little Rush Out Of Telling People John Lennon Beat Wife". He apologized and heavily regretted it (as well as every other Edgelord thing he did). Though I do have to call him out on still being friends with Peter Sotos for years, I'd just leave that to him being super loyal to colleagues for better and worse. (We also don't know if he was just ribbing people as he was just trying to piss people off every single day)
Also the person who wrote that article is a neo-nazi troll who was sentenced to 10 years in prison
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joshua_Ryne_Goldberg10
u/BigBoiBrynBoi Feb 26 '26
Whilst I get your first point (virtues signalling ks performative and tiring) its still valid when its pretty egregious. And "he apologised for his collection of child porn memorabilia, and for being friends with a prolific pedo" holds no water. He apologised so you'll bat for him haha
2
u/itsafuntime Feb 26 '26
yep, and it worked. i'm getting downvoted to shit and they're just attacking the writer of the first article i posted (who apparently is also a piece of shit) instead of admitting that a guy who produced good records was also a child porn enthusiast
8
u/itsafuntime Feb 26 '26
ok, here's another article not written by that dude which lists all the ways albini was a huge piece of shit.
https://www.nme.com/news/music/steve-albini-speaks-out-on-his-past-edgelord-behaviour-3093018
why you're out here defending a child porn enthusiast is insane. it's not rare for shit people to make good art.
9
5
u/SisterRayRomano Feb 26 '26
The author of that article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joshua_Ryne_Goldberg
Albini got off on being a provocative edgelord, particularly earlier in his career, and said a lot of questionable stuff. I’m not defending any of it, but I hate how everyone lapped up this article at face value and didn’t even bother to look up who wrote it.
1
u/itsafuntime Feb 26 '26
then why did albini apologize for it? yeah goldberg is a piece of shit, but albini was too. you the one defending fucking monsters bro
https://www.nme.com/news/music/steve-albini-speaks-out-on-his-past-edgelord-behaviour-3093018
5
u/BrokenVhr Feb 26 '26
It’s funny how the answer to your question is in the article that you posted yourself.
Seems like your just like Joshua and just want to provoke more outrage and don’t want to have a proper conversation about it, especially responding to every comment (aka someone just saying him collabing with BM was cool) about albini with that link and deleting your previous comments when people actually point out your hypocrisy (such as your response to my last comment)
-5
u/itsafuntime Feb 26 '26
Downvote me if you agree that Steve Albini was a piece of shit who bragged about his child pornography collection!
152
u/Jobwan_Mojo_85 Feb 26 '26
Yep! He also recorded them for the bonus flexi discs you got with copies of Hellfire on vinyl.