Hard to overstate Albini's influence, both as a musician and producer. Big Black? No one was doing stuff like that in the mid-80s. His production on PJ Harvey's Rid of Me took her compositions to a new level. He also produced a lot of very fine albums in the 80s and 90s by the Pixies (Surfer Rosa), Nirvana (In Utero) and various albums by The Jesus Lizard, Superchunk, and others.

Yes, he was cantankerous. Marched to the beat of his own drum, and didn't give a FF about what other people thought. Loved this quote from Tape Op:

"It seemed like most of the music I liked was coming from San Francisco. I don't remember one fucking thing coming out of L.A. that I cared about. And skateboarding. What did that have to do with punk music? What's next, yo-yo tricks?"

https://tapeop.com/interviews/87/steve-albini-Nirvana-Pixies...

His essays and observations have been discussed here from time to time. Here are a few:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30892081

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37132320

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38935526

In 2009 my band traveled from Nashville to Chicago for the honor of recording with Steve at Electrical Audio. We loved his drum tones and his use of analog tape in a live band setting.

He was quirky, brilliant, quiet, and kind of hilarious to work with. He wore disheveled blue coveralls with a lowercase "e" on the back for 5 straight days.

They fed us as many lattes we could stomach for all hours of the day, and he didn't even care if we smoked cigarettes the entire time. Slept on cots in his building, while he stayed in his "personal" area.

Watching him cut 2 inch tape the old fashioned way was one of the nerd highlights of my life. RIP Steve, and thank you.

"I would like to be paid like a plumber: I do the job and you pay me what it's worth. The record company will expect me to ask for a point or a point and a half. If we assume three million sales, that works out to 400,000 dollars or so. There's no fucking way I would ever take that much money. I wouldn't be able to sleep."

[0] https://news.lettersofnote.com/p/nirvana

I paused at the name because there was a great scientist and engineer named Frank Albini in the field of wildfire science. Lo and behold Steve Albini was the son of said Frank Albini. I haven't heard of Steve Albini before, and I'm not familiar with his music, but he clearly had an enormous impact. I just thought that it was interesting that both father and son could leave behind such a large legacy in their respective endeavors.

Alongside “paid like a plumber” and “already this fucked”, I would like to see added the following wisdom:

I think of music as something that I'm willing to work 40 hours a week or more to support, like a wife and family, right? Music to me is that important. It's so important that I don't expect it to make a living for me. I expect that I will have to work a normal, regular job like a regular person in order to have the luxury of being able to play music.

He goes on to say this allows him to create without pressure or resentment, only pure joy.

https://www.tumblr.com/machinery/44307870770/the-other-bands...