Fair enough. Cool that he let them use his material and cool he helped artists early on in their career.
Without knowing the context of his rant on club culture, it sounds like someone having a hot take on something they don’t seem to really know a lot about. I don’t feel like that’s something we have a lack of today. And Elektronauts and the people here embody the opposite spirit, being very open, kind and tolerant without a lack of different opinions.
RIP - 
He was a notorious big mouth. More contrite in middle age. As for music taste, he openly stated that The Ramones were his favourite band of all time. If you could quantify what he cared about in music it would probably be best summed up by the word ‘earnestness’. For instance he thought fellow Chicagoan Billy Corgan was a massive poser.
Living in Chicago through the 80s and not getting into House may seem to some to be a bit of a missed opportunity though. Perhaps he was subconsciously influenced by the Disco Sucks movement which had its home in that same city.
No need to be against Disco to dislike House when you’re an alternative rock aficionado. I come from rock and to be honest I still have a lot of disdain for the House music but it’s more for a mindset and a class opposition rather than for the principle. You can’t really ask a working class person who’s been fan of punk to revere an era where the ego is put in front after pressing the Play button.
Anyway, don’t wanna give into a sterile debate. To each one my own tastes 
A couple of small observations. First, I think Albini erred in jumping to conclusions from “I want to use a sample from you in a track”, when I think he might have felt the end result was closer to the positive examples he cited than he might have expected. Second, I suspect Powell wanted a reaction that he could use as part of the conceptual framing (the sample is not so integral to the track that swapping it out would have made much of a difference) and Albini delivered in spades.
I remember some interview where he said this was his favourite 7".
I meant it may have been an influence as more of a subconscious thing.
And early House was anything but putting the ego in front. It was completely faceless to begin with. A lot of people didn’t even know the artists were African American (Jamie Principle, Z-Factor). The influences were as much New Wave as anything.
Anyway, there’s my off-topic two cents and done.
Maybe I should look at myself differently, this guy is a genius.
Here is a good full explanation of what Mr Albini thought.
I have to take that back. Just listening to his recent interview on the Creative Control podcast and he seems like a genuinely warm, well meaning and funny guy who doesn’t take himself too seriously.
Yeah, he changed. Like, big time. And publicly owned his crap.
I’ve seen him as Shellac frontman, decent guy in his last years.
Whole lot of respect for the man.
RIP M. Albini
Today the new Shellac album was released. I’ll be listening to it all day today remembering Albini.
somehow, until notes and tributes came out after his passing, I’d completely forgotten that he wore his guitar strapped around his waist like a belt. f*cking legend.
has anybody got a link/copy of the foreword he wrote for the tape op book?
Yeah, I understand that “we all contain multitudes” but it was nice that his intractability softened and he seemed to slowly grasp what was essential to his person and what stubbornness wasn’t serving him or others well.
As someone outside your experience and mindset, I don’t know if that’s reading how you may be intending.
I think of disco and derivatives quite differently in my 40s than I did growing up in the 80s. There are subsets of house that I don’t jive with musically but the whole I don’t need to limit or denigrate.
I absolutely will defend house based on the best examples of it over worrying about the worst. I also won’t worry about Albini’s opinions, I can disagree with some of his while appreciating what he brought to the world.
Coming back to this as I’ve had more time to think about it and I’ve read a bit more about it too.
Was a big Albini fanboy as a younger white boy and always took his edgelording as just that, shock-tactic, sick-joke humour. I’m definitely guilty of engaging in that kind of bullshit when I was younger too.
But reading about his continued support of Peter Sotos (recording his albums, calling him is good friend, etc.) and the shit he wrote in Forced Exposure about Sotos’s “zine” I can’t look past it.
Still going to enjoy his music but he was a fucking scumbag.
Just watched this interview and there is a glorious moment where Steve speaks about some of the greatest FX pedals ever made:
