This Track Is Fire!

Note: this week, in honor of the legendary Steve Albini's birthday, I am highlighting his impressive audio engineering work (he refused to be called a "producer"). These five posts are a small example of his musical prowess, selected by me, just a fan with a blog. And here we are folks, the final post in this series. I intentionally did not lead with this track at the beginning of the week as it's too obvious. In fact, I struggled with including it at all, because of that very fact, but at the end of the day this song was mind-blowing to when it came out during my sophomore year of college and listening again today, or any day, I am reminded of how colossally talented Kurt, Krist, Dave, and yes, Steve were. Certainly this could be argued to be Albini's most high-profile work, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. Yes, Albini worked with artists large, small, and absolutely massive (like Nirvana), but as I said at the beginning of this week, he was f...

Note: this week, in honor of the legendary Steve Albini's birthday, I am highlighting his impressive audio engineering work (he refused to be called a "producer"). These five posts are a small example of his musical prowess, selected by me, just a fan with a blog. This was a tough one for me, picking out the best Pixies song that they worked with Steve Albini on, because, honestly, I could have picked just about any song on Surfer Rosa  and it would have fit the bill. At the end of the day, I had to go with "Where is My Mind?" predominantly due to its distinct opening riff. If you're around my age and you hear Black Francis/Frank Black wail and say "Stop!" you immediately know what song it is. That's iconic, just as the Pixies are, just as Steve Albini was. Then you hear those first few guitar lines followed by drums crashing around you like the surf. God damn, this song is good. So many bands try to capture lightning in a bottle and so many f...

Note: this week, in honor of the legendary Steve Albini's birthday, I am highlighting his impressive audio engineering work (he refused to be called a "producer"). These five posts are a small example of his musical prowess, selected by me, just a fan with a blog. And here it is, Steve Albini's birthday. He would have been 64 today. I know he was a member of a few different bands, and maybe one could argue that Big Black was culturally and musically more important, but I tend to lean towards things that hit me more viscerally. It's why I prefer Beethoven to Mozart. And this song, I get it. Do I ever actually want to see someone die because they had the audacity to be with someone I once cared about? No. But I get the feeling  of this song, that urge to kill that one (hopefully) never actually acts on. Not that the narrator of this song is contemplating murder, he just wants to see the other guy die, and painfully. Perhaps those are things that people shouldn'...

Note: this week, in honor of the legendary Steve Albini's birthday, I am highlighting his impressive audio engineering work (he refused to be called a "producer"). These five posts are a small example of his musical prowess, selected by me, just a fan with a blog. I have heard more than a few times, and repeated it often myself, that the music you fall in love with as an adolescent stays with you for the rest of your life, and honestly, at least for me, that fits. The 90s were a glorious time for a Gen Xer like me who had fallen in love with bands like Depeche Mode, but wanted something just a tinge darker yet, bands like Nine Inch Nails, KMFDM, Ministry, and one of the few industrial metal supergroups, Murder, Inc. Basically,  - and I am overly simplifying things - Murder, Inc. is the Killing Joke but with Chris Connelly (the aforementioned Ministry, The Revolting Cocks) on vocals, but wow, does this track rock. Working with Albini, the band created a song that feels li...

Note: this week, in honor of the legendary  Steve Albini's  birthday, I am highlighting his impressive audio engineering work (he refused to be called a "producer"). These five posts are a small example of his musical prowess, selected by me, just a fan with a blog. Certainly I was aware of who Albini was and his importance in the state of music prior to this album, but I am starting with this one because of how surprised I was to see his name in the credits. Dogs  was released on a very small label, Socialist Records, but the version that I became aware of due to NPR playing it was the re-issue from Touch and Go Records in 2004. That was the first time I had heard of Nina Nastasia. The fact that it was such a small label shows what's great about Steve Albini: he didn't care about how big of an artist you were or how big your label was, if you produced good music, he wanted to work with you. I love that! He was well-know to have a sliding scale for his services. A...