Steve Albini, an alternative rock pioneer and legendary producer who shaped the musical landscape through his work with Nirvana, the Pixies, PJ Harvey and more, has died. He was 61.
Brian Fox, an engineer at Albini’s studio, Electrical Audio Recording in Chicago, said Wednesday that Albini died after a heart attack Tuesday night.
In addition to his work on canonized rock albums such as Nirvana ‘s “In Utero,” the Pixies’ breakthrough “Surfer Rosa,” and PJ Harvey’s “Rid of Me,” Albini was the frontman of the underground bands Big Black and Shellac.
He dismissed the term “producer,” refused to take royalties from the albums he worked on, and requested he be credited with “Recorded by Steve Albini,” a fabled label on albums he worked on.
Other music shaped by Albini includes Joanna Newsom’s indie-folk opus, “Ys,” and releases from bands like the Breeders, the Jesus Lizard, Hum, Superchunk, Low and Mogwai.
A new album, “To All Trains,” from the singer-guitarist and his Shellac bandmates Bob Weston and Todd Trainer and recorded at Electronic Audio is scheduled for release next week. The band was also planning to tour in support of the new album, their first in a decade.
On Wednesdays, friends and fans took to social media to remember Albini.
“He engineered some of the greatest albums of all time,” Marc Maron noted.
Chicago’s Metro club paid tribute in a post on X that read, in part: “Thank you for all that you contributed to punk rock in our town and the reverberations of creativity you brought forth, felt the world over.” The tribute was accompanied by a photo of the club’s marquee that said it all.
Author Michael Azerrad, who included a chapter on Big Black in his comprehensive history, “Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground, 1981–1991,” posted on X. “I don’t know what to say about Steve Albini’s passing,” Azerrad wrote. “He had a brilliant mind, was a great artist and underwent the most remarkable and inspiring personal transformation. I can’t believe he’s gone.”
Albini was born in California, grew up in Montana, and fell in love with the do-it-yourself punk music scene in Chicago while at Northwestern University, where he graduated with a degree in journalism from the Medill School.
As a teenager, he played in punk bands, and in college, wrote about music for the prescient indie zine “Forced Exposure.” While attending Northwestern in the early ‘80s, he founded the abrasive, noisy post-punk band Big Black, known for its mordant riffs, violent and taboo lyrics and drum machine in lieu of a live drummer. It was a controversial innovation at the time, from a man whose career would be defined by risky choices. The band’s best-known song, the ugly, explosive, six-minute “Kerosene” from their cult favorite album, 1986’s “Atomizer,” is ideal evidence — and not for the faint of heart.
Then came the short lived band Rapeman — one of two groups Albini fronted with indefensibly offensive names and vulgar song titles. In the early ’90s, he formed Shellac, the ferocious, distorted noise-rock band — an evolution from Big Black, but still punctuated by pummeling guitar tones and aggressive vocals.
In 1997, Albini opened his famed studio, Electrical Audio, in Chicago.
“The recording part is the part that matters to me — that I’m making a document that records a piece of our culture, the life’s work of the musicians that are hiring me,” Albini told The Guardian last year, when asked about some of the well-known and much-loved albums he’s recorded. “I take that part very seriously. I want the music to outlive all of us.”
Albini was a larger-than-life character in the independent rock music scene, known for his forward-thinking productions, unapologetic irreverence, acerbic sense of humor and criticisms of the music industry’s exploitative practices — as detailed in his landmark 1993 essay “The Problem with Music” — as much as his talents.
Later in life, he became a notable poker player and apologetic for his past indiscretions.
Albini competed, with significant success, in numerous tournaments. In 2018, he won a World Series of Poker gold bracelet and a pot of $105,000, and in 2022 repeated his feat in a H.O.R.S.E. competition for $196,000 prize. Albini’s last documented tournament was in October at the Horseshoe Hammond Casino in Indiana.
In a 2021 interview with the Sun-Times, Albini was asked if he considered himself successful in the music industry.
“To the extent that I could care about that, I would say yes,” he told the Sun-Times. “I’ve lived my whole life without having goals, and I think that’s very valuable, because then I never am in a state of anxiety or dissatisfaction. I never feel I haven’t achieved something. I never feel there is something yet to be accomplished. I feel like goals are quite counterproductive. They give you a target, and until the moment you reach that target, you are stressed and unsatisfied, and at the moment you reach that specific target you are aimless and have lost the lodestar of your existence. I’ve always tried to see everything as a process. I want to do things in a certain way that I can be proud of that is sustainable and is fair and equitable to everybody that I interact with. If I can do that, then that’s a success, and success means that I get to do it again tomorrow.”
Albini is survived by his wife, Heather Whinna, a filmmaker.
Contributing: Miriam Di Nunzio, Chicago Sun-Times; Melissa Ruggieri, USA Today
